Donoghue is best known for her fiction. She began by writing about contemporary Dublin before the Boom in STIRFRY (1994) and HOOD (1995, winner of the ALA’s Gay and Lesbian Book Award), and and has returned with a love story that contrasts her transformed home city with smalltown Ontario in LANDING (2007). TOUCHY SUBJECTS (2006) is a set of nineteen stories about social taboos that moves between Ireland, Britain, France, Italy, the US and Canada.

KISSING THE WITCH, a sequence of re-imagined fairytales, was published in 1997 for adults in the UK but won her a new YA audience in the US, and was shortlisted for the James L. Tiptree Award. 

Moving into historical fiction, Donoghue’s bestseller inspired by an eighteenth-century murder, SLAMMERKIN (2000), was a Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club, won the 2002 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish Fiction Prize.  She has followed on this success with a sequence of short stories about real incidents from the fourteenth century to the nineteenth, THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS (2002), and LIFE MASK (2004, a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award), which tells the startling true story of a love triangle in 1790s London.  THE SEALED LETTER (2008) is a domestic thriller about an 1860s cause celebre, the Codrington Divorce.

She is a five-times Finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards for lesbian and gay literature. Her novels have been translated into Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, Catalan, Hebrew, Greek, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Donoghue writes drama both for the stage and for radio. Her first play, I KNOW MY OWN HEART (1993), was inspired by the decoded diaries of a Regency Yorkshirewoman, Anne Lister, and was premiered by Dublin's Glasshouse Productions in 1993; it was published in Seen and Heard: Six New Plays by Irish Women, edited by Cathy Leeney. Glasshouse and the Irish Arts Council commissioned Donoghue to write Ladies and Gentlemen, a play with songs about 1880s vaudeville stars, which premiered in 1996 and was published by New Island Press in 1998; the first US production was by Outward Spiral Theatre in Minneapolis, 1999. Donoghue's adaptation of her fairy-tale book, KISSING THE WITCH, premiered at San Francisco's Magic Theatre on 9 June 2000 and received its first Canadian production at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto in March 2002. Her one-act comedy DON’T DIE WONDERING received its world premiere at the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival in 2005.

Donoghue's radio plays are TRESPASSES (1996, about a seventeenth-century Irish witch trial) for RTE (Ireland), and DON'T DIE WONDERING (2000, a romantic comedy set in a small Irish town), EXES (2001, a series of five short plays about getting on with your ex), and HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS (2003, a series of five short plays about pets), all for BBC Radio 4. MIX (2003) is an hour-long drama about an intersexed girl, for the cutting-edge ‘The Wire’ slot on BBC Radio 3.
 

Donoghue’s ten-minute film, PLUCK (2001), is an urban fairytale about a man’s obsession with a hair on his girlfriend’s chin.

Emma Donoghue is also known as a literary historian; her work includes PASSIONS BETWEEN WOMEN: BRITISH LESBIAN CULTURE 1668-1801 (1993) and WE ARE MICHAEL FIELD (1998, a biography of a pair of Victorian women writers). She has edited two anthologies, WHAT SAPPHO WOULD HAVE SAID (U.S. title POEMS BETWEEN WOMEN, 1997) and THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF LESBIAN SHORT STORIES (1999).

She has also taught creative writing for the Cheltenham Literary Festival and the Arvon Foundation, been a writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario and the University of York, been a judge for the Irish Times Literature Prizes, the co-presenter of a primetime literary series on Irish television, and a shareholder of the National Theatre of Ireland. Emma Donoghue is a member of the Society of Authors, and the Writer’s Union of Canada.

• Longlisted for the 2006 Frank O’Connor Short Stories Award for TOUCHY SUBJECTS.
• Nominated for the 2005 Stonewall Book Award (American Library Association) for LIFE MASK, nominated for the 2003 Stonewall Book Award for THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS, and winner of the 1997 American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Book Award (now known as the Stonewall Book Award), for HOOD.
• Finalist in the 2005 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction for LIFE MASK and winner of the 2002 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction for SLAMMERKIN.
• Finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish Fiction Prize, for SLAMMERKIN.
• Finalist in the 1997 James L. Tiptree Award, for KISSING THE WITCH.
• Five-times finalist in the Lambda Awards (for PASSIONS BETWEEN WOMEN, STIRFRY, POEMS BETWEEN WOMEN, THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF LESBIAN SHORT STORIES and LIFE MASK).

‘Donoghue is one of those rare writers who seems to be able to work on any register, any tone, any atmosphere, and make it her own.’ – OBSERVER (2007)

‘Her touch is so light and exuberantly inventive, her insight at once so forensic and intimate, her people so ordinary even in their oddities.’ – GUARDIAN (2007)

‘A mind that can excavate characters and lives far, far beyond her own front fence.’ – GLOBE AND MAIL (2007)

‘Always surprising.’ – SEATTLE TIMES (2006)

‘Donoghue has the born storyteller’s knack for sketching a personality and pulling readers into a plot in just a few pages… All-encompassing talent.’ – KIRKUS (2006)

‘Already a prolific novelist… Emma Donoghue is distinguished by her generous sympathy for her characters, sinuous prose and an imaginative range that may soon rival that of A.S. Byatt or Margaret Atwood.’ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (2004)

‘Has an extraordinary talent for turning exhaustive research into plausible characters and narratives; she presents a vibrant world seething with repressed feeling and class tensions.’ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (2004)

‘Her informed imaginings combined with her sheer cleverness and elegance as a writer breath vivid life into real characters who heretofore resided in the footnotes of history.’ – IRISH TIMES (2002)

 ‘Every now and again, a writer comes along with a fully loaded brain and a nature so fanciful that she simply must spin out truly original and transporting stuff… Eccentric, untethered genius.’ – SEATTLE TIMES (2002)

‘Profoundly entertaining and intelligent.’ – ELLE (2000)

‘A Free Space,’ in FROM NEWMAN TO NEW WOMAN: UCD WOMEN REMEMBER, ed. by Anne Macdona (Dublin: New Island, 2001)

'Proving It,' SIREN (Toronto), October 1998

'The Youngest Child,' WOMEN'S NEWS (Belfast), November 1997

'A Pagan Place,' GAY COMMUNITY NEWS (Ireland), February 1996

‘Coming Out a Bit Strong’, INDEX ON CENSORSHIP, 24, No. 1 (1995): 87-88
 

‘Dalliance and Divorce in Victoria’s England’, Cynthia MacDonald, GLOBE AND MAIL, 19 April 2008

‘In Flight Moves’, Sylvia Brownrigg, NEW YORK TIMES, 22 July 2007

‘Plucked With Tweezers’, Stevie Davies, GUARDIAN, 16 Dec 06

‘Tales Beyond the Cringe’, Viv Groskop, OBSERVER, 31 Dec 06

‘Fizz, Fun and Fecundity’, Anakana Schofield, GLOBE AND MAIL, 23 Dec 06

‘The Political Is Personal’, Tibor Fischer, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 17 September 2006

‘Touchy Subjects’, KIRKUS, 1 April 2006

‘Looking For the Limelight’, Julia Livshin, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD, 10 October 2004

‘Eliza’s New Pygmalion On the Georgian Stage Set’, Dermot Bolger, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 5 September 2004

‘Sense, Sensibility… and Sex’, Karen Solie, GLOBE AND MAIL, 31 July 2004

‘When Three Is a Crowd’, Edel Coffey, SUNDAY TRIBUNE (Ireland), July 2004

‘Life Mask’, KIRKUS, 1 July 2004

‘Female Friendship’, Lorna Gibb, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, 25 June 2004

‘Rescued from History’, Alex Clark, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, 7 June 2002

‘Cabinet of Wonders’, Carrie Brown, WASHINGTON POST, 19 May 2002

‘'Woman' Enchants in Fact-based Fancy’, SEATTLE TIMES, 28 April 2002

‘The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits’, KIRKUS, March 2002

‘For Want of a Few Fine Things,' by Vince Passaro, ELLE, July 2001

'Satin Doll,' by Zofia Smardz, WASHINGTON POST, 17 June 2001

'Poets and Lovers Ever More,' by Ed Madden, GAY AND LESBIAN REVIEW WORLDWIDE, Winter 2000

'Messy Business,' by Vicky Allan, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY, 6 August 2000

'Tart with an Exotic Flavour,' by Eve Patten, IRISH TIMES, 29 July 2000

'The Sinful Price of a Dress Called Skin,' by Fiona Shaw, FINANCIAL TIMES, 22 July 2000

'Cullies, Strollers, Mollies and Pimps,' by Alev Adil, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, 21 July 2000

'Witchcraft,' by Joe Mader, SF WEEKLY, 21 June 2000

'Magic's 'Witch' Spells Out Women's Hard Journeys,' by Steven Winn, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 13 June 2000

'A World of Women,' by Terry Wolverton, LAMBDA BOOK REPORT, September 1999

'Inseparable, Incestuous and Intense,' by Barbara Grier, LAMBDA BOOK REPORT, September 1999

'Kissing the Witch,' by Jen Nessel, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 21 September 1997

'Girlpower,' by Jane Humphries, BOOKS IRELAND, Summer 1997

'Present and Correct,' by Beatric Colin, SCOTSMAN, 31 May 1997

'Seeped in a Special Magic,' by Evelyn Conlon, SUNDAY TRIBUNE, 4 May 1997

'Girl Meets Girl,' by Fintan O'Toole, IRISH TIMES, 30 April 1997

'Complex, Charming and Confusing,' SUNDAY TRIBUNE, April 1997

'Death in Dublin,' by Catherine Lockerbie, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 24 March 1996

'Emma Donoghue: Love Mourned and Remembered,' by E.J.Graff, BOSTON GLOBE, 17 March 1996

'Daughters of Sappho,' by R.L.Widmann, WASHINGTON POST, 24 September 1995

'Rhymes With Pariah,' by Charlotte Innes, LAMBDA BOOK REPORT No. 28, 1994

'Stirring Stuff,' by Sara Dunn, TIME OUT, 13 February 1994

'Take Three Girls,' by Michele Roberts, SUNDAY TIMES, 13 February 1994

'New Tastes in a New World,' by Eileen Battersby, IRISH TIMES, 22 January 1994

'A Sturdy Grip on the Literary Ladder,' by Joe O'Connor, SUNDAY TRIBUNE 2 January 1994

'Pride Against Prejudice,' by Fintan O'Toole, IRISH TIMES, November 1993

'I Know My Own Heart,' by Victoria White, IRISH TIMES, 4 November 1993
 

Kathleen O’Brien, ‘Contemporary Caoineadh: Talking Straight Through the Dead’, in CANADIAN JOURNAL OF IRISH STUDIES (forthcoming)

Stacia L. Bensyl, ‘Emma Donoghue’, DICTIONARY OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY VOL. 267, TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BRITISH AND IRISH NOVELISTS, ed. by Michael R. Molino (Columbia, SC: Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc, forthcoming 2002)

Fiorenzo Fantaccini, ‘”Old Tales in New Skins”: le fiabre in genere di Emma Donoghue’, in LE RISCRITTURE DEL POSTMODERNO: PERCORSI ANGLOAMERICANI, ed. by Ornella De Zordo and Fiorenzo Fantaccini (Bari: Palomar, 2002)

Susan Sellers, ‘Bodies of Power: Beauty Myths in Tales by Marina Warner, Emma Donoghue, Sheri Tepper and Alice Thompson’, in MYTH AND FAIRY TALE IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S FICTION (New York: Palgrave, 2001)

Maria Micaela Coppola, ‘The Gender of Fairies: Emma Donoghue and Angela Carter as Fairy Tale Performers’, in TEXTUS: ENGLISH STUDIES IN ITALY, XIV:1 (2001)

Anna McMullan, ‘Gender, Authorship and Performance in Selected Plays by Contemporary Women Playwrights: Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy, Marie Jones, Marina Carr, Emma Donoghue’, in THEATRE STUFF: CRITICAL ESSAYS ON CONTEMPORARY IRISH THEATRE, ed. Eamonn Jordan (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2000), 34-46.

Antoinette Quinn, 'New Noises from the Woodshed: The Novels of Emma Donoghue,' in CONTEMPORARY IRISH FICTION: THEMES, TROPES, THEORIES, ed. by Liam Harte and Michael Parker (London: Macmillan, and New York: St Martin's, 2000), pp.145-167

Paulina Palmer, LESBIAN GOTHIC (London and New York: Cassell, 1999), pp.50-51, 61-63, 85-90, 149-50

Rachel Wingfield, 'Lesbian Writers in the Mainstream: Sarah Maitland, Jeanette Winterson and Emma Donoghue' in BEYOND SEX AND ROMANCE: THE POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY LESBIAN FICTION, ed. by Elaine Hutton (London: Women's Press, 1998)

Tonie van Marle, 'Emma Donoghue' in GAY AND LESBIAN LITERATURE: VOLUME TWO, ed. by Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (Detroit: St James Press, 1998)

Gerry Smyth, THE NOVEL AND THE NATION: STUDIES IN THE NEW IRISH FICTION (London: Pluto, 1997)

Marilyn R. Farwell, HETEROSEXUAL PLOTS AND LESBIAN NARRATIVES (New York and London: New York University Press, 1996), 170-71, 176