The Island

Rosemary Canavan spent her first six months in a converted double-decker bus tethered to a windy Scottish hillside. She was brought up in Ireland and lived there for much of her life; her current home is a mountain village in France. Her first collection of poetry, The Island (Story Line Press), was based around her experience as a prison teacher on Spike Island, Ireland’s Alcatraz, and was shortlisted for the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Identity, landscape and change were the themes of her second collection, Trucker’s Moll, published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland. Her other publications include children’s books, translations of French short stories, and anthologies. She has been Poetry Editor for the Irish literary journal Southword, and has read at festivals which include the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Listowel Writers’ Week, the West Cork Literary Festival, and Cuirt Literary Festival, Galway. Her awards include a bursary in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland, a fellowship at Hawthornden Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, and residencies in Cork and Kerry. She has also exhibited paintings and digital art in Irish galleries and arts festivals.