Kathleen Murray was born in Carlow and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. She has published work in The Stinging Fly, Dublin Review, Winter Papers and various anthologies. The Deadwood Encore, her first novel, was published by Harper Collins in 2022. Set in Carlow, a small town in the southeast of Ireland, it tells the story of Frank Whelan, a seventh son of a seventh son, and his journey of self-discovery. The Deadwood Encore was chosen by Claire Keegan as her book of the year for 2022 and Kevin Barry called it 'brilliant, full of vitality and voice’. Kathleen is currently editing a collection of her short stories.

 

Arun Sood is a Scottish-Indian writer and academic. He was born in Aberdeen to a West-highland mother and a Punjabi father, and has since lived in Glasgow, Amsterdam, DC, and now South Devon where he is Lecturer in English at the University of Plymouth. Arun's research interests include Scottish literature, postcolonialism, diaspora, and memory studies, which he explores through a broad range of outputs including academic publications, fiction, and collaborations with musicians and visual artists. In 2022, Arun published his debut novel New Skin For The Old Ceremony: A Kirtan with 404 Ink. The novel explores changing notions of home, heritage, and belonging among the South Asian diaspora in Scotland. It follows four estranged friends who reunite for a motorcycle trip on the Isle of Skye in the hope of coming to terms with how their lives have splintered since a transformative ride in Northern India fourteen years earlier. The book is presented as a Kirtan - a classical Indian form of storytelling focusing on music, shared narration, and spiritual ideas - and is structured around 12 tracks from a Leonard Cohen album of the same name.