Caoilinn Hughes is an Irish writer and poet whose second novel, The Wild Laughter (2020) won the Encore Award 2021, was longlisted for the 2021 Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize, and was shortlisted for several awards including the Dalkey Emerging Writer Literary Award. Her first novel, Orchid & the Wasp (2018), won the Collyer Bristow Prize 2019 and shortlisted for the Hearst Big Book Awards and the Butler Literary Award. She holds a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and is currently the Oscar Wilde Centre Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.