Michelle Gallen

“Sometimes Majella thought that she should condense her whole list of things she wasn’t keen on into a single item: Other People”

Big Girl, Small Town

My fiction debut Big Girl, Small Town is published in the UK and Ireland by John Murray Press. 

It’s published in the US by Algonquin Books.

I’m represented by the Marianne Gunn O’Connor Agency.

The audiobook and abridged BBC Sounds series were voiced by Nicola Coughlan.

If you’d like to book me for an event, get in touch.

“Majella had yet to see the magic in the human journey.”

Big Girl, Small Town

A Sense of Place

I was born in County Tyrone in the mid 70s and grew up during the Troubles a few miles from the border between the ‘Free State’ and the ‘United Kingdom’. The border between these territories dominated all our lives. In the late 1960s, 19 roads criss-crossed Donegal and Tyrone in our local area. By the 1970s, just one ‘official’ road was left usable after the British Army blew up and barricaded the ‘unapproved’ roads and bridges. This campaign dramatically impacted communities on both sides of the border throughout my childhood and teens.

My work

My debut, Big Girl Small Town, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Comedy Women In Print award, an Irish Book Award and the Kate O’Brien Award. Short stories were my first love. I‘ve had work published in Irish, UK and US anthologies and magazines (including Mslexia, The Stinging Fly, Cyphers, and QWF).

Gratitude

I’m grateful to the Irish Writers Centre, who selected me to participate in the inaugural xBorders programme for emerging Irish Writers (supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland). The Irish Writers Centre also selected Big Girl Small Town as a Novel Fair 2019 finalist, which brought Majella to the attention of my editor Becky Walsh, of John Murray Press. In 2020 I was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland bursary, which enabled me to step back from tech work and focus on finishing my second novel, Factory Girls.