This event takes place in the Creativity Hub by the main reception of IMMA.

How do we go on when the worst has happened? Claire Gleeson’s Show Me Where It Hurts (Hodder and Stoughton) and June O’Sullivan’s The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife (Poolbeg) are two deeply affecting debuts exploring loss, grief, motherhood, and the power of the human spirit to survive. Join the authors in conversation with arts journalist Sophie Grenham.

Please note we may be capturing candid imagery at this event for use on our social media and website.

Claire Gleeson is from Dublin, where she lives with her young family and works as a GP. Her short stories have been short- and long-listed for numerous prizes. In 2021 she was awarded a Words Ireland literary mentorship while she worked on the first draft of Show Me Where It Hurts, which went on to be a runner-up at the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2023.

June O’Sullivan lives on an island in Co. Kerry, Ireland. She writes historical fiction, flash fiction and short stories. Her writing has appeared in the Leicester Writes Short Story Anthology 2022, The Ogham Stone Journal, The York Literary Review, Seaside Gothic, The Storms Journal, The Waxed Lemon, Sonder and online as part of the National Flash Flood Day. She is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. Her bestselling debut novel The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife is published by Poolbeg.

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