The man felt it only right to give her a warning not to go into the men’s toilets
The Hero is an original short story by Abbie Spallen
Women writers
How to Train Your Dragon author: ‘I have always liked the idea of an animal you could talk to’
Author and illustrator Cressida Cowell on the latest of her ‘fantasy’ books that pretend to be ‘history’ books
‘Why are you home early?’: Shauna said the first thing she could think of to her mother and regretted it immediately
Summer fiction: 221 Violet Punk is a new short story by Caragh Maxwell, author of Sugartown
From America to Dún Laoghaire: ‘Gun violence in US schools is something we thought about a lot’
Award-winning novelist Téa Obreht on fiction, fame and moving with her family from the United States to Dublin
Your husband is in an office wearing clean clothes and you are on a bus to Donegal wearing a nappy
Amateur Breeders is a new short story by Alice Ryan
I looked at the busman’s huge knuckles and decided I’d rather die than go home
Bread Is Bad for Ducks is a new short story by Elaine Garvey, author of The Wardrobe Department
Shari Lapena: ‘I’ve always read and loved thrillers, but I didn’t think I could write one’
Having enjoyed a big hit with The Couple Next Door, the author has just submitted her 11th crime novel
Author and GP Claire Gleeson: ‘I remember as a child I found the concept of eternity terrifying’
The Dublin writer on what she has lost and would like back, childhood memories, and what she wished she started doing years ago
Martina Evans: Men who were in for drunken driving told me they weren’t ‘like that other lot’
Forgotten pages of my Pentonville diary came from a ‘dead’ self, which allowed me to finally write about my time there
‘Of course I’m bloody anxious, having grown up in a place that told me I wasn’t good enough’
The South African-born author on her murderous new book The Lover, moving to the west of Ireland, and the advice that has stuck with her for decades
The Help author Kathryn Stockett on being fired by her publisher and feeling like a failure
Midway through writing The Calamity Club, her ‘difficult second novel’, the bestselling Mississippi author was fired by publisher. In retrospect, she says, it was a blessing
Dublin Literary Award 2026: Ali Smith wins €100,000 prize for Gliff
Novel follows young homeless siblings as they try to survive a bewildering new world
The art of children’s books: ‘The words and pictures are not necessarily telling you the same thing’
Author Patricia Forde and illustrator Paddy Donnelly have formed a special collaboration on The Island of Bees
Doireann Ní Ghríofa: ‘In the past someone like me would have been brought to an asylum’
Author Doireann Ní Ghríofa on her new novel about a derelict mental hospital and how she writes ‘really weird books that are hard to describe’
Sarah Gilmartin: ‘Even before relationships and infidelity, desire is a great driver’
The fiction reviewer turned writer on her new novel, Little Vanities, writing early and often, and novels versus short stories
The Things We Never Say: Elizabeth Strout taps into something very alive in the human psyche
Set just before the 2024 US presidential election, this work is Strout’s most political so far
Frida Slattery as Herself, by Ana Kinsella: It’s easy to see why this debut excited editors
This is an effortless, elegant and impressive debut from a promising young writer
Claire Fuller: I changed career in my 40s. You can make this big shift
The novelist on becoming a writer in her 40s, her interest in ‘feral children’ and new book Hunger and Thirst
When I was 38, a doctor told me my brain was unusually big. It wasn’t a good thing
When life challenges me, I turn to comforting books and cheerful TV
As a writer, I have a horror of upsetting someone I know by crossing a boundary
Kathleen MacMahon: Of all the difficulties I’ve experienced in writing fiction, this has been the most unsettling
Ruth McKee: ‘Pitching a novel about a suicidal middle-aged woman getting drunk on her birthday wasn’t easy’
The writer discusses her debut novel and what she’d like to do to Irish puppy farms
Hungry by Katriona O’Sullivan: Harrowing and uneasy in the same way as therapy
The author reaches heights of vulnerability in her writing, mercifully cushioned by humour
Katriona O’Sullivan: I live in the grip of the fat-girl algorithm
In an extract from her new book Hungry, the bestselling author of Poor explores how class shapes how women see their own bodies
Catholic? Protestant? Communist: An extract from Sinéad Morrissey’s new memoir
An extract from Among Communists: A Memoir by Belfast poet Sinéad Morrissey about growing up red, not orange or green
Rosemary Hennigan: ‘Fiction gives us space to explore life in all its multifarious complexities’
Author’s new novel, The Hotel Guest, is set in the French Alps
I’m in a WhatsApp group with female crime writers. It’s called the Irish Murderesses
Claire Coughlan, author of Among the Ruins, has decided to rebrand her fear around publication as excitement
I’ve been turned down for arts funding several times. There are unwritten rules
Making art is creating something out of nothing, which is expensive in terms of time and brain power
Rituals by Danielle McLaughlin: Working magic with the tiniest details
There are many poignant moments, but the main character’s inner monologue is often scathingly funny
Author Danielle McLaughlin: ‘I’m really interested in whether we are using rituals or they are using us’
Danielle McLaughlin’s new novel is inspired by her friend Siobhán Rea’s ritual of daily drawings
Author Caitríona Lally on cleaning Trinity: US tourists arrive, taking photos and shouting, ‘Look, the janitor!’
To buy time to write a novel, Caitríona Lally worked in the housekeeping department at Trinity College Dublin, where she had once been a student
Mary O’Donnell: ‘I’d happily sign off on a 10% Leaving Cert bonus for English, music and art’
A desire to ‘rip into a subject that has sat like a succubus on me’ inspired writer’s first novel since 2014
Author Emma Donoghue: ‘I grew up very normal, yet had this secret side that I thought everyone would consider foul’
The writer on literary reputation, emigration and ‘the crushing weight of being the only gay in the village’
Tayari Jones: ‘I used to be very suspicious of writers who said the story chose them’
The award-winning US author ‘refused to write historically’, but Kin, her new novel, is set in the 1960s. She explains why
Sarah Crossan: ‘Meeting amazing teenagers was a highlight of being Laureate na nÓg’
Author’s new novel Gone for Good is one of three verse thrillers and is based in the Adirondack mountains
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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