Reading for Word Factory at Waterstones Piccadilly this week was a whole lot of fun. It was great to read alongside friends and colleagues. I can remember only a couple of years ago being so terrified I stopped reading and froze after just a few lines. Now I look like a pro.
The ceiling was bouncing from the music and dancing above and below there were readings from authors such as Booker Prize-winner Marlon James. Lots to distract and get nervous about.
I say look like a pro because I never feel like one. I think it’s all a confidence trick. Just pretend you’re a pro and see what happens. Readings can be funny things – a mixture of ‘can’t wait for my turn’ and ‘please let me disappear’. My legs were shaking so badly I had to keep shifting from my front leg to my back leg so they didn’t give way completely. I couldn’t stand still or both legs. On the other hand – or rather, the top half – I was giving it my all. If I’m totally honest I was showing off. I got lots of great feedback from people who had seen me read before and no-one noticed. Not one. That’ll do for me. And I really enjoyed it.
One great piece of advice you’re given is that when reading you should make an effort to look up from the page. It drives the energy out, the audience see more of your ‘performance’ and with some eye contact they become more engaged. And I just found out – by looking up you could catch some images like this… people really having a good laugh. Strong and genuine reactions to your work.
Thanks to James Lawson for the pics. A video of the reading is coming soon… yikes!
The Word Factory December round-up of writing links and submission opportunities from my blog is here. For all you writers out there – check them out.
Get writing! Get submissions! Get published!
Another wonderful review of The Good Son, this time from Susie Wild in Bare Fiction Magazine. Read the whole thing by clicking the link.
‘A vivid, playful, fence-hurdling, page-turning act of cocky bravado and endearing imagination. Mickey is a shining star of a protagonist; charming, erudite, and warmly, infectiously funny.
…a startling debut, McVeigh proves he more than warrants the literary company he keeps. The writing is sharp and the voice, a difficult one to sustain over a novel’s length, rarely falters. With pages so full of heart and helter-skelter movement, it is no surprise to learn that he also has a background in theatre. The pages of his first novel are alive with sparky dialogue and this visual language, the brash and the subtle, the compelling, the compassionate.
An engaging storyteller, I hope to see more from Paul McVeigh…’
You can hear me read from The Good Son Thursday Dec 3 at Waterstones Piccadilly at 6.30. For tickets to the Word Factory salon at the Waterstones Xmas evening email piccadilly@waterstones.com .
My final reading of this year is in the biggest bookshop in Europe (it’s also rather beautiful) Waterstones Piccadilly, London, on December 3 at 6.30pm. It’s part of their Christmas celebrations and Word Factory have been asked to do a literary salon. You can read more about it here and here.
These are the other authors and events appearing at this special evening…
Booker-winner Marlon James
Virginia Baily
Laura Barnett
Rob Biddulph
Jonathan Coe
David Downton
Miriam Elia
Cathy Galvin
The Gentle Author
Zoe Gilbert
Christopher Green
Professor Green
Dave Haslam
Christopher William Hill
Conn Iggulden
Little Atoms
Paul McVeigh
Irenosen Okojie
Chris Riddell
Kristina Rihanoff
Polly Samson
Alice Stevenson
Music & song with La La Piano Bar
Music & poetry with Brudini & Chip Martin
Quiz from the QI elves
Colouring-in The Menagerie with the O’Mara team
The Word Factory Salon
Pop-up cake stall from Bluebell Kitchen
Stories from the Petit Prance
Dance with Scott Cupit & Swing Patrol
Cocktails from Mr Lyan and the Society Club
It’s a free event – all you have to do is book your place by emailing piccadilly@waterstones.com. Hope to see some you there.
You can listen back to the wonderful review of The Good Son on BBC Radio Ulster by Mike Philpott on the Kerry McLean Show at 42.15 mins in.
“Heart-rending… It has everything… the casual brutality of the Troubles seems worse because it’s seen through this child’s eyes. It’s so real, one the best protagonists I’ve read in a long, long time… The last time a character had stayed with me like that was Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
One of McVeigh’s talents is he takes you from sadness to humour to horror to a whole range of other emotions quite often even in the space of one page which is not an easy thing to do.”
Listeners:
“A bitter-sweet experience… One I’d reccomend to all.”
“Amazing, disturbing, sad and funny.”
“It’s the story of every child. I really enjoyed it but it did make me cry.”
“A cracking read. One I’d definitely recommend.”
Amazing! Thanks everyone.
As the Bare Fiction Short Story Prize and the Penny Dreadful Prize close, another two competitions I’m judging open. The Storgy Short Story Competition, deadline Dec 30, and the inaugural Aurora Short Fiction Prize from Writing East Midlands, deadline Feb 1. I hope to read some of your stories. Good luck!
The wonderful Patrick Gale author of 15 novels and 2 short story collections has just been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Of the Year Prize. Here’s my Q&A with him on that novel ‘A Place Called Winter’ from the The Irish Times on Monday.
Really excited that The Good Son has been chosen as one of Gransnet’s Christmas Books for 2015. It’s a honour to be listed alongside so many excellent authors like Sebastian Faulks and Patrick Gale, who said of The Good Son – “Pungently funny, shot through with streaks of aching sadness”.
Have a look through their picks here.
Word Factory’s monthly round-up of writerly news and submission opportunities from my blog is packed full with useful links.
Why not have a look and see what opportunities are waiting for you.
Get writing! Get submitting! Get published!
Paul McVeigh 