Louise Kennedy (writer)

Kennedy was born in 1967;^[1] she grew up in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland,^[2] and, from the age of 12, in Dublin and Kildare.^[3] She worked as a chef for 30 years before joining a creative writing group at a friend's insistence.^[4] She has an MA and a PhD in creative writing from Queen's University Belfast.^[3]

Kennedy's early short stories appeared in publications including The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, Banshee, Wasafiri and Ambit.^[3] She was shortlisted for the 2019 and 2020 Sunday Times Short Story Awards, for "In Silhouette" and "Sparing the Heather" respectively.^[5][6]

Kennedy's first novel, Trespasses (2022), was shortlisted for the 2022 (inaugural) Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize^[7] and the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.^[8] Kennedy has described the novel as "a star-crossed love story set in a small town near Belfast in 1975, at the height of the time known as The Troubles".^[2] It was developed as the 2025 TV series Trespasses.

She published a book of short stories, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, in 2023. Kirkus Reviews described the stories as "set in a contemporary Ireland divided by wealth and education".^[9] The Guardian's reviewer called it a "dazzling, heartbreaking debut collection",^[10] and the New York Journal of Books wrote of "deep-probing, slice-of-life stories seamlessly woven in stark vignettes without a filter".^[11]

She has also written for The Guardian, The Irish Times, and BBC Radio 4.^[12]

Kennedy lives in Sligo.^[12]