For many years I’ve worked as a designer and copywriter; the skills I’ve learned crafting image and language have culminated in my heading in an exciting new direction – writing fiction.
I grew up in Tullamore, Co. Offaly and now live in Dublin. Along the way, I gained a first-class honours Degree in Visual Communications from the National College of Art and Design and an M Phil in Creating Writing from Trinity College Dublin. Writing poetry for my M Phil led to a period of songwriting, and a couple of my demos were played on BBC 6 ‘Introducing’ by Tom Robinson. Songwriting opened up my mind to the possibilities of metaphor and wordplay; over time I began experimenting with longer prose pieces, short stories, a children’s book.
When I came across the story of a 19th-century botanist (more on her later), I became captivated and immediately thought, ‘I want to describe this world.’ How to do it? I believe in jumping in the deep end (creatively, at least, I’m scared of water any higher than my chin); after months of research, I began, one word, sentence, paragraph, page at a time.
I am currently adapting ‘A Quiet Tide’ for the screen and working on a new novel.