Sue Healy

Sue Healy has a PhD in modern theatre history (Royal Court Theatre), is Literary Manager at the Finborough Theatre in London and lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. An award-winning Irish writer and playwright, her work has been supported and developed by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and Arts Council England. She was recently awarded the MGCfutures 2018 bursary and named a Hawthornden Castle 2019 Fellow. Sue’s most recent play Imaginationship (2018) had a sold-out, extended run at the Finborough Theatre and showed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Some of her previous stage productions include Cow (Etcetera Theatre, 2017) and the Arts Council England funded, Brazen (King’s Head Theatre, 2016). Sue’s work has also been performed at the Criterion, Arcola, Hackney Attic and Sterts theatres, and at festivals including the Claremorris Fringe (New Writing Award winner), the Brighton (Sussex Playwrights’ Award winner), the UEA Contemporary European Drama Festival, Norwich.

Sue has been a finalist for BBC Scriptroom 12 and her current TV project, Trafadden, a 6x60minute TV series, is under option. Additionally, she is commissioned to co-write a new YA TV series with Lisa Wolfinger of Lone Wolf Media.

Her radio work includes nine plays broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (2016 Opening Lines winner), WLRfm and KCLR96fm.

Sue’s prose has won the the Molly Keane Award, HISSAC Prize, Escalator Award, Meridian Prize and has been published widely, including in literary journals and anthologies like The Moth, Flight, Tainted Innocence, New Writer, Duality, HISSAC, New European Writers.

Sue was recently named a 2022 Hawthornden Castle Fellow. She has been writer-in-residence on Inis Oírr, Aran Islands and at the Heinrich Boll Cottage on Achill Island as well as artist residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and at Ginestrelle, Assisi in Italy. She has also been a finalist for the Eamonn Keane Playwriting Prize, Nick Darke Award and Old Vic 12 New Voices.

As a UEA Creative Writing MA alumnus, Sue spent eleven years in Budapest, where she edited Hungary A.M. Currently, she is Regional Editor (Ireland) of TheTheatreTimes.com.

Awards:
2022 – Hawthornden Castle Fellowship.
2019 – The John Hodgson Theatre Research Trust bursary, to present a paper on the Royal Court Theatre at the IFTR 2019 World Congress in Shanghai, China.
2018 – PhD from the University of Lincoln for her thesis on the Royal Court Theatre 1968-1975; MGCfutures Bursary.
2017 – Claremorris Fringe Award, Heinrich Boll writer-in-residence; FfWG grant; Francis W. Reckitt Arts Funding; Finalist for BBC Scriptroom 12.
2016 – Peggy Ramsay Foundation playwriting grant; Tyrone Guthrie Centre residency bursary; Arts Council England funding; BAI radio drama funding; Finalist for the Eamon Keane Playwriting Prize; Nick Darke Award and the Old Vic 12 New Voices.
2015 – BBC Opening Lines Award; Arte Studio Ginestrelle residency; BAI radio drama funding.
2014 – University of Lincoln PhD fees scholarship; BAI radio drama funding.
2013 – Escalator Award; Arts Council England funding; Áras Eanna Inis Oirr writer-in-residence; BAI radio drama funding. Shortlisted for Shoreline International Screenplay Award.
2012 – Meridian Short Story Prize.
2011 – The Molly Keane Memorial Award; Sussex Playwrights’ Award; the HiSSAC Award.
2010 – Ted O’Regan Arts Award bursary; Tyrone Guthrie Centre residency bursary.
2009 – MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.