Sam Blake is a pseudonym for Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin, the founder of The Inkwell Group publishing consultancy and the national writing resources website Writing.ie. She is Ireland's leading literary scout who has assisted many award winning and bestselling authors to publication. Vanessa is Chair of Irish PEN and founder of the Murder One international crime writing festival. She has been writing fiction since her husband set sail across the Atlantic for eight weeks and she had an idea for a book. 

She's the author of the trilogy Cat Connoly Garda and both her debut Little Bones and The Dark Room were shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year in 2016 and 2021. 

Find out more about Sam Blake at www.samblakebooks.com, follow her on Twitter @samblakebooks, or Vanessa @inkwellHQ  www.inkwellwriters.ie.

For practical information on writing written by writers, events, competitions and submission opportunities check out www.writing.ie.

Photo credit: Alice Rose Jordan