AUTHOR Susan Cahill has been named on the longlist for the prestigious 2025 Branford Boase Award for her debut children’s novel, The World Between The Rain.
The Branford Boase Award celebrates the most talented debut writers for children and their editors.
Clonakilty author Susan has been longlisted with her editor Mikka Haugaard of Everything With Words, for The World Between The Rain, which is a portal fantasy novel set in West Cork.
Although she doesn’t live in Clonakilty anymore, Susan’s family are still living there and she regularly visits home.
‘I really miss the landscape and the beaches and the rain, all of which inspired The World Between The Rain,’ Susan recently told The Southern Star.
Established in 2000, the Branford Boase Award is renowned for identifying the 21st century’s most talented authors at the start of their career.
The award spotlights current trends in writing for children and young people.
The last Irish writer to win was Siobhan Dowd in 2007 for A Swift Pure Cry.
The World Between The Rain tells the story of 13-year-old Marina, who accidentally falls between the raindrops into the watery world of Ishka on the first anniversary of her father’s sudden death, she is thrown into a land of shadows, dreamweavers, and forgotten gods.
So begins Marina’s journey of friendship, survival, and courage, and some funny talking frogs.
‘My main inspiration is West Cork,’ explains Susan.
‘The sea, the beaches, the landscape, and the ever-present rain. The landscape around West Cork has always seemed so ancient and magical to me and because I’ve always been a huge daydreamer, I’ve spent a lot of time dreaming about what kind of magical stories are just waiting in the land.’
The Branford Boase Award was set up in 2000 in memory of the outstanding and prize-winning author Henrietta Branford and Wendy Boase, editorial director and one of the founders of Walker Books.
They worked together on a number of Henrietta’s novels. Both Henrietta and Wendy died of cancer in 1999.
