Author, Academic & Theatre Practitioner
Elaine Desmond
Elaine Desmond is an award-winning writer. Based in Mallow, Co. Cork, she has had two plays produced, and her short stories have been shortlisted for the Bridport and Fish Short Story prizes. One of her short stories came second in the Colm Tóibín International Short Story prize as part of the Wexford Literary Festival. She takes inspiration from her travels around the world – from Classical Greek playwrights and mythology, Buddhism and Indian philosophy to African and Indian short story writers.
Art in all its forms is crucial to who I am and what I do.
I strive to show the beauty in the commonplace, to write as an artist. My work seeks to challenge people in how they see the world and how it is structured. It seeks to unsettle perceptions and prejudices, to raise questions and awareness.
My influences are Proust, Turgenev, Tolstoy, James Joyce and Colm Tóibín… writers who seek to blend art forms, to create beauty through writing about beauty. Writers who not only raise mirrors to their societies, but visionaries who bring a new perspective and guide people in seeing themselves and their worlds differently.
