The Goss.ie Women of the Year Awards are back for their third year.
The event will take place on Saturday, October 5th, at The Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, with well-known broadcaster and entrepreneur Gráinne Seoige as host.
The star-studded event will honour women across multiple genres, including business, sports, the arts, social justice and more.
This year the awards are in partnership with Google, Catrice Cosmetics, Local Enterprise Office, and FlyeFit.
Women’s Aid is our official charity partner for 2024 once again, and we will also be running a raffle on the day to raise funds for the charity.
Our highly esteemed and all-female judging panel will decide the winners of each category.
The Writer of the Year category is bursting full of talented storytellers once again this year.
From best-selling children’s books to laugh-out-loud novels, these women have a profound ability to evoke emotion when they put pen to paper.
Take a look at this year’s nominees:
Cathy Kelly
Cathy Kelly is a former journalist whose debut novel, Woman To Woman, became an instant number-one bestseller.
Since then, she has published 23 novels, which are loved by readers all around the world and have sold millions of copies globally.
The 57-year-old is also a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland since 2005 and has visited many countries to report on UNICEF’s work.
Cathy’s latest novel, Sisterhood, became an instant Irish number-one bestseller after its release in February.
The judges praised Cathy for releasing such a successful novel while also battling breast cancer, a diagnosis she revealed last year.
Marian Keyes
Marian Keyes is one of the most successful Irish novelists of all time.
The author has some of the most widely loved genre-defying novels of the past thirty years which have sold millions of copies.
Based in Dun Laoghaire, Marian is best known for her novels Rachel’s Holiday, Anybody Out There and Grown Ups which have fans all over the world, including the judges.
Marian’s latest novel My Favourite Mistake was released in April to rave reviews.
Marian won her first award for her writing in 2009 at the Irish Book Awards where she nabbed the Irish Popular Fiction Book for her book This Charming Man.
In 2016 she won The Ireland AM Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year for Making It Up As I Go Along at the Irish Book Awards, returning in 2021 to win Author of the Year.
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen are co-authors of the bestselling, award-winning Aisling series.
Together, their books have sold over 400,000 copies.
The pair co-wrote their debut novel Oh My God, What A Complete Aisling, which went on to become the bestselling Irish-published novel of the century in Ireland.
The next three books in the Aisling series won the Popular Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.
The final book in the series, Aisling Ever After, was published in late 2023 which the judges believed was a fitting farewell for the books which were loved by all.
Anne Enright
Anne Enright is a renowned Irish author, having published eight novels, many short stories, and a non-fiction work.
She began writing full-time in 1993 after working as a TV producer and director at RTÉ and in children’s programming.
In 2007, Anne won the Man Booker Prize for her fourth novel The Gathering, nabbing many awards.
In September 2023, Anne released her novel The Wren, which has garnered great success.
The book was the Winner of the 2024 Writers’ Prize in Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The Wren was named as Best Book of the Summer by The Guardian and The Times, as well as one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Books of 2023.
It was also included as one of the Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year by Time, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, Library Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, The Conversation, and Kobo Canada.
Vicki Notaro
Vicki Notaro is a journalist, columnist, and former glossy magazine editor and now she has taken on a career as an author.
This year she released her debut novel, Reality Check, which was inspired by her love of reality television, celebrity culture and the United States.
The pop-culture lover wrote the novel in just a matter of months and got rave reviews upon release.
Reality Check reached the top five on the Irish Times Bestsellers list, a huge achievement for an author on their debut.
The judges praised Vicki for an amazing first year as a newcomer to the industry.
Lucy Kennedy
Lucy Kennedy is an Irish television, radio presenter and children’s book author.
The 48-year-old is the author of the children’s series The Friendship Fairies, which she began publishing in 2020.
Five books have been released in the series, which have exploded in popularity.
The latest addition to the Friendship Fairy series, Jess Gets Her Wings, is aimed at 3 – 6-year-old readers.
Her books are praised as a timeless bestselling series of children’s stories about making friends and fitting in.
