“Ghost Moth is a beautiful book by a wonderful writer”
Frank McGuinness

Chairperson: Vanessa O’Loughlin

There are many paths to publishing success, and some of them involve Dublin Writers Festival. A few years ago, actress and aspiring writer Michèle Forbes came to the festival to attend a workshop with the Pulitzer-prizewinning novelist Paul Harding. Finding that her manuscript had been firmly rejected by British and Irish publishers, Harding invited her to try his. His publishing house snapped the book up and Ghost Moth was published to acclaim, first in the US and then by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK. Set in post-war Northern Ireland and tracing the fallout from one devastating summer of passion and lies, Ghost Moth was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards last year.

Now Forbes returns to the festival to tell the story of her extraordinary success. Joined by her editor, Sophie Buchan of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Forbes shares her experiences, tracing the journey from manuscript to publication, exploring the importance of the author-editor relationship and reading from her acclaimed debut.