Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for the Women's Prize and her young adult novel Becoming Dinah was shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. A collection of short stories, Supporting Cast was published in 2020. An anthology of working-class memoir, Common People was crowdfunded and edited by Kit in 2019. Her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in August 2022. Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions and the Big Book Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020 and was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019. She is a patron of Prisoners Abroad, the Bridport Prize and Writing West Midlands, ambassador of Well-being in the Arts and a trustee of The Reading Agency. Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor and Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at Leicester University. Her new novel Best of Everything will be released in April 2025. Photo credit: Sarah M. Lee
Donal Ryan is an award-winning author whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature, and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.
Rowena Murray graduated MA (Hons) from Glasgow University and PhD from the Pennsylvania State University. Formerly Professor in Education at the University of the West of Scotland, Head of Business Writing at Strathclyde Business School and Honorary Visiting Scholar at Liverpool University, she is now Adjunct Professor at Strathclyde Business School. A Principal Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, she was nominated for the Research Culture Award at Stirling University in 2021. She researches academic writing, the subject of her articles, books and chapters. She does online and in-person writing retreats, courses and 1-2-1 sessions with academics, researchers, doctoral students and others. For more information please visit www.anchorage-education.co.uk or click on the link above.
Sheila Killian is a writer based outside Limerick City. She was born in Roscommon and now teaches at the University of Limerick's Kemmy Business School. Her fiction, poetry and travel writing have won awards in Ireland and the UK, and her work has been broadcast on RTE Radio. She is a member of Writepace, the Limerick-based writers' co-operative. Her first novel, Something Bigger, was published in July, 2021 by Caritas Press and she is currently working on her second novel. Sheila's pioneering work at Kemmy Business School focuses on corporate social responsibility. She holds senior editorial roles at both the Journal of Business Ethics and Accounting Forum, and serves on the editorial boards of several international journals. She has published a wide range of academic articles addressing issues of social accountability and sustainability, as well as reports to international bodies concerned with tax justice.
Cat Hogan is an award nominated Irish Novelist and screenwriter from Co. Wexford. She has published two fiction novels, They All Fall Down (2016) and the Bord Gais Energy nominated Crime Fiction of the Year Novel, There Was A Crooked Man (2017). She was the 2017 recipient of The John Hewitt Society Bursary Award and the University of Limerick Winter Writing School residency in 2018. Cat is on the Panel of Artists for Creative Communities with Wexford County Council and received the 2019 Bursary for Tyrone Guthrie. She was Writer in Residence for the Irish Writers Centre 2020. When she is not conjuring up imaginary friends and mad men, she teaches Creative Writing & Mental Health programs to young teenagers and adults, and tutors in Adult Literacy and Further Education with the Waterford Wexford Education and Training Board.
In addition to the amazing expertise from the above Masterclass Leaders, participants will also benefit from sessions from Professor Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, Dr. Christina Morin, Professor Eoin Devereux and more.