Claire Hennessy

British author Sarah Pinborough has published more than twenty novels – ranging from YA fantasy to TV tie-ins to horror – but her ‘breakout’ books (a borderline-depressing publishing term that refers to when a ‘mid-list’ writer makes it…

It took me a day to lose my soul. When I started working in publishing – and in particular, looking at unsolicited submissions, what some refer to as ‘the slush pile’ – I was sure I would be a bit of a wimp. I had edited anthologies…

Irish women have many stories to tell, about ourselves, our mothers, our grandmothers. We stayed silent for a long time. An involuntary, imposed, shame driven silence. But that silence has been  broken, we are finding our voices, we are…

I am fascinated by student-teacher relationships in fiction the way some people are by murder. I would never, but. But what’s that dysfunctional bit of someone that makes them think this action is in any way good, or logical, or acceptable,…

We have asked some of Ireland's top literary types to give us their top picks for Books of the Year 2017. Did we miss any of your favourites? Let us know in the comments. Let's get stuck in: Here are the HeadStuff Books of the Year 2017…

Every year I view this list as some kind of challenge – it would be so easy just to pick my ten best writing friends and cajole them into contributing but I really don’t think that that would represent the huge HUGE array of fantastic books…

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It's the Lit Review. Lit Events The International Literature Festival is pitching up in Dublin so there will be piles of great events this week. Though they are clogging up the new…

It had never even occurred to Nathan that people his age read the newspapers. “You’re how old – fourteen, fifteen?” Mr Andrews asked that day in class, hands on his hips. CSPE was the ultimate doss class anyway; no one cared about the…