The Next Chapter: 20 Years of Dublin Book Festival – LIMITED TICKETS REMAINING Louise Kennedy, Jan Carson, Sue Rainsford and Sheila Armstrong in conversation with Róisín Ingle. With music from Laura Elizabeth Hughes

In Partnership with The Women’s Podcast Book Club, from The Irish Times

For this year’s special opening night, join us with The Women’s Podcast Book Club, from The Irish Times, to celebrate the extraordinary rise, diversity and influence of Irish women’s writing over the past two decades. From experimental fiction and magical realism to powerful stories of place, identity, history and contemporary Ireland, Irish women writers have transformed the literary landscape at home and around the world. Tonight’s event, featuring some of Ireland’s most exciting women writers in conversation with podcast host Róisín Ingle, will celebrate where Irish women’s writing has come from, and where it might go next.

With music on the night from Laura Elizabeth Hughes.

Writing in a Different Direction

Jan Carson, Sue Rainsford and Sheila Armstrong are three distinctive voices pushing Irish fiction beyond the expected. Their work is imaginative, unsettling and formally adventurous, exploring the body, nature, identity, place and the strange things that exist beneath the surface of everyday life. They join Róisín to discuss breaking conventions, experimenting with form, and imagining new possibilities for Irish fiction.

Bringing Ireland to the World

Award-winning author Louise Kennedy’s debut novel Trespasses was shortlisted for prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and made into a limited TV series by Channel 4, bringing her book to readers around the world. Louise joins Róisín for a conversation about the extraordinary international reach of contemporary Irish women’s writing. From Northern Ireland and the legacy of history to family, relationships, identity and social change, Louise has created work rooted in Ireland that resonates with readers around the world.

© Ruth Medjber

Sheila Armstrong is a writer and editor from the north-west of Ireland. How to Gut a Fish, her first collection of short stories, was shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Falling Animals, her debut novel, was chosen for BBC2’s Between The Covers Book Club and shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize.

© Jonathan Ryder

Jan Carson is a Belfast based writer who has published four novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland, 2019. The Raptures was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her writing has aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE and has been translated into twenty languages worldwide. Jan was the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast in 2025 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She has also achieved the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit was produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her latest novel, Few and Far Between was published by Doubleday in April 2026.

© Alexis Kirschbaum

Louise Kennedy grew up a few miles from Belfast. She is the author of the acclaimed short-story collection, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, which won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel Trespasses, published in 2022, has been translated into over twenty languages. It won Eason Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, Book of the Year: Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards and the McKitterick Prize, and was also shortlisted for several awards including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and Barnes and Noble Discover Prize. In 2025, Trespasses was made into a limited TV series by Channel 4, starring Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen and Gillian Anderson. Before starting her writing career, Kennedy spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.

Sue Rainsford is an Irish fiction and art writer based in Dublin, and author of the novels Follow Me To Ground (2018), Redder Days (2021) and From Out My Heart (2026). Her stories and novels have been nominated for the Republic of Consciousness Award, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Prix Jean Monnet des Jeunes Européens, the New York Radio Festival Awards, the Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction, and have received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly. Her short story, ‘Shorn’, was read by Saoirse Ronan on RTÉ Radio 1. 

Róisín Ingle is a columnist, features writer and podcaster with The Irish Times. She is the author of two collections of her columns, Pieces of Me and Public Displays of Emotion. She also produces and co-presents the award-winning Women’s Podcast on irishtimes.com.  

Since her self produced and recorded EP We, Myself, I in 2021, touted as her finest and most honest work to date, Laura Elizabeth Hughes has been quietly working on a larger project; wanting more autonomy over the whole process and wanting to challenge herself personally and artistically. That piece of work is Knots & Echoes, Laura’s debut album released in 2025. Given a 5* review by the Irish Times, Knots and Echoes expands Hughes sonic palette, always maintaining her signature intimacy while exploring new sounds and emotional depth in a distinctly LEH style. Produced by long-time collaborator Cian Sweeney (Birds of Paradise studio), and with the support of The Arts Council Agility Award, this body of work continues Laura Elizabeth Hughes’ reputation as one of Ireland’s leading songwriters for emotive storytelling but on stage is where Laura feels most at home and truly connects with her audience.

With thanks to our venue partner 1WML.