17 September, 2025

12 writers selected for Irish Writers Centre Evolution Programme 2025-2026

We are thrilled to announce the 12 awardees for the Irish Writers Centre Evolution Programme 2025-2026: Christina Collins, Deirdre Barragy, Eamon McGuinness, Elaine Garvey, Juliana Adelman, Leeanne O’Donnell, Orla Mackey, Pallavi Padma-Uday, Rafael Mendes, Shane Tivenan, Sharon Guard and Soula Emmanuel.

Evolution is a six-month programme that provides support for ten published writers to advance their careers. Through providing each writer with a tailored suite of supports, this programme aims to ease the difficult journey for published writers who have one or two books under their belt and need further support at a crucial stage of their careers.

The suite of supports includes access to courses, one-to-one mentoring (creative and professional), Irish Writers Centre membership, monthly peer-to-peer knowledge sharing forums and an opportunity to be on a paid teaching residency with the School of English and Creative Arts at the University of Galway.

The three Evolution writers selected to take part in this year’s University of Galway teaching residency are Elaine Garvey, Orla Mackey and Shane Tivenan. These writers will teach on the Creative Writing undergraduate course as part of a paid residency. This unique opportunity was co-created with IWC Ambassador Mike McCormack and Dr. John Kenny, Director of the BA in English and Creative Writing at University of Galway.

The Irish Writers Centre Evolution Programme is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the University of Galway and IWC ambassador Marian Keyes.

Evolution Programme 2025 Awardees:

Christina Collins is a Belfast-based writer. She is the author of two novels for young people, After Zero and The Town with No Mirrors, both published by Sourcebooks, and has also authored short works of fiction, poetry, and memoir in more than a dozen periodicals and anthologies. She grew up in Massachusetts and has lived in Belfast since 2015. She received the inaugural C.S. Lewis Writer’s Bursary award from EastSide Arts and was the Irish Writers Centre’s 2020 Roaming Writer-in-Residence. She holds a PhD in creative writing from Queen’s University Belfast.

Following a childhood spent in Ireland, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, Dee Barragry is currently resident in Dublin and is an author, artist and photographer. In 2023 she won the inaugural Staróg Prize, a new award for Irish writers of children’s fiction. Her debut middle grade novel “The Moon Seeker” was published internationally by Walker Books in July 2025. When not writing, she can usually be found with a paintbrush, camera, or book in her hand. With a fondness for creatures both real and imagined, she is inspired by nature and loves to explore. You can follow her on Instagram @deebarragry.

Eamon McGuinness is from Dublin. He has won an O.Henry Prize for fiction, the Michael McLaverty, Wild Atlantic Words and Maria Edgeworth short story competitions. His fiction has appeared in The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, The Stinging Fly, New Irish Writing, The Pig’s Back, The Four Faced Liar, The Lonely Crowd and elsewhere. A poetry collection, The Wrong Heroes, was published by Salmon Poetry. He has completed a short story collection and is currently working on a novel.

Elaine Garvey is from County Sligo. The Wardrobe Department, (Canongate, 2025) is her first novel and was selected by The Sunday Independent, The Irish Times, The Financial Times and the BBC in their choices of the best new debut fiction. Elaine’s short stories have been published in TheDublin Review and Winter Papers.

Photo credit: Mark Capilitan.

Juliana Adelman is originally from Concord, Massachusetts but now lives in Dublin and lectures in history at Dublin City University. Her debut historical novel, The Grateful Water,was published in 2024 by New Island. An essay and short stories have appeared in The Dublin Review and The Stinging Fly. 

Leeanne O’ Donnell is a writer and podcaster. Her first novel Sparks of Bright Matter was published by Eiru/ Bonnier UK in 2024. She produces and presents Into The Mythic a podcast bringing new life to Irish myths. She was appointed Cork County Writer in Residence for 2025 and is working on a second novel.

Orla Mackey is a writer and teacher based in Kilkenny.  She studied English Literature in Trinity College, Dublin.  She was longlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize and the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.  She was a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair.  She was a recipient of the International Lamplight Fellowship, 2025.  Her debut novel, Mouthing, was published by Penguin U.K. In 2024.

Pallavi Padma-Uday is a writer, memoirist and poet. Author of two poetry collections, she has read from her work at various events and literary festivals including the Belfast Book Festival in 2024. She is currently writing her third poetry collection—which was shortlisted for Arts Council Ireland’s Literature Bursary Award in 2024—and a memoir. She earned an honourable mention at the Kinsella Arts Weekend in 2022 and was invited to contribute to the Abridgedliterary magazine’s Simmerman Series and Poetry Ireland’s Trumpet in 2025. An economic historian by training, Padma-Uday likes to put people in stories.

Rafael Mendes is a Brazilian-Irish migrant whose work has recently appeared or is upcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Wasafari, gorse, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions 2023, and his pamphlet, The Migrant Dictionary (Howl New Irish Writing), was a co-winner of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Pamphlet Series 2025.

Shane Tivenan grew up close to Athlone Town, County Roscommon. He studied Cultural Anthropology at Maynooth University. His fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, Prototype, and has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1. He was awarded the 2020 RTÉ Francis MacManus Prize, and the 2024 John McGahern Award. His book, To Avenge a Dead Glacier, has been described by the Irish Times as a ‘vital and visionary debut’.

Sharon Guard has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and newspapers including SWERVE magazine, The Ogham Stone, the Washing Windows anthologies, the Irish Independent and The Irish Times.  She won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award in 2020 and her story Artifice was shortlisted for the RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Competition in 2024. Her prose and poetry has been listed in other competitions. Her debut novel, Assembling Ailish, was published by Poolbeg Press in February 2025.

Soula Emmanuel was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Greek father. She studied at universities in Ireland and Sweden, emerging with a master’s in demography. She currently lives on Ireland’s east coast. Her debut novel Wild Geese was published in 2023. In 2024, it won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction, and the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize at the UK Society of Authors Awards.