First Encounters: Yvonne Cassidy and Ciara Geraghty

Yvonne Cassidy is a novelist. She worked in marketing in London and Dublin before moving to New York where she works with a soup kitchen and also teaches creative writing. Originally from Dalkey, Co Dublin, she lives in Manhattan with her wife, Danielle

Ciara and I met in 2006. It was my third time down in Listowel [for Listowel Writers' Week], with friends Emma McEvoy and Bernie Furlong. We were in the Listowel Arms in the afternoon and I have a distinct memory of Ciara being at the bar reading a book, although Ciara says she would never be in a bar on her own reading. We got chatting, I found her really easy to talk to and fun. She became one of the gang for the rest of our time down there. I really admired her for heading down by herself.

After university, I lived in London then came back and worked for O2 for about six years. I left to set up my own marketing consultancy firm; the idea was to allow myself more time to write. I’d spent my 20s talking about how I was going to write this novel, but it hadn’t happened. I used to take a month off here and there to write.

The lovely thing about Listowel is that you're around like-minded people. I'd come away feeling really energised. My experience is that writers are really supportive of one another. She had published her first book, Saving Grace. I came away from her book launch feeling really motivated to finish my own book that I'd been working on for a long time.

I’d had a good start, I had an agent in the UK, but I was getting rejections and was feeling quite bruised. Ciara read the manuscript, loved it and asked if she could give it to her editor in Hachette and that’s how it got published. Ciara was directly responsible.

I’ve always loved New York and would take a month out from running my business to rent a room there where I could write. I met Danielle at an LGBT book club. It took me a long time to come out to but I did, over time. All my friends and family were very supportive and Ciara absolutely was. They all just wanted to meet Danielle.

In 2011 I moved to New York full-time. We had a civil wedding but we will have a real wedding party in New York in September. I got a job working with a soup kitchen where I’m responsible for fundraising and digital marketing; it also has a creative writing project for homeless people where I teach once a week.

Being in another country hasn’t affected my friendship with Ciara: we chat on the phone and email. Ciara’s my closest writing friend. There are some people you just connect with, click with, straightaway and that’s what it felt like with Ciara.

I know I’ll always have a good laugh when I meet her. I feel very lucky to have her as a friend.

Yvonne Cassidy's third book, How Many letters Are In Goodbye, will be published in paperback next month.

Ciara Geraghty is a novelist whose first of five books was published in 2008. She worked as an insurance loss adjuster before becoming a full-time writer. From Dublin, she lives with her husband Frank and three children in Donabate, Co Dublin

I was 34 when I started writing in 2004, came to writing late in life. I’d got married at 24 and had two children. I called writing my secret life. There was no one in my circle who wrote and I didn’t know any writers. I did a creative writing class, then I heard about Listowel Writers’ Week and went down on my own.

Yvonne was there taking a journalism course and I was doing fiction writing. Bernie Furlong and Emma McEvoy were in my class and they’re friends of Yvonne’s. They invited me out that night and I met Yvonne. They took me in like a stray – I really appreciated that. When you reach your mid-30s it can be much harder to make new friends, but Yvonne, Emma and Bernie disproved that. Yvonne was the first friend I made with whom I had writing in common. She drew me out of my shell and made it okay for me to call myself a writer. On the train home, I wrote for four hours. It was just one of those weekends – it may sound a bit twee but it was life-changing.

It was a very happy time in my life: I was working part-time in insurance but by night, after I’d got everyone to bed, I’d sit at the kitchen table and write. Yvonne was such a great influence on me at that time; we talked about books, bounced ideas off each other. When I came back from Listowel my husband says I talked for an hour-and-a-half without drawing breath. I was on a complete high, I felt I’d discovered a new land with all these people who had the same ideas as me.

My first book was published in 2008 by Hachette, the year my third baby was born. I got the names of four agents in Ireland from the Writer's and Artists Yearbook and just rang them. Ger Nichol said send it through. She brought it to Hachette and got me a two-book deal.

Yvonne and I talk about what we’re writing; I value her opinion. Years later, she sent me the manuscript of her first book; I knew it was something really special.

Yvonne moved to New York in 2011 and only came out to me in 2010. I had no idea. I was surprised but so delighted for her. Danielle’s perfect for her although she doesn’t read. But then my husband isn’t a great reader either. Frank has read my stuff, and I love that about him because really, it would not be his choice. My eldest daughter reads my books and likes them.

Yvonne is incredibly funny, although she doesn’t put that into her fiction, whereas I often use humour. But she always makes me laugh.

Now That I've Found You by Ciara Geraghty has just been published in paperback; her sixth book is due out in June.