About – Sonya Gildea

Sonya Gildea is an English language poet and writer of fiction, creative non-fiction and interdisciplinary prose. She is lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.

Selected Awards & Achievements:

Sonya was a DLR Arts emerging Writer-In-Residence (2023-2024).
She is recipient of an Irish Arts Council Artist Literature Bursary Award (2023).
She is recipient of an Irish Arts Council Literature Project Award (2024) ) in collaboration with Susan Tomaselli, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Nathan O’Donnell, Clare Bell, Oein DeBhairduin, Nithy Kasa, and creative partners Temple Bar Gallery +Studio.
She is winner of the John McGahern Literature Award (2021), selected by novelist, Louise Kennedy and poet, Vincent Woods.
She is winner of The Cúirt International New Writer’s Award in Fiction (2015).
She was awarded a National Mentorship Award (2022–2023) by the Irish Writer’s Centre NMP.
‘A Thousand Hours A Day‘ was top ten long-listed & published by Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize (2023). Judges: Meena Kandasamy, Jon McGregor & Jarred McGinnis and GBP Editors, Eloise Millar & Sam Jordison.
Sonya is a Poetry Ireland Introductions poet (2022), selected by poet & novelist, Seán Hewitt.
She is winner of a post-grad Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award (2020-2021).
She is recipient of an Emerging Artist Literature Bursary Award (2023) awarded by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Arts Office.
She was awarded a JHISS Bursary Award to attend the John Hewitt International Summer School & Festival of Literature, Politics & Art (2023).
She was poetry winner of June 2022 New Irish Writing, The Irish Independent.
She was awarded a Cill Rialaig Writer’s Residency (2022) by the Irish Writer’s Centre & the Irish Arts Council.
She was recipient of a Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Arts Office & Creative Ireland Artist Literature Bursary Award (2021).
She was recipient of a Writer’s Residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (2021).
She was selected for the Seamus Heaney Centre’s annual residential Summer Poetry School (2022), Queens University Belfast.
She was one of the five shortlisted poets for the Mairtín Crawford Award in Poetry (2022).

Studying

Sonya graduated with an MA (1^st) in Creative Writing from University College Dublin (2020).
Sonya completed the IWC NMP national mentorship award 2022 – 2023 working over the course of a year on a full length manuscript under the mentorship of Wendy Erskine.
Sonya has completed the Poetry Ireland Introductions programme of workshops under the mentorship of poets, Seán Hewitt, Annemarie Ní Churreáin and Jessica Traynor (2021).
Sonya completed the Seamus Heaney Centre’s residential Annual Summer Poetry School, Queens University Belfast (2022).
Sonya completed the John Hewitt International Summer School of Literature, Politics & Art (2023).
Sonya was awarded a place by Maynooth University Department of English and Kildare Arts Office, on the programme of creative workshops Experimental Publishing & Place by Writer-in-Residence, Nathan O’Donnell, producing the collective, co-authored experimental work Unfinished Topographies (2021).
Sonya completed the Irish Writer’s Centre courses:
- Autofiction with author, Joanna Walsh (2021)
- This Modern Life with poet, Rachel Long (2022)
- New Work Now, with poet, Rachel Long (2023)
- Auto-portraits, with author, Susan Tomaselli (2026)

Sonya has completed a University College Dublin foundation course in Human Rights.

Currently:

Everyone Has a Brother Who is Lost (fiction) is forthcoming as a Gorse pamphlet, issue 13 (Gorse, 2026), editor Susan Tomaselli. Sonya has written and is out to query with The Switching Yard, a short story collection. She is currently completing the poetry collection, 500 Seconds and researching ‘Sleeve Notes’, a collection of creative non-fiction & essays.

Sonya holds professional membership with the Irish Writer’s Centre.
She is a member of the professional writer’s cooperative forum WORD
Sonya is a member of the Irish Writer’s Centre panel for One-to-One mentoring.

what a day for a daydream….

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