Nick Laird was born in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in 1975. His poetry collections are To A Fault (London, Faber and Faber, 2004); and On Purpose (Faber and Faber, 2007). His novels are Utterly Monkey (London, Fourth Estate, 2005); and Glover’s Mistake (Fourth Estate, 2010). He is the recipient of many prizes for his poetry and [...]
Brian Langan was born in Dublin in 1969. His novel is Light in the Head (Dublin, Poolbeg, 1999). He works full-time as an editor for The Liffey Press, and has co-edited Whisperings, the anthology of the Dublin 15 Writers Group, of which he is a member. He lives in Dublin.
Mary Lavin was born in Massachusetts, USA, in 1912, but she lived in Ireland from 1921, at first in Athenry Co Galway, and later in Meath and Dublin. Her short story collections are Tales from Bective Bridge (Boston, Little, Brown, 1942; London, Michael Joseph, 1943; Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 1978; re-issued Dublin, Town and Country House, [...]
James Lawless was born in Dublin. His novels are Peeling Oranges (Mullingar, Killynon House Books, 2007); For Love of Anna (New Generation, 2009); and The Avenue (Galway, Wordsonthestreet, 2010). He has had numerous award-winning short stories and poems published and broadcast in Ireland and the UK. His story Jolt was shortlisted for the Willenden Prize [...]
Francis Ledwidge was born at Janeville, Slane, Co Meath in 1887 to a large and impoverished family, who nevertheless valued education, even after his father’s death when he was five, and Ledwidge published his first poems in the Drogheda Independent, a local newspaper, when he was fourteen. An active trade unionist, when he was twenty-four [...]
Mary Leland was born in Cork in 1941. Her novels are The Killeen (London, Hamish Hamilton 1985); and Approaching Priests (London, Sinclair Stevenson 1991). She also published a collection of short stories entitled The Little Galloway Girls (London, Black Swan 1987). Her non-fiction includes Cork / Corcaigh: The Lie of the Land – a literary [...]
Hugh Leonard (pseudonym of John Keyes Byrne) was born in 1926 and raised in Dalkey, County Dublin. His output is vast and complex, encompassing theatre, including adaptations; television, including Insurrection (RTÉ, 1966), and many adaptations; film, memoir, criticism and journalism. Included amongst his plays are The Big Birthday Suit (Dublin, The Abbey Theatre, 1956); A [...]
Jessie Lendennie was born in Arkansas the United States and has lived in Ireland since 1981. Her prose poem, Daughter, was published by Salmon (Co Clare) and Signpost Press, Washington, in 1988 and was re-issued as Daughter & Other Poems (Galway, Salmon, 2001). Her non-fiction included Salmon Guide to Creative Writing in Ireland (Salmon Publishing, [...]
June Levine was born in Dublin in 1931. She is the author of two best-selling books: Sisters, a personal history of the Irish feminist movement (Dublin, Ward River Press, 1985); and Lyn (with Lyn Madden) a story of prostitution (Dublin, The Women’s Press, 1988). Her novel is A Season of Weddings (Dublin, New Island Books, [...]
Brian Leyden was born in Roscommon in 1960. He has published a book of short stories, Departures (1992); and a novel, Death and Plenty (Dingle, Brandon, 1996). He has devised and performed a one-man stage show on W.B. Yeats called Experiments in Magic, and his RTÉ documentary, No Meadows in Manhattan, won a Jacobs Award [...]
