We expect that Elaine Feeney will prove to be a very fitting guest for all of our writing and poetry fans at the Allingham Arts Festival this November!
Author of the Year in 2025, Booker-longlisted in 2023, with three poetry collections and a play to her name, Elaine embodies the multi-disciplinary spirit of the festival.
Her most receny novel, Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way, was nominated for Novel of the Year in the An Post Irish Book Awards 2025, where she won the Author of the Year awayrd.
Her debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. How to Build a Boat was also shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year.
Feeney has published the poetry collections Where’s Katie?, The Radio Was Gospel, Rise and All the Good Things You Deserve, and lectures at the University of Galway.
Here, she talks about her craft and her inspiration having just been awarded the Author of the Year award in 2025.