Skein Press was established in June 2017 to foster and publish writers whose work is fresh and thought-provoking and features outlooks and experiences not often represented in Irish publishing.
Robin Munby (Liverpool, 1991) is a literary translator based in Madrid. His translations from Spanish, Russian and Asturian have appeared in publications including The GlasgowReview of Books, World Literature Today, minorliterature[s], Subtropics, Wasafiri, Poetry IrelandReview, Exchanges, World Poetry Review and Asymptote. In December 2023, he was the inaugural resident at the Residencia Lliteraria Xixón in Asturias. His translation of the novel Ánima fatua by the Cuban writer Anna Lidia Vega Serova (Amaurea Press, 2025) received an English PEN Translates Award in 2025.
‘A remarkable testament to all that is found in translation: a collection of poems, a matrilineage, the Asturian poetic tradition, and a reminder that every storyteller since Shahrazad keeps it all alive.’ — Anton Hur
Raquel F. Menéndez (Vallouta, Salas, 1993) is an Asturian poet. Her Spanish-language poetry collection Libélula was published in 2013, followed by the Asturian-language collection El llibru póstumu de Sherezade, published by Impronta in 2017. El llibru póstumu de Sherezade was awarded the Nené Losada Rico prize for Asturian poetry and chosen as the best book in Asturian in 2017 by the Tertulia Malory Jury. Her poetry often engages with issues such as the oral transmission of language and culture, the lives of women in rural communities, and intergenerational memory, as well as landscape and place.
‘A remarkable testament to all that is found in translation: a collection of poems, a matrilineage, the Asturian poetic tradition, and a reminder that every storyteller since Shahrazad keeps it all alive.’ — Anton Hur
Dr Phil Mullen, Assistant Professor Black Studies, Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin. Phil Mullen was born in Dublin and grew up in the Irish industrial school system. Returning to education in her 20s, she graduated in English and Philosophy from Trinity. Her M.Phil. in Women’s Studies analysed the role of women as perpetrators of violence during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. She completed her PhD as a Government of Ireland PhD scholar and examined the racist and racialised aspects of how Black mixed African-Irish women who grew up in the Irish institutional care system without families construct their identity.
Roxana Manouchehri is an Iranian-Irish multidisciplinary artist, writer, translator and art advisor based in Dublin. She received an MFA in Fine Art from the Tehran University of Art. She teaches art across universities and museums worldwide and has showcased her work in more than 50 group exhibitions and 17 solo shows internationally. She has received awards from the Solstice Arts Center, The Arts Council of Ireland, and the National Youth Council of Ireland. Roxana is a founder of Transnational Arts Ireland, a digital platform promoting intercultural artistic exchange between countries.
“This is not a cookbook is not a cookbook: it’s a work of art that makes something brand new from recipes handed down through generations.”— Sarah Gilmartin
Charles Lang is from Glasgow. His poems have appeared in numerous publications including Poetry Ireland Review, The Poetry Review and The Stinging Fly. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2022. In 2024, he was Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, and was shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.
Chrissy Donoghue Ward is a Dublin-based poet and storyteller. Her stories are from the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community. Chrissy has a long history of activism and community engagement and is passionate about education and the opportunities it provides for all. The Fairy Queen is her first book for children.
A tale rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community told by beloved storyteller Chrissy Donoghue Ward and illustrated by Monika Mitkute, co-published by Irish presses Little Island and Skein Press
A tale rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community. Written by beloved storyteller Chrissy Donoghue Ward and narrated here by Elizabeth Ward. Illustrated by Monika Mitkute
Keith Payne is the author of nine collections of poetry in translation and original poetry, most recently Building the Boat (Badly Made Books, 2023), as featured on BBC Radio 4’s The Essay. He was John Broderick Writer in Residence 2021- 22, Cork City Eco Poet in Residence 2023, was awarded an Artist in the Community Scheme from Create in 2022 and an Arts Council Literature Bursary in 2022. Awarded an Irish Professor of Poetry Bursary Award in 2016, he curates the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange Ireland/Galicia.
The first English translation of one of the most pivotal collections in contemporary Galician poetry, Whales and Whalesnavigates the urgent, playful, shapeshifting journey of a young woman affirming her place in the world.
Luisa Castro is the author of nine collections of poetry and six novels. She has been awarded the King Juan Carlos Prize, The Hiperión Prize and the Herralde Prize among others. She was Director of the Cervantes Institute in Naples (2012-2017), Bordeaux (2017-2022), and is currently Director of the Cervantes Institute in Dublin (2022-present). She is a regular contributor to the Spanish El País newspaper and celebrated as one of the most important voices in contemporary Galician poetry.
The first English translation of one of the most pivotal collections in contemporary Galician poetry, Whales and Whalesnavigates the urgent, playful, shapeshifting journey of a young woman affirming her place in the world.
Majed Mujed was born in Iraq in 1971 and has lived in Ireland since 2015. One of the founders of the Iraqi House of Poetry, he worked as a journalist and publisher in the Iraqi cultural press for twenty years. He has published five collections of poetry in Arabic and has garnered awards for his work from the Al Mada Cultural Foundation, Iraqi House of Wisdom and Iraqi Intellectuals Conference. In 2021, he was one of the inaugural recipients of a Play It Forward Fellowship from the Arts Council of Ireland.
In a series of evocative vignettes, celebrated Iraqi poet Majed Mujed lyrically traverses the fraught landscapes of beauty, longing and resistance in a country at war. The Book of Trivialities, originally written in the poet’s native Arabic, is beautifully rendered into English by award-winning translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
Kareem James Abu-Zeid, PhD, is a freelance translator of poets and novelists from across the Arab world who translates from Arabic, French and German. His work has won numerous awards and accolades, including the 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation for the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish’s book Exhausted on the Cross (NYRB Poets, 2021). He is also the author of The Poetics of Adonis and Yves Bonnefoy: Poetry as Spiritual Practice (Lockwood, 2019). His most recent translation is Chaos, Crossing by Olivia Elias (WorldPoetry Books, 2022). The online hub for his work is http://www.kareemjamesabuzeid.com.
In a series of evocative vignettes, celebrated Iraqi poet Majed Mujed lyrically traverses the fraught landscapes of beauty, longing and resistance in a country at war. The Book of Trivialities, originally written in the poet’s native Arabic, is beautifully rendered into English by award-winning translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
Deirdre Sullivan is an award-winning writer and teacher from Galway. She has written eight books for young adults, including Savage Her Reply (Little Island 2020), and a collection of short fiction, I Want To Know That I Will Be Okay (Banshee Press 2021).
In this unique collaboration, writers Deirdre Sullivan and Oein DeBhairduin and artist Yingge Xu explore their shared passion for storytelling, folklore and ritual. Encompassing eight stories inspired by the eight festivals in the wheel of the year, this book illuminates our experiences and traverses our fears, intertwining older threads with contemporary spaces.
Designed by artist and bookbinder Éilís Murphy in a tête-bêche format, this unique and tactile book is exquisitely illustrated by Yingge Xu.
Jayne A. Quan is, in no particular order, a queer, transmasculine, non-binary Asian American who received their Master of Arts from University College Dublin. Their work has been featured in Banshee, Call & Response, First Person PBS, and Advice for and from the Future. They were shortlisted for the 2019 Cosmonauts Avenue Non-Fiction Prize. They grew up in the sunshine off the coast of California, worked as a photographer in New York, and enjoyed the rain in Dublin, Ireland. Controversially, they claim to love cats and dogs equally.
Mícheál McCann is from Derry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, The Manchester Review, and Queering the Green. He is the author of two pamphlets, Safe Home (Green Bottle Press, 2020) and Keeper (fourteen poems, 2022).
Through poetry, imagery and lyric prose, writers Kerri ní Dochartaigh and Mícheál McCann in collaboration with photographer Michelle Moloney explore the seeds of beginnings and endings, and the search for places where we find ourselves and each other. Filled with hope and elegy, these evocative reflections offer a measure of grace, solace and renewal.
Kerri ní Dochartaigh is the author of Thin Places (Canongate, 2020) which was highly commended by the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021. She has written for the Guardian, the Irish Times, the BBC, Winter Papers, and others. Her second book, Cacophony of Bone, is forthcoming in April 2023.
Through poetry, imagery and lyric prose, writers Kerri ní Dochartaigh and Mícheál McCann in collaboration with photographer Michelle Moloney explore the seeds of beginnings and endings, and the search for places where we find ourselves and each other. Filled with hope and elegy, these evocative reflections offer a measure of grace, solace and renewal.
Rosaleen McDonagh is a writer, playwright, performer and a member of Aosdána. Her plays include TheBaby Doll Project, She’s Not Mine, Rings, The Prettiest Proud Boy and Mainstream. Her most recent commissions were Walls and Windows, followed by Backbone for the Abbey Theatre and Context for Pavee Point, which loosely documents the forty-year history of Pavee Point. She is part of the Navigator Series by Fishamble for 2026.She is the author of Unsettled (Skein Press, 2021) and Contentious Spaces (Skein Press, forthcoming). Rosaleen holds a BA, two MPhils from Trinity College Dublin and a PhD from Northumbria University. She was reappointed a Human Rights Commissioner in June 2025 and is a member of the Arts Council of Ireland.
Oein DeBhairduin is a writer, activist and educator with a passion for preserving the beauty of Traveller tales, sayings, retellings and historic exchanges. Oein is the author of the award-winning Why the moon travels. His other works are Weave, The Slug and the Snail andTwiggy Woman. He is the Curator of Traveller Culture with the National Museum of Ireland and seeks to pair community activism with cultural celebration, recalling old tales with fresh modern connections and, most of all, he wishes to rekindle the hearth fires of a shared kinship.
From award-winning author OeinDeBhairduin, Twiggy Woman is a collection of ghost stories rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community.
From award-winning author OeinDeBhairduin, Twiggy Woman is a collection of ghost stories rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community.
A tale rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community told by award-winning author Oein DeBhairduin and illustrated by Olya Anima, co-published by Irish presses Little Island and Skein Press
In this unique collaboration, writers Deirdre Sullivan and Oein DeBhairduin and artist Yingge Xu explore their shared passion for storytelling, folklore and ritual. Encompassing eight stories inspired by the eight festivals in the wheel of the year, this book illuminates our experiences and traverses our fears, intertwining older threads with contemporary spaces.
Designed by artist and bookbinder Éilís Murphy in a tête-bêche format, this unique and tactile book is exquisitely illustrated by Yingge Xu.
Melatu Uche Okorie is a writer and scholar. Born in Nigeria, she moved to Ireland in 2006. It was during her eight and a half years living in the direct provision system that she began to write. She has an M. Phil. in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin, and has had works published in numerous anthologies. In 2009, she won the Metro Éireann Writing Award for her story ‘Gathering Thoughts’.
Melatu has a strong interest in the rights of asylum seekers and migrant education in Ireland and is currently studying for a PhD in Education at Trinity College, Dublin. This Hostel Life is her first book.
Photo: Manus Kenny 
Image credit: Derek Speirs 
