Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan (born 1968) is an Irish short story writer. She was born in County Wicklow in 1968, the youngest of a large Roman Catholic family. She travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana when she was seventeen and studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992 and lived for a year in Cardiff, Wales, where she undertook an MA in creative writing and taught undergraduates at the University of Wales. Her first collection of short stories was Antarctica (1999). Her second collection of stories is Walk the Blue Fields (2007). Her new 'long, short story'; "Foster" was published in Sept 2010.

She has won the William Trevor Prize,^[1] the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature,^[1] the Olive Cook Award and the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award 2009.^[1] Other awards include The Hugh Leonard Bursary, The Macaulay Fellowship,^[1] The Martin Healy Prize, The Kilkenny Prize and The Tom Gallon Award. Twice was Keegan the recipient of the Francis MacManus Award. She was also a Wingate Scholar.

The American writer Richard Ford, who selected her short story Foster as winner of the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award 2009, wrote in the winning citation of Keegan’s “thrilling” instinct for the right words and her “patient attention to life’s vast consequence and finality".^[1]

Keegan lives in rural Ireland and was a visiting professor at Villanova University in 2008.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Boland, Rosita (2009-06-23). "Writer Claire Keegan wins €25,000 Davy Byrnes award". The Irish Times. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0623/1224249340287.html. 

External links

• An interview with Keegan can be found at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/05/claire-keegan-short-story-interview

• A copy of Foster and Evanna Lynch's recording of its abridged version can be found at:

http://copiedtext.blogspot.com/2010/10/evanna-lynch-reads-foster-by-claire.html

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Name	Keegan, Claire
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Date of birth	1968
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