Paul McVeigh Residency Free Sessions
The Writers’ Ink Session 15th January at 1pm
Tony Flynn Session Feb 5th at 7pm
Links to the sessions and info on the third session in the new year.
Author: Paul McVeigh Writer
Winner of The McCrea Literary Award 2025
I Hear You, my collection of BBC Radio 4 short stories, is the joint winner of The McCrea Literary Award 2025. I would shout out to the other winner but they didn’t tell me who it was.
Here’s what the judges said about I Hear You –
“A fascinating collection of post-Troubles short stories, rich in characters, fine observation, memorable and moving images. He handles his subjects with compassion and humour. This is a real page-turner of a collection. It is hard to put the book down or to unglue one’s eyes from it. A compelling, rewarding, and uplifting read.
Faced with the challenge of producing a chain of interlinked stories (in one part of the collection), McVeigh ingeniously creates a kaleidoscopic series of tales that reflect more of the diversity of Belfast life than ever used to be seen in writing from the north of Ireland.”
You can buy it here…
The Winners of Paul McVeigh Residency
The winners of the Paul McVeigh West Cork Residency are Carol Farrelly, Greg Thorpe and @tephanie Torrance. Thank you to the judges Cathy Galvin and Hilary White who had an extremely difficult job.
The winners will work with Yvonne Battle-Felton, Louis de Bernieres, Martina Devlin, Patrick Holloway, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Kirsty Logan, Robert Olen Butler, Leone Ross and visit Bantry Bookshop and Patrick Cotter in Cork.
ALL APPLICANTS WILL GET THREE FREE EVENTS IN JANUARY AND MORE ON THAT AFTER CHRISTMAS.
Residency Longlist Announced
Residency Longlist at 5pm Today
It’s Friday. It’s also announcement day. If you’re waiting then tune in at 5pm.
Published in Sunday Miscellany Anthology
Delighted that my Sunday Miscellany story, ‘Queen of the South’, has made it into print with this wonderful anthology edited by producer Sarah Binchy. Can’t wait to go through this and read all the stories from some of my favourite writers.
Patrick Cotter Joins Paul McVeigh Residency
We’re delighted that Patrick Cotter has joined the residency. The three winners will go to Cork to meet with Patrick where they can ask him about the industry. Patrick is Director of Munster Literature Centre and Cork International Short Story Festival and has invaluable advice about approaching festivals and what’s expected of you when you’re there.
Patrick Cotter has published many books of poetry, most recently Quality Control at the Miracle Factory (Dedalus, 2025). He is a recipient of the Keats-Shelly Poetry Prize and has been short-listed for many others. His poems have been translated into twenty languages. His poems have been published in the Financial Times, London Review of Books, Poetry and over twenty anthologies. He lives in Cork.
For more info on the Paul McVeigh West Cork Residency click here.
ARTS COUNCIL NI AWARDEE
What a relief! I’m very lucky to have received an Arts Council NI grant to fund my writing.
I applied through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Project Funding for Individuals Programme for time to write a new collection of stories.
I’m very grateful for the support for my writing but as most writers struggle with their finances it makes such a huge difference to the financial stress.
Thanks again ACNI and National Lottery.
Patrick Holloway & Hilary White Join The Residency
Both winners of the inaugural Paul McVeigh Residency are back this year.
Patrick Holloway will talk to the winners about life after the residency and how to prepare for your first book entering the world. Hilary White will help judge who gets the three places this year. Here’s more about them.
Patrick Holloway is a writer of fiction and poetry, and won The Bath Short Story Prize, The Allingham Fiction Contest, The Flash 500 Prize, The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize, among others. His debut novel, The Language of Remembering, was published in 2025 and was described as The Irish Times as ‘an utterly readable book of real depth,’ the Irish Independent as ‘modern Irish writing at its finest’, and The Irish examiner as a ‘powerful, original family story from a wonderfully talented writer.’ It was listed in RTE’s top 10 books of 2025. His work appears in The Stinging Fly, The Moth, The London Magazine, Carve, Southword, among others.
Hilary White is a writer and conservationist from Dublin. His work has appeared in The Dublin Review, Winter Papers, Tolka, Archaeology Ireland, Sunday and Irish Independents, and the Irish Times. He is currently completing City of Hawks, a memoir about Dublin and its raptors. He was chosen for the inaugural Paul McVeigh Residency 2023, and long-listed for the 2024 Nature Chronicles Prize. Hilary is a recipient of the Literature Bursary and Agility awards from the Arts Council of Ireland.
You can apply here.
‘I Hear You’ Gets Reprint
I’m over-the-moon that ‘I Hear You’ has sold out its initial print run. This is particularly great as short stories famously don’t sell well. So, thanks to everyone who bought a copy!
It looks the same with the addition of some new quotes from BBC Radio 4, Bookmunch, RTE, and The Irish Times.
You can pick up your copy here.
Paul McVeigh 