Ann Leahy is a Patrick Kavanagh award-winner whose debut collection, The Woman who Lived her Life Backwards, was published by Arlen House in 2008. Her poems have been published in magazines and anthologies in Ireland and internationally. Individual poems from the collection have won national literary competitions such as the Poetry on the Wall Competition and the Clogh Writers' Award and have been placed in many more competitions in Ireland and UK such as the Gerard Manley Hopkins and The UK New Writer awards. She has twice been commended in the British National Poetry Competition, has been shortlisted for a Hennessy Award and for the Hamish Canham Prize (UK).