Danielle McLaughlin: Rituals

Author Danielle McLaughlin will be in conversation with Mia Colleran about her latest book, Rituals. The novel tells the story of Joan, a public servant in her fifties, who is forced to navigate life afresh. An unexpected career break prompts her to take in a lodger, a young man studying English Literature at the university. Together they must learn to negotiate everything from a shared bathroom to the hazards of global warming. Set in Cork city, Rituals takes us inside an obsessive mind and invites us to reflect upon the power and beauty contained within our daily lives, but also the dark grip of compulsion.

Danielle McLaughlin’s short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. She is the author of the short-story collection, Dinosaurs On Other Planets (2015) and two novels, The Art of Falling (2021), and Rituals (2026). She lives in Cork and has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a Markievicz Award from the Arts Council, a Windham-Campbell Prize, and the Sunday Times Short Story Prize.

Mia Colleran is a writer and editor with experience across publishing, bookselling, and journalism. She has had book reviews and features published in The Guardian, The Paris Review, and The Irish Times, among others.

Expect an in-depth conversation about crafting memorable characters, economical writing, and moving between short stories and the novel format.

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