On this week’s Writer Smarter Blog I am delighted to welcome Sarah Bourne, the author of five novels of contemporary domestic drama and two of historical (WW2) fiction. Sarah was born and brought up in London but, after wandering the world for several years, settled in Sydney where she raised her family. She is a…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to welcome author Kerry Manning, who at 61 years old published her first book, Learning to Love Lucy and then six months later, the sequel, Rose has a Right to Happiness. Kerry suffers from chronic illness. She has a number of autoimmune diseases which severely limit how much…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to welcome Dublin-based writer Gill Perdue. Gill worked as a primary school teacher for fifteen years and published four children’s books. She is the bestselling author of the unflinching and psychologically rich Shaw & Darmody crime series published by Penguin. Gill’s first standalone thriller, All Of Them Lied, will…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce Amsterdam-based Irish author Rebecca Spelman. Starting off as a playwright in Galway, Rebecca now writes a mix of novels, short stories, and poetry. Her work often centres on speculative scenarios or reflective moments that ask, “What if…?” You can read her work on Substack or…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce writer, creative writing facilitator and mentor, E.R. Murray. Based in West Cork, Elizabeth writes across age groups and genres, and is the author of five novels for children and young adults, including the award-winning Nine Lives Trilogy (Mercier Press). Her most recent book is Arabella Pepper…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce you all to my guest Alex Dunne. Alex has been a published author for nearly four years but has been writing for much longer than that and, according to Alex herself, ‘in my time I’ve made a truly impressive number of mistakes‘. Alex’s first children’s…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce you all to my guest Rebecca Murphy, winner of the 2025 RTÉ Today Show Novel Competition in association with Mercier Press. Blood & Water is her debut novel and is described as‘a haunting, beautifully observed novel about identity, inheritance, and the quiet devastations that echo…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce you all to my guest, writer and creative writing facilitator, Claire Hennessy. From Dublin, Claire is the author of several YA novels, including Nothing Tastes As Good and Like Other Girls, and is the YA book critic for the Irish Times. Her most recent book…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce you all to my guest, journalist and award winning short story writer Kate Durrant. A regular contributor to RTÉ Radio One and BBC Radio Two, Kate is also a columnist with Irish County Living within The Farmers Journal. Her fiction and creative non-fiction has been…
On this week’s Write Smarter Blog, I am delighted to introduce you all to my guest, USA Today bestselling Irish author, Felicity Hayes-McCoy. Born and educated in Dublin, Felicity built a successful London-based career, as an actor and voice-artist, and as a scriptwriter in theatre, music theatre, radio, TV, and digital media. She began writing…