Mary O'Donnell

Mary O'Donnell (born 1954) is an award-winning and best-selling novelist and poet, a journalist, broadcaster and teacher.

Biography

O'Donnell was born in County Monaghan to a Catholic middle-class family close to the border with Northern Ireland. Her father was the manager of Monaghan Co-Op and her mother was a nurse. She was educated at St. Louis Convent Monaghan and went to college to St. Patrick's College in Maynooth. There she gained a degree in German and philosophy and an MA in German studies, followed by a Higher Diploma in education, which she used to become a language and drama teacher. She married her husband Martin when she was 23. They had one daughter. They live in Kildare.^[1][2]

O'Donnell left teaching to work as a journalist on the Sunday Tribune. It was then that she started writing more. O'Donnell became a regular on The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and on RTÉ as well as to various literary journals. Her first novel, The Light-Makers, was a best-seller and won the Sunday Tribune’s Best New Irish Novel for 1992.^[2][3]

She has written novels, compilations of poetry, short stories and radio broadcasts and won awards for her writing. In 2007 she was writer-in-residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. Her work has been translated into Hungarian.

O'Donnell teaches creative writing at Maynooth, she is a mentor on the Carlow College, Pittsburgh MFA in Creative Writing programme and on the faculty for the University of Iowa's summer writing programme at Trinity College, Dublin. She is a member of the Irish Writers' Union, is a member of Aosdána and served for three years on the NUI, Maynooth Governing Authority for arts and culture.^[3][4]

O'Donnell has been a judge for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Hennessy Literary Award, the Strokestown International Poetry Competition, Poetry Now and the Irish Times/Mountains to Sea Poetry Prize.^[3][5]

Awards

• Sunday Tribune Best New Irish Novel in 1992,
• The William Allingham Award.
• The Listowel Writers’ Week Short Story Prize.
• Prize-winner in the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Competition (UK).
• The Hennessy Award.
• Co-winner of the Irodälmi Jelen translation prize.
• President's Alumni Award at NUI Maynooth 2011.
• Irish Times Literature Awards - nominated twice.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Light-Makers (Poolbeg, 1992 & 1993)
• Virgin and the Boy (Poolbeg, 1996)
• The Elysium Testament (Trident Press UK, 1999)
• Where They Lie (New Island Books, 2014)
• Sister Caravaggio, collaborative novel with Peter Cunningham, Neil Donnelly and others (Liberties Press, 2014)

Short Story collections

• Strong Pagans (Poolbeg, 1991)
• Storm Over Belfast (New Island Books, 2008)

Poetry

• Reading the Sunflowers in September (Salmon, 1990)
• Spiderwoman’s Third Avenue Rhapsody (Salmon 1993)
• Unlegendary Heroes (Salmon 1998)
• September Elegies (Lapwing, Belfast, 2003)
• The Place of Miracles, New & Selected Poems (New Island Books, 2005)
• Csodák földje, Hungarian edition of New & Selected Poems (Irodalmi Jelen Konyvek, translator Dr. Tamas Kabdebo, 2011)
• Those April Fevers, (Arc Publications UK, 2015)

Translations

• To the Winds Our Sails, editor with Manuela Palacios, (Salmon, 2010)

Further reading

• Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide, Alexander G. Gonzalez, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, 348 pages
• Irish Women Writers Speak Out: Voices from the Field, Caitriona Moloney, Helen Thompson, Syracuse University Press, 2003, 286 pages
• Salmon: A Journey in Poetry, 1981-2007, edited by Jessie Lendennie. Salmon Publishing, 2007
• An introduction to Mary O'Donnell

References