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Life
b. Rochester, NY State; trained as a social worker and worked in New York for some years; moved to Ireland with her small daughter and taught in the Social Sciences Department of Trinity College, Dublin 1987-2010; contrib. fiction to Image, 1988; encouraged by Bernard MacLaverty, she attended Listowel Writers’ Week; won the Stand short-story prize with “On the Development of a Free Spirit”; wrote The Sense of Things (Heinemann 1994), a enlargement of her prize-winner story dealing with an emotionally-damaged but big-hearted 29-year-old Joan Marie (29), who has recently lost her abusive mother and meets a variety of troubled people in her restaurant job; shortlisted for Whitbread First Novel Award; wrote Memories of Snow ( 1995), dealing with emotional impact of World War 2; An Awareness of March (London: Sceptre 1997), concerning a voyeur who cannot prevent the murder of the object of his obsession.
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Works
The Sense of Things (London: William [Heinemann 1994), xiii, 3334pp. [pb. in Minerva]; Memories of Snow (London: Sceptre 1995), 320pp. [pbk. 1996]); An Awareness of March (London: Sceptre 1997), 250pp. [No other listings in COPAC at July 2023.]
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Criticism
Shirley Kelly, ‘People reveal themselves slowly’, interview-article, Books Ireland, May 1997, pp.119-20 [with photo-port.]; Claire Messud, review of The Sense of Things, in Independent [UK] ()29 Jan. 1994) - available online; accessed 29.07.2023].
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Commentary
John Dunne: Dunne writes appreciative notice on An Awareness of March in Books Ireland, comparing it with Paul West’s Rat Man Paris (Books Ireland, Oct. 1997), p.253.
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