Tell us about your new novel, Gone for Good.
Connie finds herself dumped in a camp, in the middle of the Adirondack mountains. She discovers that children go missing from this place. In fact, she’s sleeping in the bed of the latest missing girl.
It’s inspired by America’s multibillion-dollar troubled teen industry?
It is!
It’s the first of a series. Has it given you a taste to write more crime fiction?
It’s a stand-alone but as part of three verse novel thrillers.
Do you have favourite crime writers?
I love crime fiction. My favourite crime writers are Chris Whitaker, Sam Blake and Liz Nugent.
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What are the rewards and challenges of writing novels in free verse?
I can skip all the boring bits and focus on the emotional nucleus of the story, but conveying basic information is tricky.
You collated Tomorrow is Beautiful, an anthology of positive poems. What does poetry mean to you?
I rely on poetry to convey feelings too complicated to be expressed in any other way. At my mother’s funeral I read Derek Mahon’s Everything is Going to be All Right, which is part of that collection.
You served as Laureate na nÓg in 2018-2020. What were the highlights?
Meeting amazing teenagers from across the country. Meeting Michael D Higgins was also a treat, not just for me but also my parents (both of whom have now died).
As an Irish writer living in Britain, did it make you feel more integrated into the Irish writing community?
In some ways, it was like a homecoming. In other ways it was a challenge. I was constantly asked “how” I was Irish. I have a British accent and this seemed to be discombobulating for people. I’m over the whole justifying my nationality thing. It’s exhausting.
Tell us about your YA novel One (2015), which won a host of awards including the Carnegie Medal.
It’s the book that really gave me a platform. Right book at the right time, I guess. It did a lot for the verse novel. Before One, few verse novels were being published or distributed this side of the Atlantic.
Apple and Rain (2014) is one of your most-loved works. Tell us about it.
It’s a quiet novel about a girl whose life is transformed by poetry.
Here is the Beehive (2020) was your first novel for adults, also in verse. Tell us about it and also what inspired the switch.
I wrote Beehive in tiny little moments on the back of napkins and in the margins of other novels. I never set out to write a book for adults. It happened pretty organically.
Infidelity was also a theme in Are You Awake? (2025), although here the other woman was an AI doll. Tell us more.
I had to scoop out my guts to write that book and wish more people had read it. It’s not really about the AI doll at all and not as sexy as readers would probably like.
Your debut, The Weight of Water (2012), has been adapted for stage four times. Why did it stand out?
It’s a pretty universal story about the difference between fitting in and true belonging. A debut is a free thing. I think readers can feel this energy in the narrative.
Which projects are you working on?
My next two thrillers in verse. It’s a challenge I’m enjoying.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
I live close to Monk’s House in East Sussex where Virginia Woolf lived with Leonard Woolf. I visit the house several times every year and walk the route she would have walked before dying by suicide a few times per month. This sounds dark but it’s a beautiful place, and Woolf believed walking was good for your character.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Anne Lamott describes her first draft as a “shitty first draft”. It’s helpful when struggling to know that the work won’t come out perfect. Writing is rewriting.
Who do you admire the most?
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
No smartphones for children under 16.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
Book: Hekate by Nikita Gill. Movie: Sinners. Podcast: Sweet Bobby.
Which public event affected you most?
Brooklyn Beckham’s Instagram stories were pretty intense.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
My dad grew up in a house overlooking Lough Swilly in Donegal. I spent my summers there as a child. It’s beautiful.
Your most treasured possession?
My grandmother’s ring, also worn by my mother.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
A signed copy of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson. Shakespeare could come too, if he wanted.
The best and worst things about where you live?
Best thing: getting to walk by the sea every day. Worst thing: the hen weekends.
What is your favourite quotation?
Maya Angelou: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Macbeth.
A book to make me laugh?
Finn’s Epic Fails by Phil Earle.
A book that might move me to tears?
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker.
Gone for Good by Sarah Crossan is published by Simon & Schuster
