Colin Barrett

Colin Barrett (born April 26, 1982) is an Irish Canadian writer. He launched his writing career with the 2009 publication of "Let's Go Kill Ourselves" in The Stinging Fly, upon which he fostered a relationship with the magazine's co-founder, Declan Meade. In 2013, The Stinging Fly Press published Young Skins, a cycle of seven stories set in the fictional town of Glanbeigh, County Mayo. Barrett followed the critical success of his first short story collection with a second, Homesickness, in 2022; its eight stories, like their predecessors, were met with critical acclaim.

Barrett received multiple awards for Young Skins. These included the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2014. Two of his short stories, "Bait" and "The Clancy Kid," were adapted for the stage and debuted at the New Theatre, Dublin in 2017. A film adaptation of Calm with Horses, the novella included in Barrett's Young Skins, was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.

Barrett's first novel, Wild Houses, was longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.

Early life and education After Barrett's 1982 birth in Fort McMurray, Canada, he and his family moved to Toronto. Upon leaving Canada for Ireland at the age of four, Barrett spent his childhood in Knockmore, between Ballina and Foxford in County Mayo, with his four siblings and his parents. He was on Gaelic football teams as an adolescent in Ballina.

Barrett studied at University College, Dublin (UCD), and was awarded a BA degree in English, 2003; an MA in Creative Writing, 2009; and an MFA in Creative Writing 2015. For his earlier works, Barrett "spent 10 years not finishing anything". In between his college studies, Barrett was hired by Vodafone as a customer representative, from 2003 to 2008.

Barrett's first published short story, "Let's Go Kill Ourselves", appeared in the Winter 2009–10 issue of The Stinging Fly literary magazine. "Calm With Horses", the fifth story in the collection, is written in novella form. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Barrett completed two books. Of these, seven were set in County Mayo and one, The Low, Shimmering Black Drone, in Toronto.

Between 2014 and 2018, director Nick Rowland worked on adapting Calm with Horses into a film of the same name. In 2019, Calm with Horses debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and starred Cosmo Jarvis and Barry Keoghan in leading roles. Bait and The Clancy Kid, both of which were published in Young Skins, were made into plays for New Theatre, Dublin in 2017.

Barrett's debut novel, Wild Houses, was published in January 2024. It was longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. It was also nominated for the Trillium Book Award, English category.

Writing process and themes When asked about the process by which he wrote the stories within Young Skins, Barrett noted that he would "look for one tiny detail and expand upon it". Some of his inspirations include Flannery O'Connor and Denis Johnson. With Homesickness, Barrett continued to use locations in Ireland, while also using Canada for one of his short stories. Some of the topics that Barrett wrote about were about a missing child with The Clancy Kid. With A Shooting in Rathreedane, Barrett wrote about a member of the Garda who investigates a shooting.

Awards and personal life During the 2010s, the Arts Council gave Barrett a bursary three times. At the Irish Book Awards in 2013, Barrett was nominated for the Writing.ie Short Story of the Year award with Bait and the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year award with Young Skins. For Young Skins, Barrett received the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Additional awards that Barrett won in 2014 with Young Skins were the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Guardian First Book Award In 2015, the National Book Foundation selected him as one of their 5 Under 35. In 2024 Barrett was shortlisted for the Nero book awards for Wild Houses.

Wild Houses was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for English Prose in 2025.

Barrett is married and has two children.

Biblio

Young Skins (2013) Homesickness (2022) Wild Houses (2024)