An Irish archaeologist, librarian and curator. Since February 2023, she has served as the director of the National Library of Ireland. Dr. Whitty has authored over seventy publications and lectured to such institutions as the Sorbonne, Paris; Trinity College Dublin; Art Institute of Chicago; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art), Chicago; National University of Ireland, Galway; the American Irish Historical Society, New York City; the Irish-Chinese Cultural Society; New York Metropolitan Glass Club; University College Dublin; Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington; National University of Ireland, Maynooth and National College of Art & Design, Dublin.

Dr. Derek Hand is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of English in Dublin City University. The Liffey Press published his book ‘John Banville: Exploring Fictions’  in 2002. He edited a special edition of the ‘Irish University Review’ on John Banville in 2006. He was awarded an IRCHSS Government of Ireland Research Fellowship for 2008-2009. His ‘A History of the Irish Novel: 1665 to the present’ was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011 and is now available in paperback. Derek is interested in Irish writing in general and has published articles on W.B. Yeats, Elizabeth Bowen, Colum McCann, Molly Keane, Benedict Kiely, Mary Lavin, William Trevor and on contemporary Irish fiction. He has lectured on Irish writing in the USA, Portugal, Sweden, Singapore, Brazil, Italy, Malaysia, Sweden and France. He is now working on a critical study of recent Irish fiction entitled  ‘The Celtic Tiger Irish Novel 1994-2010: modernity and mediocrity’. He is the co-editor with Eamon Maher of a collection of essays on John McGahern entitled  ‘Essays on John McGahern: Assessing a Literary Legacy’, published by Cork University Press.

Hibsen is a contemporary folk music ensemble formed by Irish artists Jim Murphy and Gráinne Hunt. They released their debut album “The Stern Task of Living” on 26 May 2023. The album was inspired by the book of short stories Dubliners by James Joyce and it comprises 15 songs, one for each short story. It was launched at Bloomsday Festival 2023 and it has received critical acclaim.

Frances McCue is a poet and prose writer who has published six books—four of poetry and two of prose, including a book of essays about Richard Hugo and the Northwest Towns that inspired his poems: The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs and the poetry-novel The Bled. A recent collection, Timber Curtain, is an exploration of lost places in fast-developing cities and served as a shooting script for “Where the House Was,” a documentary film about the demolition of the Richard Hugo House building in Seattle, where she was the Founding Director for its first decade. Currently, she is a Teaching Professor at the University of Washington where she has been the winner of the UW Distinguished Teaching Award.

Danielle McLaughlin is an Irish author. Danielle McLaughlin’s stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Stinging Fly, The New Yorker, Southword, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times and, and have been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short stories Dinosaurs on Other Planets was published in Ireland by The Stinging Fly Press in 2015, and subsequently in the UK (John Murray), US (Random House), Germany (Luchterhand), Uruguay (alter ediciones) and Slovakia (Inaque). She edited Counterparts, an anthology of work by writers with legal backgrounds, published in November 2018 by The Stinging Fly Press, proceeds in aid of Peter McVerry Trust. In 2019, she was a Windham-Campbell Prize recipient and won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Her first novel, The Art of Falling, was published in 2021 by John Murray and was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2022. In 2023 she was a recipient of a Markievicz Award.

Catherine Callanan is an Irish visual artist. Her work is research based, but material focused. She uses diverse materials from glass, paper, ceramics, textiles, painting, drawing, and photography to delve into the stories and experiences of intergenerational women and draws inspiration from the concealed narratives and dynamics that shape our collective lives.

Declan Meade is founding editor and publisher of the literary magazine, The Stinging Fly, which he established in Dublin in 1997. Under The Stinging Fly Press imprint, which he set up in 2005, he has edited and published short-story collections by writers such as Colin Barrett, Kevin Barry, Wendy Erskine, Nicole Flattery, Danielle McLaughlin, Mary O’Donoghue, Sean O’Reilly, and Cathy Sweeney. He has also edited several anthologies, including These Are Our Lives (2006), Let’s Be Alone Together (2008), Beyond The Centre (2016), Stinging Fly Stories (with Sarah Gilmartin, 2018), and Dublin, Written in our Hearts (2025).

Thirsty Ghosts is her most recent novel published in 2023. The Cruelty Men, her most recent novel is published by Lilliput Press and has been nominated for Irish Novel of the Year 2019. Her first novel Breakfast in Babylon won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers’ Week. Houghton Mifflin released Breakfast in Babylon in the U.S. in 1997. More Bread Or I’ll Appear, her second novel was published internationally in 1999. Emer studied painting in New York and has had two sell-out solo shows of her paintings at the Origin Gallery in Harcourt St, Dublin. Her third novel Baby Zero, was published in the UK and Ireland March 07, and released in the U.S. 2014. She released her first children's book Why is the Moon Following Me? in 2013. Pooka is a Halloween book for children released in 2016. Her latest children book The Pig who Danced was released in 2017. She completed her third short film Unaccompanied. She produced Irvine Welsh’s directorial debut NUTS in 2007. Emer was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. She now lives between the depths of Silicon Valley, CA and the jungles of Co. Meath, Ireland.

Eimear Ryan is the author of the novel Holding Her Breath (Sandycove 2021, Mariner Books 2022) and the memoir The Grass Ceiling: On Being a Woman in Sport (Sandycove 2023), which won Sports Book of the Year at the 2023 Irish Book Awards. She has also been shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Awards, the Kate O’Brien Award, and the John McGahern Annual Book Prize. Other writing has appeared in Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review and The Stinging Fly. From Co. Tipperary, she now lives in Cork city, where she lectures in creative writing at University College Cork.

Nancy Pearl is an American librarian, best-selling author, literary critic, well known speaker and the former Executive Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. Her prolific reading and her knowledge of books and literature first made her locally famous in Seattle, Washington, where she regularly appeared on public radio recommending books. She achieved broader fame with Book Lust, her 2003 guide to good reading, followed by More Book Lust, Book Crush and Book Lust to Go. She is also the author of George & Lizzie, a novel. Nancy currently hosts a monthly half hour television show on The Seattle Channel, where she interviews writers from around the country. The show is recorded at Folio.

Michele Bombardier is the author of What We Do, a Washington Book Award finalist, and Don't Ask Me How I Know (forthcoming). She is the 2025 winner of the NORward Prize in Poetry and is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Bainbridge Island where she is active in arts programming. She is the founder of Fishplate Poetry, offering poetry workshops and retreats to raise money for humanitarian aid. Her work has been performed at OPERA America in NYC and read on NPR. Her favorite artist residency has been the Tyrone Guthrie Centre where not only did she meet President Michael Higgins, but also Mrs. Worby, the resident ghost.