A teacher by training, Gillian began writing when her daughters were young, sitting with a notebook at the top of the stairs waiting for them to go to sleep. Her first children’s book, Adam’s Starling , won the Eilís Dillon Memorial Award in 2002 and was described by the Irish Times as: ‘an impressive debut – genuinely moving.’ It was followed by the publication of her Conor stories in the O’Brien Press Panda series. These have proven hugely popular and she often visits schools, libraries and book festivals where she brings the stories to life with dance and drama activities.
In recent years Gillian has begun writing for adults and two of her crime novels, If I Tell( Sandycove/Penguin 2021) and When They See Me( Sandycove/Penguin 2023) have been published to much acclaim. Her third novel, The Night I Killed Him, will be published in July 2025.
She lives in Dublin.