Carmen Cullen, former Head of English in Coláiste Dhúlaigh, Coolock and Director of the Oscar Wilde Autumn School in Bray, is now concentrating on her writing. She has published Class Acts: Original Plays and Workshop Themes for Secondary Schools, Folens Educational, 1994; Sky of Kites: Children's Poetry, Kestrel Books, 1998; and Under the Eye of the Moon: Children's Poetry, Mercier Press, 2001. Other publications include many collections of children's writing. She is a children's storyteller and a writer in prisons. She has had writing residencies for children with Wicklow and Dun Laoghaire Arts Offices and Poetry Ireland Educational. A novel for adults is underway.

 

Rachelle Dolan was born in Seattle, Washington. She received a degree in History with honors from the University of Washington in 2007. She is currently working on a novel and a series of short stories.

 

Niall Duff is from Clonsilla in west Dublin. After graduating from NUI Maynooth in 2003 with a B.A., he did postgraduate research in Anthropology. He works as a Philosophy tutor and an English teacher. He is currently studying for a Philosophy PhD in the area of emotion. He lives in Dublin and is working on his first novel.

 

Emily Firetog was born in Brooklyn, New York twenty-three years ago.  She graduated from Swarthmore College in 2007 with High Honors and now works for the Dublin literary magazine The Stinging Fly.  She is currently working on a collection of short stories.

 

Andrew Fox is from north County Dublin. He received his undergraduate degree from UCD, and plans to return there to begin graduate research. He is currently at work on a series of short stories. He lives in Dublin.

 

Phyl Herbert was born and lives in Dublin. She worked as both a teacher and theatre director. Her published work includes plays and textbooks for the teaching of drama.

 

John Holten has lived and worked in Paris, Berlin, Dublin and Oslo. His fiction and writing on art have appeared in various publications and websites, most recently in Circa and the Cúirt Annual, 2007. He is currently writing a novel.

 

Viv McDade was born in Northern Ireland, grew up in Zimbabwe and lived in Cape Town and Amsterdam before moving to Dublin. She has a teaching diploma from the University of London, a degree in English and an honours degree in Psychology, both from the University of South Africa. Prior to her fictional life, she lectured at a teacher training college, made pots and worked as a business consultant.

 

Naoimh O’Connor writes short fiction. She was part of the first Irish writers' group to produce an author-driven theatre production (The Ten Commandments Reloaded, in SS St John's Blackbox Theatre, Temple Bar, 2006). She was born in Laois, lives with one foot in southern Italy and the greater part of her mind in a white house by the ocean.

 

Maria Pace grew up on a farm in Virginia, USA. Among other things she has worked as a newspaper reporter, an English teacher, a painting instructor and an illustrator. The only thing she knows about her future is that she would like to keep on writing until she is an old, old lady.

 

Ruth Patten was born in Dublin in 1983. She graduated from Trinity College with a degree in Classical Civilization and Italian in 2006. She has worked as a receptionist, a journalist and selling sweets and newspapers. She also worked as a tour guide in Rome at the Vatican museums and is of the opinion that you can never see the Sistine Chapel too many times. She is currently working on her first novel.

 

Philip St John was born in Dublin. His stories have been published in New Irish Writing and broadcast on RTE. His play The King of Beverly Hills was short-listed for a Bewley’s Short Drama Award. He is currently finishing Crazy Baldheads, a novel set in Jamaica in the 1980s.

 

Charlie Stadtlander hails from both coasts of the United States.  He was brought up in New Jersey and lived most of his adult life in Seattle, where he studied writing at the University of Washington.  He once rode a bicycle across Europe and refuses to let anybody in this country know that he is half-Irish, because he says it doesn't really seem to matter.

 

Mark Stewart has worked at many jobs, including barman, census enumerator, dishwasher, DJ, film-maker, gardener, labourer, lecturer, lifeguard, salesman, screenwriter, script reader, tour guide, TV director and waiter. His most significant writing success to date was the screenplay for the cult Irish film Accelerator. He lives in west Cork where he is an art event organiser. He enjoys cooking and parties.

 

Monica Strina is the spoiled fourth child of a great family. She grew up under the Sardinian sun and graduated in Foreign Languages and Literature in 2002. A year spent in Dublin as an Erasmus student convinced her that she must go back to Ireland and to one of its inhabitants in particular.  Her first novel, Quattro Volte Sette Lune, was published in Italy in 2004. She is currently working on a novel in English and learning to play the violin in between hikes. Her gang of crazy friends is one of her many blessings. She is an incurable chocoholic.

 

Mary Turley-McGrath grew up on the Galway/Roscommon border. After graduating from UCD, she moved to Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, where she worked as a teacher of English and Communications. Her first poetry collection, New Grass Under Snow, was published by Summer Palace Press in 2003. Her poems have been successful in national competitions and she has been short-listed twice in the Scottish International Poetry Competition. In autumn 2004 she won the Annie Deeny Award. Her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies, and has been broadcast on RTE. She is currently working on a second collection.