Mary O'Donnell

Mary O'Donnell
Born	1954 Monaghan, Ireland
Pen name	Mary O'Donnell
Occupation	Poet, Writer
Nationality	Irish

Mary O'Donnell (born 1954) is an award-winning and best-selling novelist and poet, a journalist, broadcaster and teacher.

Biography

O'Donnell was born in County Monaghan to a Catholic middle-class family close to the border with Northern Ireland. Her father was the manager of Monaghan Co-Op and her mother was a nurse. She was educated at St. Louis Convent Monaghan and went to college to St. Patrick's College in Maynooth. There she gained a degree in German and philosophy and an MA in German studies, followed by a Higher Diploma in education, which she used to become a language and drama teacher. She married her husband Martin when she was 23. They had one daughter. They live in Kildare.

O'Donnell left teaching to work as a journalist on the Sunday Tribune. It was then that she started writing more. O'Donnell became a regular on The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and on RTÉ as well as to various literary journals. Her first novel, The Light-Makers, was a best-seller and won the Sunday Tribune’s Best New Irish Novel for 1992.

She has written novels, compilations of poetry, short stories and radio broadcasts and won awards for her writing. In 2007 she was writer-in-residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. Her work has been translated into Hungarian.

O'Donnell teaches creative writing at Maynooth, she is a mentor on the Carlow College, Pittsburgh MFA in Creative Writing programme and on the faculty for the University of Iowa's summer writing programme at Trinity College, Dublin. She is a member of the Irish Writers' Union, is a member of Aosdána and served for three years on the NUI, Maynooth Governing Authority for arts and culture.

O'Donnell has been a judge for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Hennessy Literary Award, the Strokestown International Poetry Competition, Poetry Now and the Irish Times/Mountains to Sea Poetry Prize.

Awards

• Sunday Tribune Best New Irish Novel in 1992,
• The William Allingham Award.
• The Listowel Writers’ Week Short Story Prize.
• Prize-winner in the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Competition (UK).
• The Hennessy Award.
• Co-winner of the Irodälmi Jelen translation prize.
• President's Alumni Award at NUI Maynooth 2011.
• Irish Times Literature Awards - nominated twice.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Light-Makers (Poolbeg, 1992 & 1993)
• Virgin and the Boy (Poolbeg, 1996)
• The Elysium Testament (Trident Press UK, 1999)
• Where They Lie (New Island Books, 2014)
• Sister Caravaggio, collaborative novel with Peter Cunningham, Neil Donnelly and others (Liberties Press, 2014)

Short Story collections

• Strong Pagans (Poolbeg, 1991)
• Storm Over Belfast (New Island Books, 2008)

Poetry

• Reading the Sunflowers in September (Salmon, 1990)
• Spiderwoman’s Third Avenue Rhapsody (Salmon 1993)
• Unlegendary Heroes (Salmon 1998)
• September Elegies (Lapwing, Belfast, 2003)
• The Place of Miracles, New & Selected Poems (New Island Books, 2005)
• Csodák földje, Hungarian edition of New & Selected Poems (Irodalmi Jelen Konyvek, translator Dr. Tamas Kabdebo, 2011)
• Those April Fevers, (Arc Publications UK, 2015)

Translations

• To the Winds Our Sails, editor with Manuela Palacios, (Salmon, 2010)

Further reading

• Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide, Alexander G. Gonzalez, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, 348 pages
• Irish Women Writers Speak Out: Voices from the Field, Caitriona Moloney, Helen Thompson, Syracuse University Press, 2003, 286 pages
• Salmon: A Journey in Poetry, 1981-2007, edited by Jessie Lendennie. Salmon Publishing, 2007
• An introduction to Mary O'Donnell