Danielle McLaughlin

Writer

Danielle McLaughlin

Danielle McLaughlin is an Irish author. Danielle McLaughlin’s stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Stinging Fly, The New Yorker, Southword, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times and, and have been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short stories Dinosaurs on Other Planets was published in Ireland by The Stinging Fly Press in 2015, and subsequently in the UK (John Murray), US (Random House), Germany (Luchterhand), Uruguay (alter ediciones) and Slovakia (Inaque). She edited Counterparts, an anthology of work by writers with legal backgrounds, published in November 2018 by The Stinging Fly Press, proceeds in aid of Peter McVerry Trust. In 2019, she was a Windham-Campbell Prize recipient and won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Her first novel, The Art of Falling, was published in 2021 by John Murray and was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2022. In 2023 she was a recipient of a Markievicz Award. Her novel, Rituals, is being published in April 2026 by Stinging Fly Press. 

Reviews

Rituals

Joan, a public servant in her fifties, is in the habit of living alone. Or rather, she’s in the habit of living with the many rituals and routines—some ordinary, some less so—that allow her to navigate her days.
It’s a system that works very well for Joan… until it doesn’t. 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. By turns tender, funny and poignant, it celebrates the bravery involved in opening our hearts to change and to chance.

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Cover Art is by Siobhán Rea.

Rituals grew out of a collaboration with Siobhán, a Dublin-based artist and teacher whose work spans the disciplines of painting, multi-media and collaborative practice. Siobhan's personal practice is concerned with our need to construct rituals in our confusing everyday.  @0830ritual


Publications

2015

Dinosaurs on Other Planets


A short story collection, published by The Stinging Fly Press in 2015t 2


01Dinosaurs On Other Planets – The Stinging Fly5

2021

The Art of Falling

Rituals, a novel, published by Stinging Fly Press 2026

Rituals – The Stinging Fly

  • What they're saying......

    Joan, a public servant in her fifties, is in the habit of living alone. Or rather, she’s in the habit of living with the many rituals and routines—some ordinary, some less so—that allow her to navigate her days.

    It’s a system that works very well for Joan… until it doesn’t. 

  • Sarah Gilmartin

    “Poignant, funny and humane, Rituals is a story of hope for these neurotic times. Danielle McLaughlin probes the dark corners of the mind with great originality and compassion. I loved it.”

  • Neil Hegarty

    “Rituals is a superb achievement, a story simultaneously shadowed by obsession and illuminated by wit and acute observation.”

  • Kathleen MacMahon

    “In Rituals, Danielle McLaughlin uses a small viewfinder to reveal a delicate and tender story. Her characters are good people, fighting to retain their humanity in a complicated and sometimes cruel world. I savoured every page.”

  • Jan Carson

    “Danielle McLaughlin remains one of the best writers in Ireland. Rituals is warm, funny, full of humanity and peppered with devastating insight. I could spend another six hundred pages with these characters. You’re going to fall in love with this book.”

Get in touch

New Paragraph

Danielle is represented by Lucy Luck of Lucy Luck Associates


Lucy can be contacted at lucy@lucyluck.com

Or 0044 (0) 77 1559 2529