Sheena Wilkinson

Described in The Irish Times as ‘one of our foremost writers for young people’, Sheena Wilkinson writes novels and short stories. Since the publication of the internationally multi-award-winning young-adult novel, Taking Flight in 2010, she has won five Children’s Books Ireland awards, including the Book of the Year Award for Grounded (2012), and most recently the Honour Award for Fiction for Star By Star (2017). In 2012 Sheena was granted a Major Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, its highest award, given to artists of national and international importance. She was the inaugural Bringing to Book writer-in-residence at the Church of Ireland College of Education in Dublin, and Ireland’s first patron of reading, for Trinity Comprehensive School in Ballymun. She tutors for Arvon and teaches Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin. She set up and runs the Belfast Inter-Schools creative writing network, for young writers. Her doctoral research explored the relationship between adult and children’s fiction, and she continues to contribute to discourse on children’s literature. Sheena lives in County Down and travels extensively to meet readers, especially in schools and libraries.