New Writing Showcase

From Cahir, Co Tipperary, Annette works as a freelance communications consultant. She started writing poetry and prose in 2018. Annette won second place in the 2024 Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award and her work has been published in Skylight 47, The Waxed Lemon, The Wexford Bohemian, New Isles Press, Around Each Bend (a collection of Tipperary writers) and as part of the Poetry as Commemoration Project. In 2025, two of her poems were longlisted for the Write by the Sea poetry competition.

In the local community, Annette volunteers as a writer with Applefest and participates in the Clonmel Junction Arts Festival. She was part of the team that won the 2021 National Heritage Sharing Award for developing a physical and virtual historical walking tour in Cahir.

Annette has researched and written articles for the Tipperary Historical Journal and the book, Daughters of Dún Iascaigh: A Light on the History of Cahir Women.  

Christina Hession is currently the District 71 UK and Ireland Toastmasters Poet-in-Residence.

Her poetry has featured in a number of anthologies and journals in Ireland. Christina holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC.

Stephen Lynch was born in Dublin. His fiction has appeared in Winter Papers and he was shortlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize 2022.

Otto Goodwin is a Cork-based poet whose work explores ideas of kinship, and the ways in which queerness exists within the living world. Their poetry has been published in Cyphers magazine, Good Day Cork, and the Irish Independent. In 2023 they were awarded the Eavan Boland Emerging Poet award. They are an active member of Cork Queer Nature Collective, and can often be found waxing lyrical about hagfish or staring longingly into the Lee, as if hoping to transform into an eel.

Rónán Mac Con Iomaire is a writer and broadcaster from An Cheathrú Rua, Conamara. His books include An Ghluaiseacht: Scéal Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta (Cló Iar-Chonnacht), which documented the untold story of the Gaeltacht civil rights movement, and The Man Who Was Never Knocked Down (Rowman & Littlefield). His book Rocky Ros Muc (Cló Iar-Chonnacht), which told the story of Sean Mannion’s extraordinary journey from a small Conamara village to a world title fight at Madison Square Garden, was adapted into an Oscar-longlisted documentary of the same name. A former award-winning journalist with RTÉ, TG4 and Independent Newspapers, he works as Director of Regional & Community Development and Language Planning at Údarás na Gaeltachta.

Nicole Morris is a working-class poet and essayist. A recipient of the 2025 Irish Arts Council Literary Bursary and a Tin House Workshop alum, her writing has been featured in The Stinging Fly, The Pig’s Back, Banshee, and elsewhere. Originally from Los Angeles, she lives in the west of Ireland, where she is developing a debut lyrical essay collection and a memoir in verse.