Cork World Book Fest 2023 will be the 19th edition, featuring more exciting author visits, workshops and events.
There will be plenty of great writers, agents and other participants that will be taking part in our festival in 2023.
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Take a look at some of our previous events on our YouTube channel.
Paul Maddern was born in Bermuda and has lived in Ireland since 2000. He is the editor of Queering the Green: Post-2001 Queer Irish Poetry (Lifeboat Press, 2021) and has four publications with Templar Poetry: Kelpdings (2009); The Beachcomber’s Report (2010); Pilgrimage (2017); and The Tipping Line (2018). He is the recipient of two Bermuda…
Jim Crickard is a poet living in Cork City, originally from North Kerry. His poetry is camp, entertaining work exploring culture, sexuality and identity. He is the reigning Munster Poetry Slam Champion and placed third in the All Ireland Poetry Slam (2022). A poem he wrote was included in the Cork Words 3 Anthology, thanks…
Rosalin Blue, poet and translator, born near Cologne, and schooled in Münster and Hildesheim, Germany, has been performing since 1995. Since 2000, her poetic home is Ó Bhéal in Cork, and she has performed in many venues in the city and county, as well as across Ireland. Her poetry has been anthologised in On the…
Jane Clarke is the author of two poetry collections, The River and When the Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books 2015 & 2019), as well as an illustrated chapbook, All the Way Home, (Smith|Doorstop 2019). Jane’s awards include the 2016 Hennessy Literary Award for Poetry and the 2016 Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year. She grew…
Thomas McCarthy was born at Cappoquin, Co. Waterford and educated at University College Cork. Worked for many years at Cork City Libraries. His collections of poetry include The Sorrow Garden, The Last Geraldine Officer, Pandemonium and Prophecy (Carcanet Press, UK) . He has won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, O’Shaughnessy Award and Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize…
Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin is the founder of Europe’s biggest writing resources website, the award winning Writing.ie, the Writers Ink online writing group and Murder One, Ireland’s International Crime Writing Festival. She’s a board member of the Society of Authors and the Crime Writers Association. Vanessa writes crime as Sam Blake the multiple No 1 bestseller…
Irish children’s author Shane Hegarty has written bestselling series ‘Darkmouth’, ‘Boot’ and the recent ‘The Shop of Impossible Ice Creams’. He has been nominated for several awards, including the An Post Children’s Book of the Year, Waterstone’s Prize and Sainsbury’s Prize. ‘Boot’ was the UNESCO Dublin City of Literature Citywide Read in 2020. He lives…
Michelle McDonagh has been writing stories since she was a child in primary school. After over 20 years as a journalist freelancing for The Irish Times and other publications, she took a step back from journalism to focus on writing her first novel. Her debut novel There’s Something I Have To Tell You was published…
Adiba Jaigirdar is the award-winning, critically acclaimed and bestselling author of The Henna Wars, Hani & Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, A Million to One, and The Dos and Donuts of Love. A Bangladeshi/Irish writer and former teacher, she has an MA in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Kent, England and a BA in…
Catherine Ronan holds a degree in French and Applied Psychology from University College Cork and has been writing poetry since childhood. In 2020 after attending workshops facilitated by Matthew Geden, she returned to UCC to study creative writing by night with Paul Casey. A member of multiple poetry collectives, she performs on open mic to…
Méabh Collins is a writer from Dublin. She holds an M.Phil in Children’s Literature from Trinity College Dublin, where she is currently completing a PhD. She is also a qualified primary school teacher and has worked in the publishing industry. Her debut novel, Freya Harte Is Not A Puzzle, was published by The O’Brien Press…
William Wall is the author seven novels, five collections of poetry and three of short fiction. He was the 2022 winner of the Premio Internazionale Lettarario Carlo Bo/Giovanni Descalzo, the 2021 winner of the Premio Lerici ‘AngloLiguria’; the 2021 winner of the Premio di Conza Poesia; the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for…
Colin O’ Mahoney (he/him) is a writer and freelance editor who facilitates creative writing and comic-making workshops for all ages. He is passionate about the benefits of creativity and self-expression for young people.He works mainly in comics, with a number of published short stories, and his first full length book “When Language Fails” coming later…
JP Quinn is a writer and Head of Visitor Services at UCC. He is the author of A Bee at UCC which is on it’s 5th print. His new book A Tree at UCC looks at the importance of Trees and the importance of finding one’s own voice. Both Books are illustrated by Graphic Designer…
Emma Must is a poet living in Belfast. Formerly a full-time environmental campaigner, in 2021 she completed a PhD in English (Creative Writing) at Queen’s University Belfast, focusing on ecopoetry and ecocriticism. Her first full-length poetry collection, The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday, was published by Valley Press in December 2022. Her poem ‘Toll’ won the…
Award-winning Galician poet and performer Jesús Castro Yáñez, Os nomes e os himnos (2016), /\/\/\ (2017), and Ultramarino (2017), edited Campo de Plumas, an anthology of queer poetry. His translation of Anne Carson’s The Anthropology of Water is forthcoming. He has represented Galicia in various international festivals and workshops and his work has been translated…
Is file í Ciara Ní É a bhfuil a cuid fiíochta léite aici i Nua-Eabhrac, i Londain, sa Bhruiséil, sa tSualainn, agus sa bhaile in Éirinn. Bhí sí ar an liosta ‘100 Women Changing Ireland in 2022’ de chuid an Irish Examiner. Tá sí mar Ealaíontóir Cónaithe le Scoil na Gaeilge, an Léinn Cheiltigh &…
James Finnegan, Dublin born, was the second-prize winner in the 2022 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and was shortlisted in the 2021 Bridport Poetry Prize and in the 2018 Hennessy Literary Awards for Emerging Poetry. A sonnet, ‘The Weather-Beaten Scarecrow’, was published in The Irish Times in August, 2021. James, who taught in St Eunan’s…
Molly Twomey grew up in Lismore, County Waterford, and graduated in 2019 with an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork. She has been published in Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Irish Times, Mslexia, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She runs an online international poetry event, Just to Say, sponsored by Jacar…
David Constantine was for thirty years a university teacher of German language and literature. He is an editor of Hölderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht. He has published a dozen volumes of poetry, two novels and six collections of short stories, the most recent of these (2022) being Rivers of the Unspoilt World. His Tea at…
Carys Davies’ debut novel WEST was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, runner up for the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel THE MISSION HOUSE was The Sunday Times 2020 Novel Of The Year. She is also the author of two collections…
Thomas Paul Burgess is an academic, novelist and musician from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Oxford University, studying Ethics & Moral Education, He obtained his PhD from University College Cork. He lives in Cork, Ireland, where – until his recent retirement – he was a Senior Lecturer and Director of Youth & Community Work at…
Jamie O’Connell is the author of the best-selling novel, Diving for Pearls (Doubleday UK). Diving for Pearls was runner-up for The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize (The Society of Authors 2022) and short-listed for The Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year (The Irish Book Awards 2021). To date, his work has been Highly Commended by the…
Ben MacCaoilte is a bilingual poet writing in both Irish and English. Ben released his first poetry album on the Crannóg Media label in 2020 called Beyond the Apple Tree exploring people,places and lives that mattered. Since its release Ben has been published in a number of journals including The Waxed Lemon and Much More…
Julie Goo is an award winning bilingual Spoken Word poet from Cork City. She has performed her work on stages across Ireland and abroad for over a decade. Her debut collection DÁNA was published by Coiscéim (under the name Julie Field) in 2021 and launched as part of Cork World Book Fest. A generous Artist…
Mara Faye Lethem is a writer, a researcher, and a mother of teenagers. Winner of the inaugural 2022 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award for Max Besora’s The Adventures and Misadventures of Joan Orpí, she was also recently awarded the 2022 Joan Baptiste Cendrós International Prize for her contributions to Catalan literature. Her translation of Irene Solà’s…
Alison Driscoll is a writer and workshop facilitator from Cork. She was awarded a scholarship to pursue her passion for creative writing and completed the MA Creative Writing in UCC. Her work has been published online and in print.
Sara Baume is the author of three novels which have received multiple awards and been widely translated. Her first book of non-fiction, handiwork, was shortlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize, and her third novel, Seven Steeples, was shortlisted for the 2022 Goldsmiths Prize. She is based in West Cork where she works also as…
Mary Noonan lives in Cork and teaches French literature at University College Cork. Her first poetry collection, “The Fado House”, was published in 2012 by Dedalus Press, and was subsequently shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for a First Collection (2013) and the Strong/Shine Award (2013). The manuscript of “The Fado House” won the…
Fergus Cronin divides his time between his native Dublin and North Connemara. He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and after a long spell in the business of water treatment he went on to pursue his other abiding interests in life. As a theatre practitioner he has performed Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (at the…
Stav Poleg’s debut poetry collection, The City, was published by Carcanet in spring 2022 and was chosen by the Financial Times as one of the best Summer Books of 2022. Her poetry has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, in The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review and elsewhere.…
Michael Magee is the fiction editor of The Tangerine and a graduate of the Creative Writing PhD at Queen’s University, Belfast. His writing has appeared in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, The Lifeboat, and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices. Close to Home is his first novel. Image by Kate Donaldson
María Jesús Quirós is a Spanish Preschool Teacher who also specialised in Speech and Language. When she finished her degree, in 2015, she decided to come to Ireland to live the experience of being an Aupair, which she really enjoyed and what led her to find a job as a Preschool Teacher in this country,…
Eibhlís Carcione is a children’s author and teacher. She is also a bilingual poet who writes poems in Irish and English. She has published three poetry books in Irish and has won many prestigious prizes. She has written hundreds of poems, often about the power of nature, mermaids, myths, magic, and the occasional ghost. When…
Graffiti:BEAG Early Years Arts is a play-based, multi-sensory and interactive arts programme for children from birth to 3 years, led by our highly skilled team of multidisciplinary early years artists. Artists collaborate with children and childcare professionals to create rich, high quality artistic experiences in childcare settings. Funded by Cork City Arts Office, Cork County…
Sara O’Donovan spent her early years in England, brought up in the worlds of horse racing and show jumping. She moved to Ireland in her late 20s and now lives in County Cork with her husband and young family. A former equestrian journalist, she now manages the West Cork Literary Festival in Bantry. Her first…
Adrian Duncan is an artist and writer from Longford. His latest film Prosinečki (21mins) world premiered at Rotterdam (IFFR) in January 2023. His latest novel, The Geometer Lobachevsky, was published in 2022 and was long listed for the Walter Scott Prize in 2023. His latest work of non-fiction Little Republics: The Story of Bungalow Bliss…
Dean Browne was a recipient of the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2021 and his pamphlet, Kitchens at Night, was a winner of the Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition; it was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2022. His poems have appeared widely in journals such as Banshee, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Review, PN Review, Stinging…
Eimear Ryan is the author of a novel, Holding Her Breath (Sandycove 2021), and a memoir, The Grass Ceiling (Sandycove 2023). Other writing has appeared in Granta, The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly and Winter Papers. She is a co-founder of the literary journal Banshee and its publishing imprint, Banshee Press. She lives in Cork.…
Eva Griffin is a poet. She has published two pamphlets ‘Fake Hands / Real Flowers’ (2020) and ‘one last spin around the sun’ (2021) with Broken Sleep Books. Her work has appeared in London Magazine, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, bath magg, PERVERSE, Abridged, and elsewhere. Image by Oliver Kelly
Sophie White is a novelist, essayist, and podcaster from Dublin. She also holds a First-Class Honours degree in Sculpture from NCAD. She is the author of seven books, and she is currently the Arts Council Writer in Residence in DCU. Her first four books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown (Gill 2016), Filter This (Hachette, 2019),…
Danielle McLaughlin’s short story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets was published in 2015 by The Stinging Fly Press. In 2019, she was a Windham-Campbell Prize recipient, and won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Her first novel, The Art of Falling, was published in 2021 by John Murray and was shortlisted for the Dublin…
Madeleine D’Arcy is a fiction writer based in Cork City, Ireland. Her début short story collection, ’Waiting for the Bullet’ (Doire Press, 2014), won the Edge Hill Readers’ Choice Prize 2015 (UK). Her second collection of linked short fiction, LIBERTY TERRACE (Doire Press, 2021), won a FAPA President’s Prize 2022 (US). Madeleine is also a…
Grace Wells is an award-winning eco-poet and environmental writer living in Ennistymon, County Clare. Winner of the Eilís Dillon award and the Shine Strong award, her third collection of poems ‘The Church of the Love of the World’ was published by Dedalus Press in 2022. Grace Wells was selected by Poetry Ireland and Clare County…
Stanley Notte is a writer, poet, artist and performer whose work has appeared in numerous print and broadcast media outlets. As a performer Stanley has provided support for Stephen James Smith (Coughlans, 2018) and Linton Kwesi Johnson (Live At St Lukes, 2019), and appeared at a wide range of Irish Festivals. In 2019 completed a…
Yairen Jerez Columbié grew up in Havana, Cuba, and lives in Ireland. She writes in Spanish, English and Catalan. Her first poetry collection, Fósiles de lluvia [Fossil Rain], was published in 2022 by Betania through a Trinity College Dublin Association and Trust Grant. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, Anthropocene and Revista Temporales,…
Jordan McCarthy is a writer from Youghal, living in Cork city. His poems and stories have appeared in Cork Words, Swerve Magazine and Poetry in the Park. He has made four radio documentaries under the Sound and Vision scheme for CRY104FM, including ‘Leading The Field’, which received a CRAOL/BAI accredited award. Jordan is the producer…
Peter Sirr lives in Dublin. The Gallery Press has published his eleven poetry collections since Marginal Zones (1984), most recently The Gravity Wave (2019) which was a Poetry Society Recommendation and winner of the 2020 Farmgate Café National Poetry Award. Intimate City: Dublin Essays (2021), reflect a long standing attachment to and obsession with the…
Eoghan Daltun is a sculpture conservator, a farmer and, above all, a rewilder. Reared in Dublin, he has travelled widely (hitchhiking alone to Istanbul and back at the age of 20, sleeping in fields along the way, for example), as well as living abroad in London, Paris and Prague. He spent seven years studying sculpture…
Serena Molloy was born in Wexford, Ireland, and is an English teacher who has taught in different schools across the UK and Ireland. She now lives in Galway with her family, where she can see the sea every day. As a mum of four, her house is always noisy but never, ever dull. Image by…
Súil Amháin – rapper agus file as Lios Tuathail. Bantum ó Chorcaigh agus Rob Mulhern ó Ghaoth a bheirt léiritheoirí ceoil. Tá an-suím aige sa bhéaloideas agus rapálann sé i meascán mearaí do Ghaelscoilis, crua-Ghaoluinn na mbard, nathaíocht Chorca Dhuibhne agus Béarlachas gan dealramh. Tá dúil mhór aige i gcomics Alan Moore, scannáin Tarkovsky, filíocht…
Tadhg Coakley is the award-winning author of five books. His latest book, Before He Kills Again (March 2023) is a thriller and Part 2 of the Tim Collins Series. It is a sequel to Whatever It Takes which was chosen as the 2020 Cork, One City One Book. His bestselling memoir The Game: A Journey…
Deirdre Nolan is publishing director of Eriu, the Irish imprint of Bonnier Books. She was previously associate publisher with Gill Books, and has worked in publishing for over twenty years. With Eriu she publishes across a wide variety of genres, from narrative non-fiction to children’s. In September 2022 her first publication with Eriu, Aoibhin Garrihy’s…
Leona Forde was born in Cork city and now lives in Bandon. She studied English and History at University College, Cork, and now teaches the same subjects to teenagers. She is Mammy to four crazy kids, owner of two rowdy rabbits and a house that is never, ever tidy. Milly McCarthy is a complete catastrophe,…
Matthew Geden has lived in Kinsale since 1990. He has published several collections of poetry including Fruit (SurVision Books, 2020) and The Cloud Architect (Doire Press, 2022). He was Writer in Residence at the Nanjing Literature Centre in China during November 2019 and is currently Writer in Residence for Cork County Library and Arts Service.…
Cork World Book Fest 