External links
- Sarah Maria Griffin on Twitter
- Sarah Maria Griffin on Instagram
- Griffin's Wordfury zines
- The Juvenalia podcast
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
Sarah Maria Griffin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 28 January 1988 [1] Dublin, Ireland |
| Education | Manor House School, Raheny |
| Alma mater | |
| Years active | 2009–present |
| Website | sarahmariagriff |
Sarah Maria Griffin (born 28 January 1988 [1] ) is an Irish writer and poet, podcaster, and producer of zines. She is the author of a volume each of poetry and essays, and three novels.
Griffin developed an interest in writing as a teen. Her first book was a collection, Follies (Belfast: Lapwing, 2011), primarily of poems, with a few short prose pieces. [2] In the same period, mid-2011, a play by Griffin, Sleep skips my heart, was performed in a short run at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway. [2]
She expanded into writing articles for newspapers and other media outlets, including BuzzFeed and The Guardian , [3] [4] and the online current affairs and investigative journal, the Dublin Inquirer. [5] Her non-fiction has also appeared in works including Guts, The Stinging Fly , The Rumpus and Winter Pages. [6]
She was invited to co-edit the Bare Hands online poetry magazine by its founder, fellow poet Kerrie O'Brien, and they issued monthly "runs" of the journal. In 2012, a print collection of Bare Hands poetry and photography, with works by more than 25 poets and 15 photographers, was published. [7] [8]
Not Lost: A Story About Leaving Home, was published by New Island Books in Dublin in 2013, and comprises articles written in San Francisco, primarily on aspects of emigrant life during her first year there. [9] [6]
Griffin's first novel, Spare and Found Parts, for the young adult market, was released in 2016 (Greenwillow) in the US and other markets, and in 2018 (Titan) in Ireland and the UK. [10] A poem by Griffin, published in The Irish Times in 2016, was credited with inspiring a video in the Repeal the 8th abortion rights referendum campaign. [11]
A second novel, Other Words for Smoke, also for the young adult market, was issued in 2019 (Greenwillow and Titan), and a third, on a commission from a major music festival, later that year. Also in 2019, the writer resumed producing zines, under the Wordfury brand. [12] Griffin has spoken of working on a fourth novel on several occasions. [6] [13]
Griffin's first novel, Spare and Found Parts, is a dystopian science fiction work for young adults. It is set in the aftermath of a machine apocalypse called "the Turn", in "Black Water City", a remnant of Dublin, so named from one of the two Irish-language names for the city, derived from the River Poddle. In an Ireland where only a tiny fraction of the pre-apocalyptic population survives, without information technology, there is a division of survivors between urban "Pale" and rural "Pasture". The protagonist, Nell Crane, is the daughter of two key figures in the city, the life of which partly revolves around sourcing and fitting of body parts; she herself has a mechanical heart. The novel was reviewed widely, including by The Irish Times, and nominated for prizes. [14] The story has LGBTQIA+ elements, woven in without emphasis, as noted by leading review journal, Kirkus, which concluded that the book is a "page-turning whole". [15]
Her second novel, Other Words for Smoke, is a young adult novel of the fantastic, which won Teen and YA Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards in 2019. It is set in a fictional location near Dublin, with witches and a house which is more than it appears. The book was reviewed positively by Locus magazine. [16] The book, which has lesbian characters in key roles, [17] was listed on a US "rainbow books" list. [18] Griffin's third novel, The Book of Wisdom, a work of fantasy set in a library, was commissioned for Tomorrowland, one of the largest music festivals in the world, with around 200,000 copies of the book distributed to those booking festival tickets. It features two young protagonists, from Raheny and San Francisco, and was issued in a case with inserted objects and a "hidden compartment" for recipients' festival access bracelets. [19]
Griffin has mentioned Maeve Binchy as a major influence, on her work with dialogue and character, and pace, [20] as well as Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) . [19]
As of 2019, Griffin was writing a podcast column for The Irish Times. [21] [22] As of 2023, she was also one of the presenters of an ongoing podcast series, Juvenalia. [23]
Having done some work in the area earlier in life, in 2019, the writer resumed producing zines, under the Wordfury brand. [12] In 2023, she released a talk on her work with zines with the Museum of Literature Ireland. [24] [25]
Griffin won the 2017 European Science Fiction Awards Chrysalis Award. [26] Her 2019 young adult novel, Other Words for Smoke, was included on the 2020 American Library Association Rainbow List, [18] and won the Teen and YA category at the 2019 Irish Book Awards. [27]
She was awarded Arts Council bursaries five times, 2017—2018 and 2020—2022. [28] [29]
Griffin was the Writer-In-Residence at Maynooth University for the 2017 to 2018 academic year, [30] where she conducted classes with students and provided workshops, talks and other events, including in county libraries. [31] She was Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown (DLR) writer-in-residence for 2018–2019, [13] and during that year she was one of the speakers at the official State commemoration of the sinking of the RMS Leinster. [13]
In 2020, Griffin was one of four writers awarded "Writers-In-Their-Residence" funding by the Irish Writers Centre, to support the development of their new work during the COVID-19 pandemic, while updating a wider audience over social media. [32] In 2021, she served as the first Edna O’Brien Young Writers Bursary Fellow in a project of Poetry Ireland, and contributed an afterword to a printed and online anthology of poetry produced as part of the Deep Routes Poetry Exchange. [33]
Born 28 January 1988, Griffin grew up between two Northside suburbs of Dublin, Kilbarrack and Raheny. [6] [40] She attended secondary school at Manor House School, Raheny, [1] and earned a degree in English, Media and Cultural Studies from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology and a Masters in Creative Writing from NUI Galway. [19]
Griffin moved to San Francisco in 2012. [41] She returned to Ireland in 2015, and began working at writing full-time. [31] [42] She is married to Ceri Bevan. [43]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
Anne Michaels is a Canadian poet and novelist whose work has been translated and published in over 45 countries. Her books have garnered dozens of international awards including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. She is the recipient of honorary degrees, the Guggenheim Fellowship and many other honours. She has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, twice shortlisted for the Giller Prize and twice long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. Michaels won a 2019 Vine Award for Infinite Gradation, her first volume of non-fiction. Michaels was the poet laureate of Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 2016 to 2019, and she is perhaps best known for her novel Fugitive Pieces, which was adapted for the screen in 2007. Michaels won the 2024 Giller Prize for her novel Held.
Josephine Edna O'Brien was an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer.
Naomi Shihab Nye is an Arab American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poetry at the age of six. In total, she has published or contributed to over 30 volumes of poetry. Her works include poetry, young-adult fiction, picture books, and novels. Nye received the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in honor of her entire body of work as a writer, and in 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People's Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term.
Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.
Mary Dorcey is an Irish author and poet, feminist, and LGBT+ activist. Her work is known for centring feminist and queer themes, specifically lesbian love and lesbian eroticism.
Sebastian Barry is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. He was named Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2018–2021.
Thomas McCarthy is an Irish poet, novelist, and critic, born in Cappoquin, County Waterford, Ireland. He attended University College Cork where he was part of a resurgence of literary activity under the inspiration of John Montague. Among McCarthy's contemporaries, described by Thomas Dillon Redshaw as "that remarkable generation", were the writers and poets Theo Dorgan, Sean Dunne, Greg Delanty, Maurice Riordan and William Wall. McCarthy edited, at various times, The Cork Review and Poetry Ireland Review. He has published seven collections of poetry with Anvil Press Poetry, London, including The Sorrow Garden, The Lost Province, Mr Dineen's Careful Parade, The Last Geraldine Officer, and Merchant Prince. The main themes of his poetry are Southern Irish politics, love and memory. He is also the author of two novels; Without Power and Asya and Christine. He is married with two children and lives in Cork City where he worked in the City Libraries until his retirement. He won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 1977. His monograph "Rising from the Ashes" tells the story of the burning of the Carnegie Free Library in Cork City by the Black and Tans in 1920 and the subsequent efforts to rebuild the collection with the help of donors from all over the world.
Anne Simpson is a Canadian poet, novelist, artist and essayist. She was a recipient of the Griffin Poetry Prize.
Catherine Fisher is a poet and novelist for children and Young Adults. Best known for her internationally bestselling novel Incarceron and its sequel, Sapphique, she has published over 40 novels and 5 volumes of poetry. She has worked as an archaeologist, and as a school and university teacher, is an experienced broadcaster and adjudicator and has taught at the Arvon Foundation and Ty Newydd Writers' Centres. She lives in Wales, UK.
Colum McCann is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in New York. He is known as an international writer who believes in the "democracy of storytelling." He has won numerous awards, including the U.S. National Book Award and the International Dublin Literary Award, and his work has been published in over 40 languages as well as being published in many American and international publications. He also is the co-founder and president of Narrative 4, an international empathy education nonprofit.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is an Irish poet and academic. She was the Ireland Professor of Poetry (2016–19).
Anne Teresa Enright is an Irish writer. The first Laureate for Irish Fiction (2015–2018) and winner of the Man Booker Prize (2007), she has published eight novels, many short stories, and a non-fiction work called Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, about the birth of her two children. Her essays on literary themes have appeared in the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books, and she writes for the books pages of The Irish Times and The Guardian. Her fiction explores themes such as family, love, identity and motherhood.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir is an Irish writer and poet.
Sarah Rees Brennan is an Irish writer best known for young adult fantasy fiction. Her first novel, The Demon's Lexicon, was released June 2009 by Simon & Schuster. Rees Brennan's books are bestsellers in both the UK and USA.
Ian Williams is a Canadian poet and fiction writer. His collection of short stories, Not Anyone's Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and his debut novel, Reproduction, was awarded the 2019 Giller Prize. His work has been shortlisted for various awards, as well.
Sally Rooney is an Irish author and screenwriter. She has published four novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021), and Intermezzo (2024). The first two were adapted into the television miniseries Normal People (2020) and Conversations with Friends (2022).
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2019.
Anne Griffin is an Irish novelist and short story writer based in Mullingar, County Westmeath.
Eimear Ryan is an Irish writer, editor, publisher and one of the founding editors of Banshee Press. Her debut novel, Holding Her Breath, was published by Penguin Books in 2021. She was 'writer-in-residence' at University College Cork in 2021. She has also written a book for children, and had her work adapted into the award-winning short film, The Grass Ceiling.
