WRITING
Books and short stories by Elaine Garvey
Books
THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT
Mairéad works all hours in a run-down West End theatre’s wardrobe department, her whole existence made up of threads and needles, running errands to mend shoes, fixing broken zips and handwashing underwear. She must also do her best to avoid groping hands backstage and the terrible bullying of the show’s producer. But, despite her skill and growing experience, half of Mairéad remains in her windy, hedge-filled home in Ireland, and the life she abandoned there. In noughties London, she has the potential to be somebody completely new – why, then, does she feel so stuck? Between the bustling side streets of Soho, and the wet grass of Leitrim and Donegal, Mairéad is caught, running from the girl she was but unable to reveal the woman she’d hoped to become.
Told with rare honesty and equal measures of warmth and bite, The Wardrobe Department is a story about reckoning with the past, finding the courage to change the present, and asking what comes next.
Reviews and interviews:
Times Literary Supplement Review
Irish Independent Review
Irish Times Debut authors 2025
Irish Times interview
Image Magazine interview
The Wardrobe Department has been translated into German, Spanish and Greek.
Short Stories
Bread is Bad for Ducks
The Irish Times, Wednesday 29 July 2026.
‘I had my mother plagued about it. For the whole summer of 1986, I didn’t let up. Whenever it came into my head, or I heard the ad on the radio, or I saw the cartoon faces popping up on the telly, I would ask the same question: ‘Can you take me to see the pandas at the zoo?,’ and my mother would give the same reply: ‘Stop asking for things.’ Then she would tell me to go outside, or she would go outside for some peace and quiet.’
CHERISH THIS TIME TOGETHER
Winter Papers, Volume 8. Edited by Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith. 1 November 2022, Curlew Editions.
https://winterpapers.com/volumes/volume-8
“He took one last pull from his cigarette and then crushed it on a white saucer. There was milk. Even if he had none fresh, he kept two contingency litres in the freezer in case the apocalypse came early. He either wanted me to leave or he had intended to ask me to buy him cigarettes and alcohol, if I had told him I got the job.”
DRIVE
The Dublin Review, issue no. 79, summer 2020. Edited by Brendan Barrington. https://thedublinreview.com/product/summer-2020/
“He revved the engine six times while looking over his right shoulder at the front door. It stayed closed. We coasted down the driveway, turned along the bumpy lane to the crossroads, paused for reflection at the galvanized barn, then pulled out onto the main road. My mum and my sister did not get ready in time. They would have to make their own way. It was just us boys.”