Denise Deegan is an Irish novelist, screenwriter and producer, published by Penguin Random House and Hachette with awards from SCBWI and Publishers Weekly. Writing as Aimee Alexander, her women’s fiction novels have become international bestsellers, translated into German, Dutch and Turkish. Her writing for teenagers includes the much-loved contemporary trilogy, The Butterfly Novels: And By The Way, And For Your Information and And Actually and the epic crossover novel of Irish revolution, Through the Barricades. And For Your Information was nominated for an Irish Book Award and is on Coverfly’s Red List, while Through the Barricades won a coveted SCBWI SPARK Award.
PAGE Award-winning screenwriter, Denise’s scripts tackles issues of loss and injustice often through humour. Winner of The Pitch Film Fund, Denise’s comedy short, The Innkeeper, has been produced by Reel Issues Films while two features and two TV series are in development with a variety of Irish, UK and Finnish companies. Two of her scripts received Screen Ireland development funding.
Denise is a ScreenCraft Top 50 Finalist, a Final Draft Big Break Semi-finalist, a Roadmap Writers Top 25 Finalist and has placed at AFF and the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. Her short film, 3 Down, won the Shedunnit Short Script Competition at WOFFF. Her radio play, The Last PTA Meeting, won the Little Wonder Radio Play Competition. Denise won the Raindance Pitching Competition, January 2021, following a general anaesthetic! Denise is represented by Peter MacFarlane of MacFarlane Chard.

About Denise

Denise lives in Dublin with her family where she regularly dreams of sunshine, a life without cooking and her novels being made into movies.
Denise has been a nurse, china restorer, pharmaceutical sales rep, public relations officer, entrepreneur and college lecturer. Her most difficult job was checkout girl, though it did inspire a short story.
Books

Fairy-tale Retelling
Fairy-tale retelling of The Princess and the Pea, where the prince and princess get to control their own destinies.

Ireland’s Fight For Freedom
This story of first love during revolution won the SCBWI Spark Award 2017 and was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Booklife “Books to Watch”. Immaculately researched.

Contemporary Teen Series
The beloved Butterfly Novels… Three friends, Rachel, Alex and Sarah negotiate school, life, first love and – always – friendship.

Women’s Fiction
Learn more about Denise’s bestselling women’s fiction, written under the pen name Aimee Alexander.
The Little Book of Irishisms
If an Irish person called you a “mad yoke” would you know if they were insulting you or complimenting you? A novelty guide to the quirky way the Irish speak English. The ultimate gift for anyone who loves the Irish in them. MORE
School Visits

Denise loves to bring her popular and empowering story workshops to schools around Ireland. Interactive and fun, they are designed to help students learn more about character, plot, using their senses when telling stories and ‘showing not telling.’