Scottish Writers Centre International Event Nuala Ní Chonchúir.

Rising star of the Irish literary scene, Nuala Ní Chonchúir comes to Glasgow to promote her new novel The Closet of Savage Mementos, set in a fictionalised Ullapool and inspired by her own experiences in Scotland in her early twenties. Her narrator Lillis falls pregnant by an older local man but chooses to return home to Dublin. This novel of entwining grief and love asks the question: does poor parenting cause poor parenting, or a fear of parenting badly?

Writer and poet Nuala Ní Chonchúir has published one novel, four collections of short fiction, a chapbook of flash fiction and three full poetry collections. Born in Dublin in 1970, she lives in East Galway with her husband and three children. Her fourth short story collection Mother America was published by New Island in 2012; The Irish Times said of it: ‘Ní Chonchúir’s precisely made but deliciously sensual stories mark her as a carrier of Edna O’Brien’s flame.’ Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner and ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times.

Nuala has won many writing awards including RTÉ radio’s Francis MacManus Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the Jane Geske Award (USA), the inaugural Jonathan Swift Award, the Dublin Review of Books flash fiction prize and the Cecil Day Lewis Award. She was shortlisted for the European Prize for Literature and most recently won the Gladstone’s Library Flash Fiction Prize (UK).