Molly Freeman was born in North Carolina with both Irish and Cherokee roots. A freelance creative arts educator, she is working on her first poetry collection,
Mill Hill. Visit www.geocities.com/mollyfreeman2000.

Molly Hennigan is from County Kildare. She is currently based in Massachusetts where she is completing her PhD in English. This essay is one of a series she is working on exploring mental illness and maternal lineage.

Molly McCloskey was born in the United States in 1964 and has lived in Ireland since 1989. She won the RTE /Francis
MacManus Short Story Award in 1995 and her first book of stories, Solomon’s Seal, was published by Phoenix in 1997. The
Beautiful Changes, a collection which includes a novella and short stories, was published by the Lilliput Press earlier this year.

Monica Corish was Featured Poet in The Stinging Fly / Spring 2009. Her poetry and stories have won and been shortlisted for a number of awards. She leads writing workshops the North West and in Dublin. www.monicacorish.ie

Moya Cannon’s collections are Oar (1990), The Parchment Boat (1997), and Carrying the Songs (2007). She is a member of Aosdána and lives in Galway.

Muireann Maguire is from Co. Kerry. Her poetry has appeared in several journals and she has been a regular prizewinner at Listowel Writers’ Week.

Nadja Spiegel (born 1992 in Vorarlberg, Austria) has won several awards for her poetry, including prestigious spoken-word prizes, and bursaries to focus on her writing. Her poetry has mainly been published in journals and online. Spiegel is currently a full-time student of Comparative Literature and Slavonic Studies (first language Russian) in Vienna. ‘death and ophelia’, from Spiegel’s debut prose collection, was selected to represent Austria on Dublin’s first European Literature Night, 16 May 2012. Dalkey Archive Press has since acquired the rights to publish the collection in English.

Naima el Bezaz was born in Morocco in 1974, and at the age of four moved to the Netherlands with her parents. She published her debut novel De Weg naar het Noorden (The Road North) in 1995. Since then she has published four more bestselling novels, most recently Vinexvrowen (New Suburban Housewives). Her work has generated much controversy, as it often deals with the issues of sex, Islam and multiculturalism. In her own words, ‘taboos are there to be broken’.

Najat Abed Alsamad is a Syrian writer, gynaecologist, and Russian-Arabic translator. Born in Sweida, Syria, she now lives in Berlin, Germany. In The Tenderness of War is the third of her five published books, which comprise novels as well as other collections of non-fiction accounts. Her 2017 novel No Water Quenches Her Thirst won a Katara Prize in 2018 and has been translated into four languages. She is currently working on a new novel, in between training for a German medical qualification.

Melaina Barnes is a writer and artist from the north of England. Her short stories have appeared in Litro, MIR Online and The Corona Book of Science Fiction. She lives in Lisbon.

Melanie Cameron is a Canadian poet and has twice been shortlisted Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Holding the Dark was shortlisted for Best First Book by a Manitoba Writer. wake is forthcoming.

Melissa Demian had a poem in Issue One of this magazine. From the United States, she is currently working on a Ph.D. in anthropology in Papua New Guinea.

Melissa Diem has an MPhil in Creative Writing from TCD. She has published a novel, ‘Changeling’, and her poetry as appeared in many journals including New Writing, Revival, Poetry Ireland Review and The Shop. She was the featured poet in our Spring 2010 edition.

Mia Gallagher’s books are HellFire (Penguin Ireland, 2006), winner of the Irish Tatler Literature Award, Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (New Island, 2016), longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, Shift (New Island, 2018), longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Award, and Dubliners, co-authored with visual artist Mario Sughi (Marinoni Books, Milan, 2022). Mia is a contributing editor with The Stinging Fly and a member of Aosdána.

Michael Curtis lives in Kent and the Isle of Man with Kerry connections. His seventh collection, Long Haul, was recently published by Redbeck Press and Taking Shape, an Anglo-French selection, will appear in 2006.

Michael D. Riley is Professor of English at Penn State Berks in Reading, PA. Circling the Stones (Poems From Ireland) is forthcoming from Creighton University Press. Players, a collection of narrative and character-driven poems, has been accepted for publication by WordTech Turning Point.

Michael Dooley’s poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, and online at RTÉ Culture. He has been shortlisted for The Strokestown International Poetry Prize, The Doolin Poetry Prize, and The Cúirt New Writing Prize. He is a teacher, and lives in Limerick.

Michael Foley has published three collections of poetry, a collection of free translations of French poetry and three novels. His fourth novel will appear early in
2002.

Michael Francis Collins has written a number of plays including The Hackney Office (Druid, 2000) and Tadhg Stray Wandered In (Fishamble, 2004). He lives in County Meath.

Michael G. Cronin is Lecturer in English at NUI Maynooth. His Impure Thoughts: Sexuality, Catholicism and Literature in twentieth-century Ireland is forthcoming from Manchester University Press.

Michael Gleeson was born in 1977. He had a story in Issue 12 of this magazine and is currently undertaking an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Michael Halloran grew up in Dublin and now lives in Amana, Iowa. He has published poetry, articles and essays in Ireland, South Korea, Vietnam and the USA. He holds an MA in writing from NUI Galway. He currently works as a copywriter.

Michael Harding was born in Cavan in 1953. He has published two novels, Priests (1986) and The Trouble With Sarah Gullion (1988), and a novella, Bird in the Snow (2008). He is a member of Aosdána, and lives in County Westmeath.

Michael J. Farrell has published two short-story collections: Life In The Universe (Stinging Fly Press, 2009) and Life Here Below (New Island, 2014).

Michael Lee Phillips lives in Southern California. He previously worked as a journalist, photographer and teacher but now writes full time and hopes that the Liffey flows beneath him at least once a year.

Michael Londry is a postgraduate student in English literature at Oxford. A selection of his poetry appears in the anthology Breathing Fire: Canada’s
New Poets.

Michael Massey lives and works in Kilkenny. He has two poetry collections published: The Hilltop Tea-House (Rectory Press, Waterford) and Nothing To Fear (Lapwing, Belfast)

Michael Magee is the fiction editor of The Tangerine and a graduate of the PhD Creative Writing programme at Queen’s University, Belfast. His writing has appeared in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, The Lifeboat and in The 32: An Anthology of Working Class Writing. His debut novel, Close to Home, will be published in 2023.

Michael O’Loughlin was born in 1958 in Dublin and is active as poet, screenwriter, essayist and translator. His most recent book is the poetry collection In This Life (New Island, 2011). He has been Writer Fellow in Trinity College Dublin and Writer in Residence in Galway city and county. He has translated over a hundred books from Dutch, including Hidden Weddings: Selected Poems of Gerrit Achterberg.

Michael S. Begnal lives in G alway and is a poet and co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine. His first collection is forthcoming from Salmon.