Claire Allan is an author and journalist based in Derry in Northern Ireland. She has been a reporter in with the Derry Journal since 1999 and has written for a number of newspapers including the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News and The Mirror.
She has a an Honours degree in the Humanities and a MA in Newspaper Journalism. She writes a weekly column on topical issues, witha focus on women's issues and parenting. Claire is a regular contributer to BBC Radio Foyle and Culture NI Magazine.
Her four bestselling novels have all be published by Poolbeg Press in Ireland. Her second novel 'Feels Like Maybe' will be published by Cappelenn Damm in 2011. Her fifth novel 'The 30 Something Crisis Club' will be published by Poolbeg in Ireland in October 2001.
Claire is married with two young children
THE LONG AND WINDING VERSION
Claire Allan was born on the longest day of the year in the hottest summer on record - the glorious drought ridden 1976.
She was born into the very lovely Davidson family in the city of Derry/ Londonderry in the North of Ireland and spent her formative years playing in the mucky fields of the Creggan Estate. She has two sisters - Lisa and Emma - and one brother, Peter. Her brother is also a writer - but he prefers to write for the stage and screen. Two 'artistes' in one house has made for some interesting times.
Claire spent a great deal of her childhood making up really bad dance routines, playing with her beloved Sindy house or Cabbage Patch Doll and playing a game which involved Star Wars figures, a Christmas tree and a mythical journey. One year, her mother got so annoyed with the playing with the Christmas tree - and the fact her children had toppled it several times - that she hauled it down before the big day. (It did go back up, honest.)
She attended Rosemount Primary School and Thornhill College before taking the very brave move up the road to Belfast to study at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown for her undergraduate degree in Humanities. Highlights of her degree years included the very nice bum of one of her lecturers and a lecture on the lyrics of 'American Pie'. She did however learn quite a lot about philosophy and ethics and graduated with a 2:1 Honours Degree. She then moved on to the Belfast Campus of the University of Ulster to study for her Masters Degree in Newspaper Journalism. She is still quite emotionally scarred from the experience.
She wrote her undergraduate dissertation on the ethics of genetic screening and her Masters’ thesis on the portrayal of women in the UK media.
She also wrote some really shockingly bad poetry during this time.
In 1999 she started working as a staff reporter for the Derry Journal - covering an array of news from politics to human interest stories. The highlights of her career with the Journal so far have included being part of the the team that covered the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday and being the paper’s first female columnist.
The lowlights of her time at the Journal involve a field in Strathfoyle inhabited by an alleged 10,000 soldiers - and falling arse over t*t in front of the then Mayor of Derry and several TV cameras.
As Claire approached her 30th birthday she decided to give writing books a shot. Basing her first novel ‘Rainy Days and Tuesdays’ very loosely on her own experiences with Post Natal Depression following the birth of her son Joseph in 2004 she wrote a book never knowing if anyone would read it.
Thankfully someone did. First of all the lovely Ger Nichol of The Book Bureau read it and agreed to act as Claire’s agent and then the even lovelier people of Poolbeg Press read it and agreed to publish it. And three other books to boot.Rainy Days and Tuesday was published in 2007 and was an instant bestseller. It was followed by Feels Like Maybe and Jumping in Puddles and Claire’s fourth book will be published in October 2010.
In February 2010 she signed a further three book deal with Poolbeg Press.
Claire is married to Neil and they have two children - Joseph and Cara (aka The Boy and the Baby Who Never Sleeps). She still lives in Derry and she still works for the Derry Journal. She hasn’t fallen over in front of anyone in quite a while.
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