Rachel Gough is a writer and academic from Cork.
Her work includes short fiction broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in The Waxed Lemon, Outpost, Bealtaine, The National Flash Fiction Anthology, and Best Small Fictions, with further work forthcoming in The Medusa. Her poetry has been published in Quarryman and is forthcoming in One Good Day, Oscail and Abridged Magazine. She is currently working on her first short story collection.
She holds a PhD in Film and Screen Media from University College Cork. She is a postdoctoral researcher based in the CPPU group at the Sustainability Institute where she is working on the EPA-funded CLIMATUDE project. This project is focusing on developing an understanding of Irish people’s attitudes, beliefs and values related to climate change. She also lectures in the Department of Film and Screen Media.
In 2021 her short story ‘December 25th 2022’ was shortlisted at the Wild Atlantic Words Festival. In 2023 she received the Editor’s Choice Award from the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the same year. In 2025, she was awarded first place in the flash fiction category at the Write by the Sea Literary Festival. In 2026 she was awarded the Irish Writer’s Centre Notre Dame Kylemore Residency. Also in 2026, she was the winner of the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award.
Her work explores the surreal, the supernatural, and the complexities of memory. Her writing often looks at rural ecologies and communities, examining the threads that bind them together as well as the forces that drive them apart.
Follow on socials
Contact
You can get in touch through the form here.