Other Writing

Mostly book reviews, author interviews, book/TV/movie-related features, personal essays, writing/publishing advice, etc. I am a regular contributor to the Irish Times and more than a decade’s worth of bookish writings can be found at their website. A selection of my children’s/YA reviews for Inis (Children’s Books Ireland) can be found here.

Selected & recent pieces:

• A trivial comedy for serious YA readers, and more summer page-turners for teens (Irish Times, 2026)

• Summer YA reads: from a Snow White who’d prefer not to to same-sex love-love on the tennis court (Irish Times, 2026)

• Summer YA reading: Romeo and Juliet meet at a death resort while teenagers take over the world (Irish Times, 2026)

• Write Smarter with Claire Hennessy (Swirl and Thread, 2026)

• Digital grieving and dysfunctional justice systems: some tough and thought-provoking May YA reads (Irish Times, 2026)

• Buzzy, starry-eyed YA titles argue for the importance of the arts (Irish Times, 2026)

• Dragons, drowned worlds, different realities: March’s YA fiction picks (Irish Times, 2026)

• Kiss all the time. Dystopia, occasionally: YA reads for February (Irish Times, 2026)

• Murder, mayhem and the March sisters (Irish Times, 2026)

• December’s YA picks: A Bluebeard retelling, realism and a murderously good mystery (Irish Times, 2025)

• Contributor: Books of the year 2025 (Irish Times, 2025)

• November YA titles: surviving real and mystical horrors (Irish Times, 2025)

• The Rose Field by Philip Pullman: An exquisite pleasure (Irish Times, 2025)

• Best young adult fiction for Halloween: Creepy reads with human sacrifices aplenty (Irish Times, 2025)

• Monsters are everywhere in these Frankenstein-inspired YA reads (Irish Times, 2025)

• August’s Young Adult fiction: raising the stakes in sequels (Irish Times, 2025)

• We Don’t Use Words Like ‘Crazy’: Irish readers will find many points of comparison to this insider’s view of the crumbling NHS (Irish Times, 2025)

• Browser review: Eat The Ones You Love (Irish Times, 2025)

• Sinister experiments and girl-power cults feature in August’s young adult titles (Irish Times, 2025)

• Queer romance at the end of the world: the best new young-adult fiction (Irish Times, 2025)

• Strange new worlds and a summer camp murder: YA reads for June (Irish Times, 2025)

• Contributor: The best books for summer 2025: our critics’ top picks (Irish Times, 2025)

• Dystopian futures, war-torn pasts: May’s YA titles explore the darker side of humanity (Irish Times, 2025)

• Gaming, fandom, and therapy-speak: April’s YA titles explore contemporary adolescent culture(Irish Times, 2025)

• March’s best young adult fiction: deeply satisfying reads (Irish Times, 2025)

• February’s YA picks: Rebellion, reincarnation and romance (Irish Times, 2025)

• January’s YA titles: meditations on grief and mortality (don’t worry, there is still kissing) (Irish Times, 2025)

• Contributor: Read this and weep: Books that made writers cry(Irish Times, 2025)

• December’s YA picks: Genre fiction where horror tropes are subverted, thwarted and perpetuated (Irish Times, 2024)

• Contributor: The Irish Times best books of 2024 (Irish Times, 2024)

• November’s young-adult fiction: fantasy worlds and alien encounters (Irish Times, 2024)

• Unflinching examinations of contemporary teenage life in October’s YA picks (Irish Times, 2024)

• New YA titles for autumn from award-winning writers and illustrators (Irish Times, 2024)

• Celestial bodies, murder and time travel: YA books for August (Irish Times, 2024)

• June’s YA fiction: magical realism grounded by sharp observations about teenage social dynamics (Irish Times, 2024)

• March YA reads: love in a time of Famine (Irish Times, 2024)

• February YA roundup: Spring into horror mode (Irish Times, 2024)

• Libraries and LGBTQ+ books: controlling what people read is a dark, dangerous step (Irish Times, 2023)

• Uncomfortable truths and complexity in Service, by Sarah Gilmartin (Books Ireland magazine, 2023)

• Best young-adult fiction of 2022 (Irish Times, 2022)

• “If men did pregnancy, more horror would look like this…”: review of Where I End, by Sophie White (Books Ireland magazine, 2022)

• Survival stories that will leave lasting impressions: the latest YA titles (Irish Times, 2022)

• YA fiction: back to the past in June’s best books for teens (Irish Times, 2022)

• The Poet by Louisa Reid: tackles ‘problematic older man’ trope with nuance (Irish Times, 2022)

• How Irish YA and children’s authors embraced LGBTQ+ themes (Irish Independent, 2022)

• October’s best new YA: poetry, philosophy, politics (and kissing) (Irish Times, 2021)

• From the internet to historical stories: Meet the new female voices in Irish literature (Irish Examiner, 2021)

• Censorship and curation in children’s books (Irish Times, 2021)

• YA fiction: Children of Lir’s Aífe tells her side of the story (Irish Times, 2020)

• Miles O’Brien Redefines What it Means to be an Irishman in Space (StarTrek.com, 2020)

• Nuance and the danger of issues in young adult fiction (Irish Times, 2019)

• 8 Reasons to Watch ‘DS9’ During Pride Month (StarTrek.com, 2019) | adapted into a video essay (2021)

• The secret lives of writers (and their day jobs) (Irish Times, 2018)

• Face The Truth | Selective Storytelling In Bohemian Rhapsody (HeadStuff, 2018)

• The Devastation Of Comedy | Upstart Crow Season 3 Review (HeadStuff, 2018)

• Literature Essay | There Was No YA When I Was Growing Up (HeadStuff, 2018)

• Ode To The Psychiatrist’s Brother | 25 Years Of Frasier (HeadStuff, 2018)

• 25 Reasons Why Sleepless In Seattle, At 25, Is Still The Greatest Romantic Comedy Of All Time (HeadStuff, 2018)

• Behind The Form Rejection (HeadStuff, 2018)

• Ultimate Teen Angst Drama Dawson’s Creek Turns 20 (HeadStuff, 2018)

• Sneaky abortion novels? They’re a new movement, and I’ve signed up (Irish Times, 2017)

• Mental Illness & The Secret Wish-Fulfilment Of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (HeadStuff, 2017)

• The Star Trek Predictions Of The 21st Century | Are We On Course For World War 3? (HeadStuff, 2017)

• Older than you think: Irish teen fiction was alive and well in 1990s (Irish Times, 2016)

• The rise of the YA novel in verse (Irish Times, 2016)

• Frances Hardinge’s Costa triumph is a big win for all YA authors (Irish Times, 2016)

• Alan Rickman’s Snape charms, intrigues and by series end breaks our hearts (Irish Times, 2016)

• Contributor: David Bowie: Irish writers pay tribute (Irish Times, 2016)

• Speaking up: a brief history of rape culture in young adult fiction (Irish Times, 2015)

• The Feminist Goes to the Theatre (The Coven, 2015)

• What Irish Writers Did In College: Part 1 and Part 2 (writing.ie, 2012)