Hilary McCollum is a writer of prose and drama. Her first novel, Golddigger, won the Golden Crown Literary Society prize for historical fiction in 2016. She has written four plays focusing on the lives and experiences of LGBT people, including Life and Love: Lesbian Style, which was shortlisted for the best new writing award at the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival. She recently completed her PhD in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Tara McEvoy co-founded and edits The Tangerine, a Belfast-based magazine of new writing. Her writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Vogue, the Observer, the Guardian, Poetry London, 3:AM, The Wire, Frieze, and The Stinging Fly, among other publications. She graduated from Queen's with a PhD in December 2020, and currently works as a press officer for Pushkin Press. 

Darren Murphy is a playwright and essayist. Recent plays include Many Mansions, an Abbey Theatre commission, and Bunny’s Vendetta, commissioned for the UK City of Culture in Derry, The Flats (shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award, and A Road In Winter (winner of the Westminster Prize). His plays Irish Blood, English Heart and Tabloid Caligula, were performed in London and New York, and are published by Oberon.

Darren's PhD thesis looked at how various dramatists use narrative time. His essay The Playwright & the Pugilist was published by The Tangerine. His most recent play X’ntigone, commissioned by Prime Cut, opens at the MAC in February 2022, and is published by Methuen.