I’m Joanne, a writer and PhD graduate in Literary Practice from Trinity College Dublin, where I completed a creative and critical thesis exploring memoir as a genre and how its used as a way of working through trauma.

I write to make sense of the past, to trace the quiet moments that shaped me, and to explore how memory and language intertwine. My work frequently revisits themes of resilience, belonging, and the unspoken threads that connect family and place. My memoir is now complete and ready to be sent out to the world. Alongside this, I’m currently working on a collection of essays.

I also hold an MA in Writing from the University of Galway and a BA (Hons) in Social Care Practice, and I recentely completed my studies in Library and Information Practice at Ulster University. I’m passionate about the relationship between storytelling and access to knowledge—how both can offer connection, understanding, and, sometimes, a kind of repair.

Various awards and publications have recognised my creative and academic work. In 2024, I won the Write by the Sea (Memoir) Competition, and my winning piece was published in The Waxed Lemon. I was also shortlisted for the Christy Nolan ‘Perseverance Through Words’ Prize at Trinity College Dublin for a separate work. My writing has been featured in literary journals, including The Stinging Fly, Tir na nOg, and Olney magazine, with a forthcoming fiction piece to be published in The Paperclip magazine later this year. My lightning paper was selected for presentation at the Joint LAI/CILIP Conference in 2025.