Claire Hennessy is a writer, editor, book reviewer, and creative writing facilitator from Dublin, Ireland.

She is the author of twelve books for young people, publishing since 2000, and her most recent YA novels Like Other Girls and Nothing Tastes As Good are published by Hot Key Books. Her novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal.

Her shorter work (fiction, poetry) has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Necessary Fiction, Prairie Schooner, The Moth, Southword, Correspondences, and The Lonely Crowd. She won the 2015 Doolin Short Story Prize (Ireland) and the 2022 Virginia Faulkner Award (USA). Claire has received three Arts Council bursaries (for both short fiction and YA) and an Agility Award (for workshops with young people), alongside local county council artists’ bursaries, and holds masters’ degrees in both Popular Literature and Creative Writing (TCD).

She reviews YA fiction for The Irish Times, children’s fiction for Inis, and other bits and pieces elsewhere. Claire regularly delivers author visits, writing workshops, and other book/publishing-related events for schools, colleges, libraries and festivals. She also provides mentoring, editing, and consultation services.

Claire has worked in arts administration (as co-director, co-founder, and course coordinator at the Big Smoke Writing Factory creative writing school in Dublin), educational administration, commercial publishing (as editor with Penguin Random House Ireland) and small-press/literary-journal publishing (as co-founder of and editor at Banshee). She is powered mostly by tea.