The Department of English in York’s Faculty of Arts is presenting a reading by the award-winning Irish writer Claire Keegan. A short story writer from County Wicklow, Ireland, Keegan will be reading from her work and taking questions about writing short stories during a special event on Tuesday, March 24 from 10 to 11:30am in the Winters Senior Common Room, 021 Winters College.
Right: Irish writer Claire Keegan
Keegan left the emerald charm of Ireland to travel to New Orleans to study political science and English at Loyola University. After graduation, she returned to Ireland. Intrigued by an advertisement for a short story competition that offered a hefty prize of £1,000, the flat-broke new graduate decided to enter the contest and ended up making the short list. This early success inspired her to do a master in the teaching and practice of creative writing at the University of Wales at Cardiff. Following that she completed a master in philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin.
Her first collection of short stories, Antarctica, was published in 1999 to critical acclaim and the collection marked her debut in the literary community as a new and exciting voice in contemporary Irish fiction. The collection won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature as well as the Los 
Angeles Times Book of the Year. Her second short story collection, Walk the Blue Fields, was published last May and won the 2008 Edge Hill Prize for Short Stories.
Her stories are often compared to the works of other great authors including William Trevor, Raymond Carver, John McGahern and Anton Chekhov. Keegan’s stories have been published in numerous journals and are widely anthologised.
An accomplished and exciting writer, Keegan has also earned great respect as a teacher. In 2008, she was appointed the Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. She was also the writer-in-residence at University College Cork, Dublin City University and at the University College Dublin.
All are welcome to attend this talk. For more information, visit the Department of English Events Web page. No pre-registration is required.