Polluted Sex

A pregnant woman takes the ferry to the UK. A fractious intimate relationship develops between an Irish woman, an English man, and her girlfriend. Two ungendered characters contest the same female body. A deserted wife takes a lover but remains unsatisfied. Lauren Foley's debut collection of dramatic short stories, Polluted Sex, is fearless in its depiction of women's bodies and sexuality, offering an unflinching window into Irish girl and womanhood.

Lauren Foley is Irish/Australian and bisexual. Her stories are published internationally, including in Overland, The Irish Times, Award Winning Australian Writing, Lighthouse, No Alibis and gorse. She has Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and is disabled; the majority of her writing is dictated. In 2016, her story 'K-K-K' won the inaugural Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize with Overland Literary Journal and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year. She was shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year in 2017; and nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Lauren was awarded a 2018-19 Next Generation Artist's Award in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland.