Sonya Gildea is an English language poet and writer of fiction and creative non-fiction/ interdisciplinary prose, based in Dublin, Ireland.
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Selected Awards & Achievements:
- Sonya is dlr emerging Writer-In-Residence (2023-2024) appointed by Dun Laoghaire Arts Office.
- She is recipient of an Irish Arts Council Artist Literature Bursary Award (2023).
- She is recipient of an Irish Arts Council Project Literature Award (2024).
- She is a Poetry Ireland Introductions poet (2021/2022), selected by poet, Seán Hewitt.
- She is winner of the John McGahern Literature Award (2021).
- She is winner of a post-grad Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award (2020-2021).
- She is winner of The Cúirt International New Writer’s Award in Fiction (2015).
- 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 awarded a National Mentorship Award (2022–2023) by the Irish Writer’s Centre NMP, DLR Arts Office & the Irish Arts Council.
- She was included in a top ten long listing & publication by the UK Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize (2023), judges Meena Kandasamy, Jon McGregor & Jarred McGinnis and GBP Editors, Eloise Millar & Sam Jordison.
- 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).
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Studying & Learning
- Sonya graduated with an MA (1st) in Creative Writing from University College Dublin (2020).
- Sonya has completed Poetry Ireland Introductions programme 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 was awarded an IWC NMP mentorship award 2022 – 2023.
- 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)
- Sonya has completed a University College Dublin foundation course in Human Rights.
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Currently:
Sonya has completed The Switching Yard, a collection of short stories. Sonya is researching and developing a first novel, Everyone Has A Brother Who is Lost. She is writing the poetry collection, 500 Seconds; and has written the chapbook The Nine River Beats of Owenea in collaboration with Irish visual artist, Sorca O’Farrell, and set in Glenties, Co. Donegal.
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- Sonya holds professional membership with the Irish Writer’s Centre.
- She is a member of the professional writer’s cooperative forum WORD
what a day for a daydream….
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