Awards, grants, bursaries, qualifications, professional achievements
Here are some of the awards I have received over the years:
- 1993 Royal Irish Academy Eoin O’Mahony Bursary for research into convict transportation from Ireland to Australia (research later used in my novel The Rhapsody of Sweeney).
- 1997 Arts Council of Ireland Travel Grant.
- 1998 Australia Council Writer’s Development Grant, six-month residency in their Rome apartment, Whiting Library, Trastevere.
- 2005 Arts Council Travel and Mobility Award to attend Sydney Writers’ Festival.
- 2005 Arts Council of Ireland Bursary.
- 2006 Australian Post-Graduate Award (APA) - scholarship for my doctorate in Creative Arts.
Qualifications
- Doctorate in Creative Arts, University of Technology, Sydney.
- Master in Philosophy of Creative Writing, Trinity College Dublin.
- B.A. (Liberal Arts), Saor-Ollscoil na hÉireann, Dublin.
- Three-year cadetship and grading in journalism under auspices of Australian Journalists’ Association.
Professional work
- The Unblooded Author, essay, Griffith Review (Spring, 2008, Griffith University, Queensland) – a reflection on the novelist and her experience of war and civil unrest.
- The Italian Romance (UQP) launched at the Sydney Writers Festival 2005. The Irish Consul was honoured guest.
- Sydney Writers’ Festival 2005, speaker on panel of international women writers.
- Publication of In The Quietness of My Aunt's House and Bad Blood, Two Novellas (UQP 1996)
- Short story, Country of the Heart, published in anthology of stories by Australian women writers, Random House, Australia.
- Short Story, Verandah, published in Meanjin.
- Short story, Dumping Finucane, published in Acclaim magazine, UK.
- Long-listed for Ian St. James International Short Story award.
- Other Publications and Performances: two commissioned libretti for work-shopping with Opera Theatre Company, Ireland; two short stories broadcast on RTE Radio One; two stories published by Image Magazine.
- Creative Writing Teacher: St Patrick's Institution summer schools, Dublin; Marino College VEC, Dublin; Sion Hill Adult Education Centre, Blackrock, Co Dublin.