Beginner's Pluck: Michelle Teahan
Writer Michelle Teahan.
As a child, Michelle loved dark books like Point Horror. She wrote poems and stories.
“I wrote one about a wooden spoon who punished people.”
She also liked sport. “I’d try anything,” she says.
During college, she kept a journal and would sometimes write a fictitious scene to relax.
Michelle initially worked in Cytology at Cork University Hospital. When cytology was outsourced, she continued working as a medical scientist.
“In 2016, after my second maternity leave, I took a career break and wrote in any spare time I could get. One day, when I was stressed after trying to get my baby and toddler into the car on a busy street, I started venting in my journal. Then I turned the scene into fiction instead. And I carried on writing to see what would happen.”
Before finishing, she went to many How to Get Published events, until, during a summer school with Catherine Ryan Howard, she learned the importance of just getting the book written.
“I finished it in 2019 but was afraid to send it out. I tweaked it and then sent it to the agent Jane Gregory. We worked on it and sent it for submission in April 2022.”
1985 in Reading but moved to Cork at 6 months.
Coachford College, Cork; Cork Institute of Technology, Cellular molecular biology; Dublin Institute of Technology, molecular cytology.
County Cork.
Husband John, daughters Christina 9, and Johanna, 7.
Part-time medical scientist.
“I’ve always wanted to be a librarian or a bookseller.”
Catherine Ryan Howard; Andrea Mara; Liz Nugent; Jane Casey; Steve Cavanagh; Stephen King.
A standalone, it’s with her agent and publisher.
Concentrate on the writing. (Rather than on getting published.)
Website: www.michelleteahan.com; Instagram: @Shellteah
- Go Seek
- Headline: €16.99. Kindle: €5.82
A mum of two, Maeve would do anything for her children.
When her baby is snatched, and she believes she knows who took her, she has to return to her old life – leaving her toddler and husband behind.
But who is Maeve, and what secrets does she hide?
A violent, high-speed thriller, with endless surprises and twists.
