Patricia Forde is from Galway. Her first novel The Wordsmith was published to great critical acclaim in 2015. It has since been published in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Russia, Turkey and the Netherlands. It has won a White Raven Award from the International Youth Library, is an American Library Association Notable Book for Children in the United States, and was shortlisted for the Children’s Book of the Year Award in Ireland.

In 2018 Patricia wrote Bumpfizzle the Best on Planet Earth, which was chosen as the Dublin UNESCO Citywide Read 2019. Mother Tongue, the second book in

The Wordsmith series was published in 2019.

She has written three picture books in recent years: Fidget The Wonder Dog, Imagine and To The Island as well as picture books and middle grade novels

in Irish. She also writes television programmes for children on TG4 and RTE.

Her first screenplay Fidil Ghorm, produced by Abú Media, is due to be

released in 2024.

She is currently Ireland’s seventh Laureate na nÓg.

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Patricia is married to Padraic and has two grown up children. She still lives in Galway, her favourite city in the world.