Claire Kilroy

Born in Dublin in 1973, Claire Kilroy grew up in the scenic fishing village of Howth, north of the city. Educated in the local primary school, Howth is central to two of her novels and she describes its beauty and character as fundamental to the person she became. Kilroy does not remember a time when she did not want to be an author. Her first story, written at the age of seven or eight, was a ghost story centred on a child who one night decides to break into a haunted house. Once inside, the child is chased by figures wearing chains and white sheets. Kilroy gave the story to her mother who laughed hysterically; Kilroy later learned she had misspelt sheet, replacing "ee" with the letter "i", resulting in her mother's reaction. Kilroy attended Trinity College, Dublin, studying English, as an undergraduate. She went on to work as an assistant editor on the BBC television drama Ballykissangel, while writing the first draft of her novel All Summer. In 2000, she decided to return to Trinity College and earned her M. Phil. in Creative Writing. Two authors Kilroy cites as influential to her work are John Banville and Vladimir Nabokov. After reading Lolita at age 16, she was inspired to write sentences as vividly as Nabokov. She counts Martin Amis, Andrew O'Hagan, and Michael Frayn among some of her favourite authors, while her favourite Irish novel is John Banville's Athena. Source: Wikipedia.org