A lifelong love of words

DENYSE Woods is the artistic director of the West Cork Literary Festival, which runs in Bantry in July.

Woods is also an author. Born in Boston in 1958, the daughter of an Irish diplomat, she studied English and Arabic at UCD. Her travels in the Middle East included a stint as a translator in Iraq; she has lived in Belgium, Italy, Australia and the UK, and now lives with her family in Cork.

Although part-time, the role of artistic director is time-consuming, and relegates Ms Woods’s writing to the back burner. Writing is her passion. “There is a saying that you don’t become a writer; you either are one or you aren’t,” she says. “As a writer, you are always scribbling, it is an itch you are always trying to scratch. I had a great career, but I never really wanted to do anything else except write; it has always been there, and there comes a time when you have to give up the day job despite the risks involved.”