Sasha de Buyl is the Director of Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway.

Prior to Cúirt, she worked for over ten years as a programmer and literature development professional in Scotland.

She managed Scottish Books International, developing projects and partnerships for Scottish writers, festivals and publishers overseas; has held roles with StAnza International Poetry Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Scottish Book Trust and Aye Write Book Festival.

Sasha was also part of the Literature team at Creative Scotland, where she worked on national and international literature development.

Patricia Forde is a writer from Galway. She writes for children of all ages. Her first novel The Wordsmith was published to great critical acclaim in 2015 and she has recently published a sequel entitled Mother Tongue.

For younger children, Patricia wrote Bumpfizzle the Best on Planet Earth in 2018 which was chosen as the Dublin UNESCO Citywide Read in 2019. She was also commissioned by Galway 2020 to write a picture book, To The Island.

She has also written plays, television drama, and she wrote her first feature film script this year which will be produced next summer.

A former director of Galway International Arts Festival she is currently Chairperson of Children’s Books Ireland.

This is the third in a series of online conference sessions organised by the LAI Public Libraries' Section.