Medbh McGuckian 

An internationally acclaimed poet, Medbh McGuckian has both a paternal and a maternal Glens connection.  From 1985-88 she was the first woman writer-in-residence at Queen’s University and subsequently became a writer-in-residence at the University of Ulster and Trinity College Dublin, and a creative writing fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s.  She has published about fifteen collections of poetry and is bringing out a new Collected Poems later this year.

Sophia Hillan Dr Sophia Hillan, former Assistant Director of Queen’s University Belfast’s Institute of Irish Studies, and Director of QUB’s Irish Studies Summer School from 2003 to 2005, is the author of May, Lou and Cass: Jane Austen’s Nieces in Ireland, of two novels, The Friday Tree and The Way We Danced, and a short story collection, The Cocktail Hour.  She is joint literary executor of the estate of Michael McLaverty.  Her studies of his work include The Silken Twine, The Edge of Dark, and (as editor) In Quiet Places.

Following a programme of readings from their poetry and prose, Medbh and Sophia have agreed to engage in reminiscences about the Seamus Heaney Years at Queens, where they were students and friends of the Nobel laureate.