Ciara O'Connor is a lecturer at Dundalk Institute of Technology and lives in Dundalk, County Louth, with her family. She has worked as an advertising copywriter and as a reviewer for Inis magazine.

Her debut novel, The Skidderwolves, began life in creative writing classes run by Ferdia MacAnna, growing out of the family's own big, misunderstood rescue dog, Eddie; her sons and their friends were its first readers. It took the best part of a decade to reach print. In 2023 it was longlisted for the Staróg Prize for Irish writers of children's fiction, the same year she won the Caterpillar Poetry Prize, judged by Michael Rosen. She sent the opening chapters to Gill in January 2024, and the finished book was published by Gill Children's Books in 2026 with illustrations by Sarah Horne.

The Skidderwolves, for readers of eight and up, is the story of a pack of notorious wolves who keep Shoak Village awake at night by skidding down Main Street, sending sparks of electricity flying into the air. When a local girl disappears and the wolves are blamed, an order goes out to kill them on sight - and five years later twelve-year-old Rory McKenna discovers that his dad has been hiding them all along.