Michael G. Casey; photo by Brian Redmond
Michael G. Casey; photo by Brian Redmond

Michael G. Casey was born in Naas, grew up in New Ross and now lives in Dublin, Ireland, married with three sons. An economist by training  (i.e. an accountant with personality), he found it relatively easy to transition to literature (his first love.) He believes that some economic concepts are helpful in writing novels, e.g. the law of diminishing returns, or knowing when to stop!

His experiences in university (Dublin and Cambridge) and his extensive travels around the world, as well as his work in Development Cooperation, gave him an abiding interest in human diversity, cultural differences, anthropology, and story-telling.

He writes about seemingly ordinary people who, when catastrophe strikes, react in extraordinary ways, drawing on deep instincts – love or hate, forgiveness or a desire for revenge, acceptance or denial. He finds people endlessly fascinating and doesn’t need to stray into the realms of science fiction, fantasy or action-packed technical wizardry. For him, novels and short stories are about people living in the real world.

For this reason he enjoys working with actors when directing plays with the Umbrella Theatre Company. Feedback from actors is vital for his plays and, indeed other forms of fiction. Actors have given him invaluable help in getting characters right.

He sometimes finds it difficult to stick to particular ‘genres’ because modern life, in all its marvellous, multicultural variety, does not fall neatly into prescribed categories which are, in any case, rather old-fashioned. There are elements of crime, horror, romance etc. in all of his novels but, as in life, no one element dominates

He has published five novels to date, a book of non-fiction, an award-winning chapbook of short fiction, and he will be publishing a collection of poetry early in 2019, and another novel later in the year. Many of his plays have been produced on stage in different theatres in Dublin, and one, by invitation, in the Henrik Ibsen Museum, Oslo.

He writes occasionally for the Irish Times and Sunday Times.

He has won many awards, national and international, for fiction, poetry and plays, and has been anthologised with writers such as Seamus Heaney, Nadine Gordimer, Derek Walcott, Billy Collins, Jorge Luis Borges. He continues to appreciate and follow the advice of Samuel Beckett to ‘fail better’.

Click to see list of publications

Poetry

Flight, Winner, Georgia Poetry Society Award 2003, Anthologised in GPS Anniversary Collection, The Reach of Song, 2003

A Fate Takes a Holiday, Winner Atlanta Review Prize 2003, Atlanta Review, 2003, anthologised in The Gift of Experience, Summer 2005

The Still Centre, Winner, Writers’ Week Listowel Winners Volume, 2000

Riverrun, Winner , Siarscéal, Castlerea 2008

A Mandolin Hung in the Shed, Envoi, No 134, Feb 2003

Another Presence, ibid.

A Splinter of Light, Poetry Ireland, No 72, 2002

Straight as a Die, Staple, No 41, 1998

Greyhound, Staple, No 36, 1996

Altersuggestion, Staple, No 41, 1998

Geologists, Poetry Ireland, No 72, 2002

Grey, Envoi, No 134, 2003

Sandman’s Lullaby, Poetry Ireland, No 54, 1997

Back to the World, ibid.

An Historical Footnote, Staple No. 40, Winter 1997

Altersuggestion, ibid.

Touch, Poetry Ireland, No 60, 1999

Geologists, Poetry Ireland, No 72, 2002

Water Play (short-listed for Clogh Award)

The Loss that Height Entails (shortlisted for Strokestown Award)

Hiding in Plain Sight (accepted for Publication by Alan Ross, London Quarterly)

Monet: Musée Marmottan (shortlisted for Listowel Prize)

Under a Black Flag (Oxfam Calendar Award, 2007)

A Presleytarian Church, Jazzclaw, 2003

A Round Tower, Bardsong, 2002

Give or Take a Lustrum, Bardsong, 2002

Blurred Divide, shortlisted for Tonbridge Wells Award, Windows Anthology, Worple Press,2007

Just Marbles, shortlisted for Clogh Award, 2005

Arctic Opera, Stinging Fly, Winter 2008.

Cooling the Heart, Convergence, 2008

The Blind Empiricist, Convergence, 2008

Cormorant Fisherman, Cyphers, 2010

Bulloch Harbour, Gregory O’Donoghue Prize, Southward Journal, 2011

Leavened Bread, Prize-Winner, Boyle Arts Festival, 2009

Clouds Cease Drifting, Revival, Jan 2008

With Sleeves Rolled Up, Certificate of Merit, Golden Pen Competition, 2009

Such Closeness, Certificate of Merit, Golden Pen Competition, 2009

The Adaptation of Mr Fitzgerald, R*K*V*Ry, 2010

Caoilte, Galway Ropes, 2011

I Know the Score, Honourable Mention, Lucidity Poetry Journal
International Poetry Competition, 2011

An Exaltation of Larks, The Stony Thursday Book, 2011

Tolstoy’s Myriad Landscapes, Poetry Ireland, 2012

The Sea’s Uncertainty, Highly Commended, Siarscéal Festival 2012

Going Home that November, Cyphers, 2012

The Horseman Dream, Abridged, 2013

Love Poem, Atlanta Review, Spring / Summer 2013

Guitar in Shop Window, Atlanta Review, Spring / Summer 2013

Allotment, Iota Magazine, 93-94, 2013

Feeling The Eclipse, Iota Magazine, 93-94, 2013

Blending, St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, The Edition, 2014

Clotho Learns to Knit, Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual, 2014

Lost Place, The Shop, 2014

Backs of Houses, ibid. 2014

Fever Sheds, ibid. 2014

Dura Mater Caves, The Shop, 2014

The Shape of Rain, Yeovil Literary Prize-Winning Anthology, 2012 and 2013

A Plane at Night, Cyphers, 2014

Snapshot and Waffles, Orbis, 2014

Jacks for Office, Hungry Hill Writing Prize, 2015

English Speaks Seductively, Hungry Hill, Highly Commended, 2015

Second Feature At The G.P.O., Hungry Hill, Commended, 2015

Shock and Awe, Hungry Hill, Commended, 2015

Always in Search, Goldsmith Poetry Prize, 2015

The Climber Thinks of Home, Highly Commended, Francis Ledwidge International Award, 2015

Death of Cuchulainn?, Prize-winner, Reclaim 1916 International Poetry Competition, 2016

Arising out of Darkness, Chosen for Limerick Writers’ 1916 Anthology, 2016

Mouse Throw, Southword Journal, Munster Poetry, 2017

Palmer, Highly Commended, Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Award, 2016

Atrium, Stepaway Magazine, Spring 2017

Mr. Photon, Orbis, #179, 2017

Sleeves Rolled Up, Highly Commended, Annual Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Awards, 2017, Commended, Francis Ledwidge Awards, 2017

An Avenue Cuts, Poetry Ireland Review, Issue 124/5, 2018

Fluke, Humanagerie Anthology, 2018

Cloncon Garden and the Tree of Knowledge, Winning Poem at  Words by Water, Kinsale Festival, 2018 (Judge: Niall McMonagle)

Fate, Cyphers, 2018

Waiting with a View of the Lane, Commendation, The Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Awards, 2018

Birds of the AirAllegro Poetry Magazine, March 2019

Façades, Jewish Literary Journal, January, 2019

Crossing Themes, Crossways Magazine, 2019

On the Fly, Orbis, #186, 2019

 

Poetry Collections

A Collection, Nor Have We Wings, shortisted for The May Swenson Award, 2002, Utah State University

A Collection, Untitled, shortlisted for The Tipperary Chap-Book Award,
2007

A Collection, No Room at Home, shortisted for Listowel Poetry
Collection Competition 2009.

A Collection, Back to the World, shortlisted for Listowel Poetry
Collection Competition, 2013

A Collection for Patrick Kavanagh Award 2014, Highly
Commended.

Broken Circle, a Collection, accepted by Salmon Press.

A Collection, Second Prize, Patrick Kavanagh Poetry award, 2018

 

Prose Published

Short Fiction: published in The London Magazine, Bridport Anthology, Columbia Magazine of Prose and Poetry, The Tribune, Tipperary Arts Festival Chapbook Series, etc.

Securex, The Bridport Anthology, Samson and Company, 2000; and in Signals-3, London Magazine Stories Selected by Alan Ross and Jane Rye, 2001

Mssrs Trimble and Cluestar, Columbia Magazine of Poetry and Prose, The Lost Issues, 1993

The Sign of the Dog, Columbia Magazine of Poetry and Prose, Number 9, 1984

The Wrong Address, adapted for Radio, Radio Telefís Éireann, 2001

Normality, The Tribune (shortlisted for Hennessy Award), 1992

The Mystery of it All, The Tribune (Short-List for Hennessy Award), 1994

Treadmill, Tipperary Arts Festival Winners Chapbook, First Prize, 2006

Daniel and Brad and Wheeze Momma, Ibid.

Boring for England, shortlisted for Best Story, Listowel Writers Week, 2008

Grey and Brown Unrelieved, shortlisted for Molly Keane Creative Writing Award, 2008

Letter to Meryl, Orbis, 2014

Playing Through, Leapfrog Press, Spring 2015

Soul Crows, a Memoir, Longlisted for Stinging Fly Memoir Competition, 2016

Bedrock, The Honest Ulsterman, 2016

Letter to Meryl – the Sequel, Orbis, #179, 2017

Daily Bread, Second Prize in Words by Water, Kinsale Literary Festival, 2017 and Commended by Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Awards, 2017.

Storyline, Fictive Dream … 2018

Quietude, Story Magazine … 2018

Trending, a Play, Scrittura Magazine, 2018

Dough, Peacock Journal, 2018

Letter From the Curia, shortlisted and Highly Commended in the Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Awards, 2018

Letter to Meryl: Final Sequel, Orbis, #186, 2019

 

Books

Come Home, Robbie, Published by O’brien Press, 1990

Ireland’s Malaise, Published by The Liffey Press, Oct, 2010

Treadmill, A Chapbook of Short-Stories, 2008

The Visit, Anaphora Press, 2017

Smudged Mascara, Azimuth Publishing 2019

Maura’s Dance with Uncle Sam, Azimuth Publishing 2019

The Killing of Ros Grenham, Azimuth Publishing 2019

 

Plays

Wedding Speech, performed by Radió Telefís Éireann, 2003

Tabu, First Prize At Listowel Writers’ Week, 2007, performed as Joyce’s Wake in Mill Theatre, Dundrum, 2014

The High Priest of Hackballscross, performed in Mill Theatre, Dundrum, 2014

Joyce’s Wake, performed in Mill Theatre and Players’ Theatre Trinity College, 2015

Bit Parts, rehearsed reading at Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, 2012

Contrast, rehearsed reading at Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, 2013

Cupidity, performed, National Gallery of Ireland, 2014

Dimples and Sin, performed, National Gallery of Ireland, 2014

Get Down with the Groove, performed Players’ Theatre, Trinity College

Transatlantic Therapy, performed in Players’ Theatre, Trinity College

Wait Now, rehearsed reading in Mill Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, 2017

Essays

Hundreds of articles, essays and book reviews in The Irish Times, Sunday Times, Business and Finance, Dublin Review of Books, etc.

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