About – Sonya Gildea

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

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) ) in collaboration with Susan Tomaselli, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Nathan O’Donnell, Nithy Kasa, Clare Bell and TBG+S.
She is a Poetry Ireland Introductions poet (2021/2022), selected by poet, Seán Hewitt.
She is winner of the John McGahern Literature Award (2021), selected by Louise Kennedy and Vincent Woods.
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 to work over the course of a year under the mentorship of Wendy Erskine.
She was included in a top ten long listing & publication by the UK Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize (2023), selected by 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).

Studying

Sonya graduated with an MA (1^st) 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 to work over the course of a year on a full length manuscript under the mentorship of Wendy Erskine.
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.

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.

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….

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .