Readings. Conversation. Insights.
More about the festival and the full programme
Set in the wonderful surroundings of St Mary's Church of Ireland, Maynooth, this year's Lounge brings together international and Irish authors, poets, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Booker Prize winner. We've 'literally' got you covered!
12:30pm-1:30pm
Kelly Michels and Mary O'Malley.
Making Connections Through Poetry
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3:30pm - 4:30pm
Join Kildare Library & Arts Services / Maynooth University Writer-in-Residence for 2025 Catherine Prasifka in (reading and) conversation with Naoise Dolan.
Two Powerful New Voices in Irish Literature.
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5:30pm - 6:30pm
Literary Lounge Keynote - Nathan Thrall, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for his book A Day in The Life of Abed Salama, in conversation with Distinguished Writing Fellow at Maynooth University Paul Lynch, winner of the 2023 Booker Prize for Prophet Song.
A not-to-be missed opportunity to hear from two literary giants.
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 Paul Lynch is the author of five novels. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize. He has previously won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and France’s Prix Libr’à Nous for Best Foreign Novel, among other prizes. He has been shortlisted for many international awards, including the UK’s Walter Scott Prize, Italy’s Strega European Prize, France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, Prix Littérature-Monde, and the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. In 2024, he was appointed Distinguished Writing Fellow at Maynooth University and was elected to Aosdána, the Irish academy for the arts honouring distinguished artists. His novels have been translated into 35 languages. |
 Nathan Thrall is an American writer living in Jerusalem. In 2024, he received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. An international bestseller, it was translated into more than two dozen languages, selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a best book of the year by over twenty publications, including The New Yorker, The Economist, and Time. He is also the author of The Only Language They Understand. His reporting, essays, and criticism have appeared in the London Review of Books, The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Review of Books. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College. (Photo credit: Judy Heibium) |
 Kelly Michels relocated to Ireland from the United States in 2019 and completed her PhD at UCD. Her poems and essays have appeared in Banshee, Best New Poets, New Ohio Review, Poetry Ireland Review and Tampa Review. She has published two pamphlets, Mother and Child with Flowers (2012) and Disquiet (2015), and has received the Rachel Wetzsteon Poetry Prize from 92nd Street ‘Y’, the Spoon River Poetry Review Editor’s Prize and an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her first collection, American Anthem, published in 2024 was shortlisted for the Forward Arts Foundation Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2024. She lives in Dublin. |
 Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara and launched her poetry career in 1990 with her collection A Consideration of Silk. She has since published six other books including a New and Selected. Her poems have been translated into several languages. Her latest collection is The Shark Nursery (Carcanet, 2024). (Photo credit: Bobbie Hanvey) |
 Catherine Prasifka was born in Dublin. Her debut novel, None of This Is Serious, was an Irish Times bestseller and was picked as ‘one to watch’ for 2022 by the Irish Times, Stylist and the Irish Independent. Her second novel, This Is How You Remember It, was published in 2024. She holds a BA in English Literature from Trinity College Dublin, an MLitt in Fantasy Literature from the University of Glasgow and an MA in Irish Folklore and Ethnology from University College Dublin. In 2024, Catherine was appointed as Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. She is the joint Kildare Library & Arts Services / Maynooth University Writer-in-Residence for 2025. |
 Naoise Dolan was born in Dublin. Her debut novel, Exciting Times, was a Sunday Times bestseller. Her second novel, The Happy Couple, was published in 2024. She has been short-listed and long-listed for several prizes, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Kerry Group Novel of the Year, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She was recently named as the inaugural IPUT Mary Lavin Writer-in-Residence at Wilton Park. She lives between Dublin and Berlin. |