19 F O R ‘ 19 SARAH DAVIS GOFF BEST OF IRELAND | 35 Davis-Goff co-founded independent publisher Tramp Press with Lisa Coen in 2014, and has since published best-selling and award-winning writers including Sara Baume, Mike McCormack and Emilie Pine. She has written about publishing, literature and gender for The Irish Times, The Guardian and LitHub. In 2019 Tinder Press launched her debut novel Last Ones Left Alive (forthcoming from FlatIron in August in the USA). It’s a ferocious dystopian tale, in which Ireland has been devoured by a menace known as the skrake. Orpen has been raised by her mother and Maeve on Slanbeg, an island off the west coast of Ireland, and though it is safe for now, the women must always be ready to run, or to ght. A fantastic debut, it marks an incredible start to what is sure to be a thrilling writing career. FASHION Colton McGuirk NCAD graduate Colton McGuirk has already become a designer to watch. One feature of McGuirk’s design process is distressing or deconstructing sections of clothing to gain inspiration for silhouette or texture. But fabric isn’t the only thing he’s deconstructing. McGuirk is a drag performer, and enjoys what the art form allows him to explore in terms of gender and expression. His nal year collection in NCAD investigated these themes of drag and queer culture. It was inspired by the fashion rules and garment restrictions from the 18th century, and how it led to a sub queer trend called Macaroni. The collection features deconstructed, draped corsets and pearl, crystal and ruf ed embellishments. The collection’s signature colours are white and pink, to play against ideas of purity and femininity (pink was associated with boys up until the 21st century). The collection’s title? ‘BOYS WHO DON’T WEAR PINK’. Katie MacGloin As an 18-years-old, Bundoran native Katie McGloin might see the Leaving Cert as the biggest challenge of her year. But she has also set up a gender neutral clothing business, K.T. Clothing Co., which is already ourishing. Katie’s mission is to produce affordable, comfortable and stylish clothing that is completely gender neutral – de nes as being suitable for, applicable to or common to men or women. McGloin’s hard work and the addition of her much-needed perspective to the fashion industry has already been recognised. She won Foroige’s National Youth Entrepreneur of the Year 2017; the European Enterprise Bronze Medal; the Irish SME Award for Young Entrepreneur of the Year; an the Irish Women’s Award for Young Entrepreneur. For good measure, she also scooped U magazine’s 30 Under 30 Award for Start-up of the Year, and Donegal ETB’s 1st Place in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. SINEAD GLEESON COLTON McGUIRK KATIE MacGLOIN BOOKS CONT... Sinead Gleeson Anyone with even a tangential interest in Irish writing knows Sinead Gleeson. Gleeson is a writer, editor and freelance broadcaster, who has a special interest in elevating the work of women writers and creatives. Her essays, poetry and short stories have been published in countless publications, and Gleeson has also edited several anthologies, including The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology Of Irish Women Writers, The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women from the North of Ireland, and the short story anthology, Silver Threads Of Hope. This year sees the release of her highly anticipated essay collection, Constellations, a stunning meditation on memory, the body, illness and motherhood. Anne Enright has declared that “Sinéad Gleeson is an absolute force: if you want to know where passion and tenacity are born, read this book.” Even with all the crazed excitement around the release of Constellations, Gleeson is already powering forward. She is editing The Art Of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, which will be released in 2020. For 2019, she is the Writer In Residence at UCD, and is currently working on a novel. Sarah Davis Goff Having already transformed Irish publishing, Sarah Davis-Goff is about to set the Irish writing scene on re, too.