Granite Noir 2024: Chats and Drawings with Oisin McGann

Granite Noir 2024: Chats and Drawings with Oisin McGann

Chaired by Adanna Shan

In this lively session, Oisín will talk about how he got started in writing and illustration, how he approaches his work, including coming up with ideas by using weird ways of looking at the world. He’ll also be drawing throughout and showing you how he creates his characters.

Oisín McGann

Oisín McGann is a best-selling and award-winning writer and illustrator. He has produced dozens of books and short stories for all ages of reader, including twelve novels, in a range of genres. These include the Mad Grandad series, The Goblin of Tara for Barrington Stoke, and novels such as Race the Atlantic Wind, and the non-fiction book, A Short, Hopeful Guide to Climate Change. In 2014 and 2015, he was the Irish writer-in-residence for Weather Stations, an EU-funded project where writers from five different countries were tasked with finding ways to use storytelling to raise awareness of climate change. He has carried on this work through school residencies in primary and secondary schools, funded by Poetry Ireland Writers in Schools and Irish Aid’s WorldWise Global Schools. He is married with three children, two dogs and a cat, and lives somewhere in the Irish countryside, in place that’s not too prone to flooding.

Adanna Shan

Dubbed ‘a name to watch out for in the Teen/YA market’ by Faber, Adanna Shan is an award-winning writer of Young Adult and Children’s fiction. She’s been writing for as long as she’s been reading and has a particular love for stories centering Black and West-African protagonists. A mentee in the 2021 All Stories Writing Program, Adanna is represented by Silvia Molteni at PFD.