Join Irish writers Bebe Ashley, Eimear Ryan, and Jessica Traynor, in conversation with Zach Powers, Executive & Artistic Director of The Writer's Center, for a conversation about the work of Banshee Press in the context of the current explosion of Irish literary talent, and how support for the Arts plays into the success of Irish writers.
WHEN: Saturday, May 23 | 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
WHERE: The Writer's Center (4508 Walsh St Bethesda, MD)
TICKETS: Free with reservation
Jessica Traynor, the Poetry Editor at Banshee Press, is a poet, essayist and librettist. Her debut collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times book of the year. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and a Guardian Best Summer Read of 2022. She was the 2023 recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. Other awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Prize, the Listowel Poetry Prize, and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. A new collection, New Arcana, is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books in 2025.
Bebe Ashley lives in Northern Ireland and works at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. Her debut collection Gold Light Shining (Banshee Press, 2020) was selected for the Arts Council’s Read Mór programme in 2022. Her work is most recently published in Granta, The Stinging Fly, bath magg, and Modern Poetry in Translation. In 2023, Bebe received the Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment (Text) and in 2024, she received a British Council Fellowship.
Author photoby Matthew Thompson
Eimear Ryan, the Managing Editor of Banshee Press, is the author of the novel Holding Her Breath (Sandycove 2021, Mariner Books 2022) and the memoir The Grass Ceiling: On Being a Woman in Sport (Sandycove 2023), which won Sports Book of the Year at the 2023 Irish Book Awards. She has also been shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Awards, the Kate O’Brien Award, and the John McGahern Annual Book Prize. Other writing has appeared in Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review and The Stinging Fly. From Co. Tipperary, she now lives in Cork city, where she lectures in creative writing at University College Cork.
Zach Powers is the author of the new novel The Migraine Diaries (JackLeg 2026), the novel First Cosmic Velocity, and the story collection Gravity Changes, winner of the Boa Short Fiction Prize. His writing has been featured by American Short Fiction, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. He serves as Executive & Artistic Director for The Writer’s Center and Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal. Originally from Savannah, Georgia, he now lives in Arlington, Virginia. Get to know him at ZachPowers.com.
About Banshee Press
Banshee Press is a small independent Irish publisher, founded in 2015 and currently run by award-winning writers Eimear Ryan and Jessica Traynor. To date the press has published ten books of fiction. Our authors include Bebe Ashley, Dylan Brennan, Lucy Sweeney Byrne, Gustav Parker Hibbett, Claire-Lise Kieffer, Tim MacGabhann, Mary Morrissy, Billy Ramsell, Deirdre Sullivan, Rosamund Taylor and David Toms. We have recently celebrated our tenth anniversary, and the 20th issue of our diverse literary journal Banshee, which published flash fiction, poetry, flash fiction and essays.
In 2024 and 2025, Banshee Press was selected as the island of Ireland winner in the Small Press of the Year Award at the Nibbies, The Bookseller’s annual publishing awards. Banshee Press authors have recently been listed for or won such awards as the Edge Hill Prize, the Kate O'Brien Award, the Butler Literary Award, the John McGahern Annual Book Prize, the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize, the Polari First Book Prize, the Ivan Juritz Prize, the Laurel Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the John Pollard International Poetry Prize.
About The Writer's Center
The Writer’s Center supports writers and everyone who wants to write! Every year we offer hundreds of creative writing workshops in all genres and for all experience levels, dozens of free events for writers, and countless opportunities to connect with the Washington DC and national literary communities.
