Kelly O’Flaherty is a novelist with a strong educational and creative background. As a teenager, struggles with depression and self-harming tendencies became a part of her everyday life. Keeping a journal and learning to play music truly helped young Kelly to find her way out of the fog. There, the spark of Cuts & Bruises was born. Its very first draft served as a form of therapy, a place to pour out and analyse her feelings. For years, it lay forgotten until a spark of new inspiration – supported by hindsight – brought this lost story back in Kelly’s mind stronger than ever and she knew without a doubt that this was a story that needed to be told.
Kelly holds a BSc in Digital Animation, amongst other creative college courses, which taught her many aspects of storytelling and the craft of narrative. Her final year film was also centred around the topic of mental health and her dissertation studied the representation of mental health within film, from which she also learnt about a myriad of psychological ideas and how media needs to step up in the fight against mental health stigma. She hopes that Cuts & Bruises can help do just that.
She currently works as part of the film industry in Dublin but hails from (the real capital of) Cork. A creative mind bursting with a desire to learn, she is an avid reader of many genres and still turns to writing and music to help stave off the demons. She wrote Cuts & Bruises not for herself, but for every struggling teenager (and adult) out there who needs proof that they are not alone.
Kelly O'Flaherty 