Billy O'Callaghan, from Cork, is the author of four short story collections – In Exile (Mercier, 2008); In Too Deep (Mercier, 2009); The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind (New Island, 2013); and The Boatman and Other Stories (Cape, 2020) – and four novels – The Dead House (O'Brien, 2017); My Coney Island Baby (Jonathan Cape, 2019); Life Sentences (Jonathan Cape, 2021); and The Paper Man (Jonathan Cape, 2023).

Winner of the Irish Book Award and short-listed for the COSTA Short Story Award and the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award among numerous other honours, his books have been translated into thirteen languages and his short stories have appeared widely, in such journals such as Agni, the Fiddlehead, the Kenyon Review, the Massachusetts Review, Narrative, Ploughshares, Salamander, the Saturday Evening Post, the Stinging Fly and Winter Papers.

Micheál Ó Conghaile was born in 1962 in Conemara, Co. Galway. He established the publishing company Cló Iar-Chonnacht (CIC) in 1985. A prolific and talented writer, he has published poetry, short stories, a novel, plays, and novellas, and has also done some translation work as well as editing several books. In 1997 the Irish American Cultural Institute awarded him The Butler Literary Award. His short story Athair, (Father), was awarded the Hennessy Literary Award in 1997 and he was also awarded the Hennessy Irish Writer of the Year Award. He has published four collections of short stories. Seventeen of his short stories translated into English are in the collection, The Colours of Man. He is a member of Aos Dána.

Jamie O’Connell is the author of the best-selling novel, Diving for Pearls (Doubleday UK). Diving for Pearls was runner-up for The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize (The Society of Authors 2022) and short-listed for The Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year (The Irish Book Awards 2021). To date, his short fiction has been Highly Commended by the Costa Short Story Award and the An Post Irish Book Award Writing.ie Short Story of the Year; It has also been long-listed for BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines Short Story Competition and short-listed for the Maeve Binchy Travel Award and the Sky Arts Futures Fund.

Jamie's short fiction has been published in many journals, featured on TV3, RTE Radio and BBC Radio, and he has read at festivals and universities in Ireland, China, Singapore, India, Spain and the USA. He has received bursaries from The Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, Dublin City Council and Cork City Council. Jamie has taught creative writing in University College Dublin and as part of the University of Iowa’s Irish Summer School. His short fiction was recently featured in Cork Stories, a collection of short stories by Cork writers, published by Doire Press (2024). 

TBA