National Flash-Fiction Day: Writing Workshop

National Flash-Fiction Day: Writing Workshop

Do you like your fiction short? Then flash-fiction is for you.
Writer Paul McVeigh will lead a class in celebration of the flash-fiction form. Come along and hear some great examples and try writing one yourself.

7 – 9 pm, Tuesday 28th June
Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts
cnr Antrim Rd and Duncairn Ave
Belfast BT14 6BP

This workshop is free but booking is essential as places are limited.
Please phone the Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts on 028 9074 7114 or email: marnie.kennedy@sky.com

write

Translated into Turkish

I’m  very excited that a short fiction of mine “Dig” has been translated in Turkish by Cihan Akkartal for Altzine – a Turkish literary magazine. To read click onto the site – the first box is for your email, the second is the capthca, so just fill in what you see and you can download it.

I went to Turkey earlier this year with The British Council as part of the Authors Meet programme. I visited Izmir and Istanbul and met the magazine’s editor Su Basbugu while there. I hope you enjoy the story and read the rest of the magazine.

altZine Yaz 2016

This flash fiction Dig first appeared, in English, in Unbraiding the short story – an anthology of the authors attending The 13th International Conference on the Short Story which I attended in Vienna, in 2014. This translation was commissioned by MF Opowiadania – Int. Short Story Festival where I read in Wroclaw, in 2015.

Unbraidng Cover

Novel vs Short Story: me, Simon van Booy & Fiona McFarlane

Honoured to be sharing the stage with Fiona McFarlane and Simon van Booy in my favourite venue in the world! Hope some of you can some. Here’s the skinny…

Tonight three authors will debate the pleasures and pitfalls of the two forms as readers and writers of both. Award-winning Simon van Booy joins us from the USA and Fiona McFarlane visits us from Australia, making her first UK appearance. Paul McVeigh, author and co-founder of London Short Story Festival completes the panel with literary agent Carrie Kania chairing. Lively readings, engaging conversations and signings with a glass of wine.

Simon Van Booy is the author of three collections of short stories and three novels, with his most recent novel ‘Father’s Day’, just published in the UK by One World. In 2010, he won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award for his collection Love Begins in Winter. His fiction has been translated into seventeen languages.

Fiona McFarlane’s novel, The Night Guest, will be published in 19 countries and 15 languages, and won a NSW Premier’s Prize and Fiona was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist for 2014. Fiona’s short stories have been published in the New Yorker her debut collection ‘The High Places’ is out now.

Paul McVeigh’s debut novel ‘The Good Son’ was chosen as Brighton’s City Reads 2016 and has been shortlisted for numerous awards. His short stories have been published in journals and anthologies and read on BBC Radio 4 and 5. Paul is also the co-founder of the London Short Story Festival and associate director of Word Factory the UK’s premier short story salon.

£5 tickets are available in store, by telephone 020 7851 2400 or by email:piccadilly@waterstones.com

Free Tickets to Greenwich Book Festival

I’m attending Greenwich Book Festival on Saturday chairing an event on the short story with Carys Davies and Joanna Walsh. I have two tickets to the event if you fancy them. Leave a note here or on Facebook or twitter. I also have some comps to the other events listed below so let me know if you fancy them.

Are we finally entering the long overdue golden age of short fiction? Readings and a Q&A discussion about the resurgence in popularity of the short story and the challenges of the form with Joanna Walsh (Vertigo) and Carys Davies (2015 winner of the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize for The Redemption of Galen Pike). Chaired by Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son, co-founder of the London short story festival and associate director of The Word Factory.

Event followed by a book signing.

Suitable for age 16+

Tickets

 

The other events I have tickets for…

– 10.30-11.30am, Cast Away/Breach: Europe’s refugee crisis, with Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes National Maritime Museum

– 14.30-15.30 Silver age of the Small Presses with And Other Stories, Galley Beggar and Salt

– 1530-16.30 Inside the Mind of an Outsider with Alex Pheby, Anakana Schoefield and Andrew Hankinson

– 16.30-17.30 The Rise and Rise of the Short Story with Joanna Walsh, Carys Davies and Paul McVeigh

– 18.00-19.00 Why we need more diverse stories with Alex Wheatle, Yvvette Edwards, Catherine Johnson and Irenosen Okojie

– 18.00-19.00 Kate Summerscale: The Wicked Boy

– 19.00-20.00 Reality Skewed with Paul Ewen and Adam Biles

– 20.00-21.00 Brix Smith Start

– 21.00-22.00ish… The Galley Beggar vs Influx with Adam Biles, Preti Taneja, Paul Stanbridge, Juliet Jacques, Courttia Newland and Irenosen Okojie

City Reads Interview at Brighton Festival May 29

BF Logo

Sunday May 29 at Brighton Festival sees the closing of this year’s City Reads. Over 200 tickets already sold which blows my mind! I’ll be interviewed about The Good Son by author and journalist Laura Lockington. That it’s part of the historic 50 year anniversary of the Brighton Festival makes it all the sweeter. I hope to see some of you there – grab the few remaining tickets here.

Book Marks

My class ‘Those Killer First Chapters: Getting the attention of agents and editors’ is back. Waterstones Piccadilly, London, July 2.

My class ‘Those Killer First Chapters: Getting the attention of agents and editors’ is back. Waterstones Piccadilly, London, July 2.

Thank you and congratulations Felicia Yap: “I attended Paul’s workshop two weeks before I went on submission. A truly enjoyable day and I learnt a lot. Sometimes, a single technical idea can make a real difference to our journeys as writers. I came away from Paul’s workshop with not one but several exciting possibilities. And yes, THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY did get lots of attention merely two weeks later!” Selling for a 6 figure sum.

Click for more information and tickets.