Irish debut authors: Rose Keating and Aisling Rawle | Wednesday 16 July, 6.30pm

Rose Keating and Aisling Rawle are two exciting new voices in Irish literature and we are really delighted to be bringing them and their new books to Collected this summer! Both writers are dealing with the visceral, complicated parts of the human condition but in different ways. While Aisling Rawle's writing focuses on how women can equally use and be shamed by their bodies in their relationships with men, and how they are targeted by online brands, Rose Keating confronts the intricacies of sex, shame, and womanhood, asking the reader to reflect on the movement and needs of our bodies, exposing – to the bone – the absurdities and horrors of the feminine experience.

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Oddbody by Rose Keating is a collection of 10 short stories that are all perfectly dark and twisted. In the title story, a woman finds herself navigating a co-dependent relationship with a ghost. Then, in Eggshells, a waitress gives birth to an egg during her breakfast shift. In another called Squirm, a young woman deals with the restraints of staying home and caring for her father who has become a worm that lives in a compost pile in the bathtub.

The Compound by Aisling Rawle is an explosive, addictive novel that skewers the world of reality TV, with dark undercurrents of literary dystopia and consumerist satire – it’s Lord of the Flies for a new generation. Ten women, all young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world, wake up in a compound in the middle of the desert. They realise that cameras are tracking their every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans. Soon, ten men will arrive on foot – if they all survive the journey. What will the women have to do to win? And what happens to the losers?