Writing the Body Gustav Parker Hibbett, Sam Furlong and Sophie White in conversation with Molly Twomey

In Partnership with Irish Writers Centre

Joining our panel are poet and essayist Gustav Parker Hibbett whose debut collection High Jump as Icarus Story won the 2025 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, Sam Furlong whose just-published debut book is Crowd Work, and podcaster and columnist Sophie White, whose 8 books include The Snag List, Where I End and most recently, Such a Good Couple. They will chat to Molly Twomey, author of the poetry collections, Raised Among Vultures and Chic to be Sad, about the body and how it filters through their words, from how it can break to all it can bear.

Gustav Parker Hibbett is a Black poet, essayist, and MFA dropout. Their debut poetry collection,High Jump as Icarus Story (Banshee Press), won the John Pollard  Foundation International Poetry Prize and co-won the Southword Debut Poetry Collection Award, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize. They are the 2025 Commissioned Writer for Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, and they are currently pursuing a PhD in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin, where they are an Early Career Research Fellow at the Long Room Hub.

Sam Furlong’s first book, Crowd Work, was published by Macha Press in May 2025. Their poetry and fiction have been published in Banshee, Abridged, Propel, Catflap, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Pig’s Back. In 2023, they completed an MA in Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, where they were awarded the Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award. They have been selected for the National Mentorship Programme and Poetry Ireland’s Introductions. They are the Poetry Editor of Frustrated Writers’ Group and are supported by an Agility Award. They live in Dublin, where they work in customer service.

Sophie White is a novelist, essayist and podcaster from Dublin. She is the author of seven books. Her first four books including Filter This (Hachette, 2019) and The Snag List (Hachette, 2022) have all been bestsellers and award nominees. Her fifth book, the bestselling memoir Corpsing (Tramp Press, 2021), was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction. Her sixth book, Where I End (Tramp Press, 2022) was described as “brilliantly visceral” by the Guardian and “exquisite and disturbing, brutish and beautifully crafted” by The Irish Times. It won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. Her seventh book and fifth novel, My Hot Friend (Hachette, 2023) won the An Post Irish book Award for Popular Fiction. Her latest book, Such A Good Couple has just landed in shops. Sophie writes a weekly column ‘Nobody Tells You’ for the Sunday Independent LIFE magazine.

Molly Twomey grew up in Lismore, County Waterford and now lives in Cork. Her first collection, Raised Among Vultures, was published in 2022 by The Gallery Press. It won the Southword Debut Collection Poetry Award and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. She was awarded the 2023 Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and an Arts Council Literatur Bursary in 2024 to work on her second collection, Chic to be Sad, published in 2025 by The Gallery
Press.