Introduced by Evelyn Conlon

Jeanette Winterson
Raised by adoptive parents in a household in which there were only 6 books, among them the Bible and Cruden’s Complete Concordance to the Old and New Testaments, Manchester-born Jeanette Winterson spent her early years reading Malory’s Morte d’Arthur “by flashlight in the outside toilet” before her growing love of literature took her to read English at Oxford. Employed in a variety of odd jobs, she wrote her first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, when she was 23, and also wrote the screenplay for the hugely popular BBC TV adaptation. Since then she has become one of the most essential writers of her generation, through books such as Sexing The Cherry (1989), Written On The Body (1992), Art & Lies (1994), The King of Capri (2003), Lighthousekeeping (2004) and last year’s Weight. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, Jeanette Winterson participates in the 2006 Dublin Writers Festival with the support of The British Council.

"Lighthousekeeping is an entrancing, gleaming crystal of a book, which left me bereft when it was over." - The Independent

"Weight is a masterpiece. As one of the inaugural volumes of the innovative Canongate myths series, it rewrites and reconfirms what fiction is, was, and might become." - Scotland On Sunday

Evelyn Conlon
Fiction writer and commentator Evelyn Conlon was born In Monaghan and now lives in Dublin. Her short story collections are My Head is Opening (1987), Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour (1993) and Telling: New and Selected Short Stories (2000) while her novels are Stars in the Daytime (1989), A Glassful of Letters (1998), and Skin of Dreams (Brandon, 2003). She was the editor of Cutting the Night in Two, an anthology of short fiction by Irish women writers, and her other editorial work includes Later On: The Monaghan Bombing Memorial Anthology (2004). Evelyn Conlon is a member of Aosdana.

"She is one of Ireland's major truly creative writers" - Books Ireland.