Noelle Vial

Noelle Starkey was born on 22 November 1959 in Killybegs, County Donegal, Ireland. Her parents were Paddy and Peggy Sharkey. While in school, Starkey was the recipient of a Pushkin prize for poetry. The Pushkin Prizes were established in 1987 by Sacha Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of her ancestor, Alexander Pushkin. The poetry prize was awarded annually to school aged children.[2][3]

Vial wrote poetry and taught creative writing at St Catherine's Vocational School. She was a founding member of the Killybegs writers group. Her first poetry collection, Promiscuous Winds was published in the United States in 1995 by Story Line Press. Vial was the recipient of the Hennessy Literary Award for best emerging poet in 1994.

Vial died at her home on 20 January 2003.[4] A number of poems were found among her papers after her death; Vial had been under contract for a new collection of poetry to be published in the U.S. Fourteen years later, the book of poems, The Ungrateful Princess, edited by writer, Liam McGinley, and Vial's son, Derek Vial, was published in 2017.[4]

In 2013, The Donegal Bay and Blue Stacks Festival, supported by The Arts Council and Creative Ireland, established an annual poetry bursary for emerging poets in memory of Vial. The bursary, named the Noelle Vial Tyrone Guthrie Centre Poetry Bursary, provides a week-long stay at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Newbliss, County Monaghan[5]

• Vial, Noelle (1995). Promiscuous Winds. Story Line Press. ISBN 978-1885266132.
• Vial, Noelle (2017). The Ungrateful Princess. Five Points Press. ISBN 978-1527210264.