Paul was born in Dublin in 1972 and lived for several years in the United States, where he studied at Brown University. He is currently Associate Professor in Creative Writing at University College Dublin where he directs the Creative Writing programme. He has been a Writer in Residence for Co. Longford and Rathlin Island and is a former Michener Fellow at the University of Miami, Cambor Fellow at the University of Houston, and Vice-Chancellor Research Scholar at the University of Ulster. He has also taught Creative Writing at Kingston University, London, and University College Dublin, and was curator of dlr Poety Now.
He has won the Hennessy Prize for Irish Literature, the Listowel Prize for Poetry, and The Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship. Poetry collections include “The Drowning of the Saints” (Salmon, 2003), “The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance” (Daedalus, 2009), “The Orchid Keeper” (Dedalus, 2006), “The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance” (Dedalus, 2010), “Gunpowder Valentine: New and Selected Poems” (Dedalus, 2014), “The Ghosts of Barnacullia” (above/ground press, 2019), and “Blindsight” (above/ground press, 2020). He has also published a book of translations: “108 Moons: The Selected Poems of Jurga Ivanauskaite” (TAF Publishing, 2010). As an editor, he has overseen the publication of “The Best Irish Poetry, 2009” (Munster Literature Centre), and “Beyond The Workshop, Creative Writing Theory and Pedagogy”, (Kingston University Press, 2012).
He is co-author, with Karen Gillece, of the Karen Perry series of Penguin Books psychological thrillers, including: “Your Closest Friend”, “Can You Keep a Secret?”, “Girl Unknown”, “Only We Know”, “The Boy That Never Was”, and “Come a Little Closer”. His children’s book, “The Cyclops with Two Eyes” was published by Ragamuffin Books in 2019 and is novel, “The Garden”, is forthcoming from New Island Books in 2021.