Kelly Creighton is the award-winning author of six critically acclaimed novels, including the DI Harriet Sloane series, Souls Wax Fair and The Bones of It (San Diego Book Review’s 2015 Book of the Year, Kate O’Brien Award longlisted, and studied at university level).

She is the author of two short story collections, Everybody’s Happy and Bank Holiday Hurricane (shortlisted for the Saboteur Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize).

Her short fiction has been awarded runner-up for the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award and the Abroad Writers’ Conference Short-Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and Cuirt New Writing Prize. Kelly’s stories have featured in Southword, The Stinging Fly, Litro and other journals, and have been anthologised in Salt’s Best British Short Stories and Alternative Ulster Noir, among other places. In 2014 she founded The Incubator literary journal, which showcases the contemporary Irish short story.

Kelly has penned one poetry book and co-authored another. Her poetry was shortlisted for the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing and highly commended for the Gregory O’ Donoghue Poetry Prize. She has published over a hundred poems in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Under the Radar, The Honest Ulsterman, and Banshee. She holds an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University, Belfast.

She has presented at numerous literary festivals, such as Aspects, Boston Book Festival (USA), Belfast Book Festival, Cork International Short Story Festival, Cuirt, Dublin Book Festival, and Feile an Phobail.

Kelly is a creative writing mentor and a professional member of the Irish Writers Centre and the Crime Writers Association. Kelly lives in Co Down with her husband, two daughters, two sons and three dogs.