Author: Paul McVeigh Writer

Not The Booker – LIVE EVENT. Oct 10 at 7pm, London.

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Not The Booker – LIVE EVENT.

Saturday October 10th at 7.00pm
Not the Booker LIVE EVENT
The first Not The Booker Prize was launched in 2009 by Sam Jordison in the Guardian. This award offers the public  a chance to have their say in deciding who wins the prize. Mmm, slightly more democratic than other big book prizes, don’t you think?
This Year’s Prize
The entry criterion is very similar to the Booker Prize.
Readers are asked to nominate a book fitting these criteria and a longlist is then announced. This longlist is then whittled down to six books.
 
The six shortlisted books were announced on August 3rd.
 
They are;
 
Kirstin Innes – Fishnet  (Freight Books)
Kat Gordon – The Artificial Anatomy of Parks  (Legend Press)
Oliver Langmead – Dark Star  (Unsung Stories)
Paul McVeigh – The Good Son  (Salt)
Tasha Kavanagh – Things We Have in Common  (Canongate)
Melanie Finn – Shame  (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
 
And we are delighted that the Not the Booker Prize is going live! Wembley Arena was deemed too insignificant and The South Bank was turned down. Only Wood Green could host such an event.
 
All six authors have been invited by The Guardian to attend a panel reading and discussion. We are delighted that we think all six will be able to make it…
 
Hosted by Sam Jordison, not only will you get the chance to meet the authors, there will also be a Q and A and a signing.
 
Tickets for this event are just £5, available HERE, redeemable on any of the shortlisted books.
Spaces are very limited and this event is likely to sell out very quickly.

Vote for ‘The Good Son’ to win The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize

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Hello lovely people. Judgement is upon me. It appears it is time when you can vote for your choice to win The Guardian‘s Not Booker Prize from the shortlist. Would be appreciated muchly if you had the time to vote for The Good Son.

Click this link and…

“Voting is simple. All you have to do is nominate your favourite book in the comments below this article. Please make it easy for us by writing the word “vote” and then specifying the name of the book you’re going for and the author at the start of your comment. We just want one vote from you, for one book. We’d also like to see 50 words or so explaining your choice. As ever, please don’t worry if you’ve changed your mind during the course of the competition.”

You could use the same review you gave last time, if you voted – its probably still on their site.

Many thanks… and wish me luck.

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My Q&A with bestselling Mexican author Monica Lavin in The Irish Times

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I met Monica Lavin on a trip to Mexico recently with The British Council. A huge star over there she is also a beautiful person. It was a pleasure to do this Q&A with her.

Q&A with bestselling Mexican author Monica Lavin about turtle dung, short stories versus novels, memory and migration

(Here’s just a little snippet…. head over to The Irish Times to read more.)

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Why the love for short story writing?

Because I read wonderful stories as a teenager: Chekhov, Bradbury, Hemingway, Cortazar, Borges, Rulfo. Latin American writers’ books were fresh, the writers were alive. That gave another dimension to what I had read before. When I was a child I thought all writers were dead people. Maybe that is one of the reasons I could not picture myself as one, even though I had been writing stories since I was 13 years old. I did not how to become a writer.

Does your writing have anything to do with your scientific background?

I think science and writing have to do with the desire to know. Science deals with objective truth, literature with relative truth. El Quijote taught us that. The short story aesthetic has more to do with mathematical equations – they have to be balanced: nothing extra, nothing missing. I love the silence of the short story.

Why did you started writing novels?

I always felt there was a question behind each short story – what if…? Now I know it is more than that, and what I thought would be a short story commanded several questions. I was dealing with multidimensional characters, several situations. I was in the grounds of the novel, and I plunged in. Now I write both. Short story writing is a way of thinking, so I always write them. I love the risk of both.

Don’t forget to check out the rest…. here.

Short Story or Novel? Which will you write?

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Recently, I travelled to Mexico with The British Council to read my short stories and talk about the state of the short story in the UK.  I was asked to do a blog post for their ‘Voices Magazine’ based on questions the editor sent me.

A brief snip…

‘You could perhaps draw the following analogy to compare the two: a short story would be like producing a photograph, while a novel would be more like making a film. A photographer will be thinking about every tiny detail in the frame and how it conveys meaning. It can be a character portrait or a moment captured in time. The novel, like a film, can take us on a journey, capture many lives, cover lifetimes/generations, discuss a society or the history of a culture. For example, when I wanted to capture what it was like for a whole generation of children to grow up in Northern Ireland knowing nothing else but The Troubles, I knew that this had to be done in a novel. To describe the day-to-day life and the cumulative effect of living in fear, on one boy, his family and the community at large, the reader needed to spend time with that boy, in that community.’

Read more here.  Find out about my short story class in London on Novemeber 7th here.

PaulMcVeigh short story

Comic Strip Book Promo – Genius!

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Last week the writer Avalina Kreska wrote a fantastic short, review of The Good Son on her blog. She said – ahem – ‘A masterpiece – a must-read – beautiful – stirring – surely there will be a film…’

Of course I was overjoyed. But then came this…

Avalina Kerska's Incredible Comic Strip

Avalina Kreska’s Incredible Comic Strip

I was completely blown away. Its so funny, original, quirky and imaginative… I’ve never seen a response to a book like this. And I’m much better looking in this so pretty chuffed.

If you like it and fancy contacting Avalina about her work with comics you can do so here. I’m going to get mine printed and framed.

Thanks Avalina!

Festival Time! Cork, Ireland and Wraclow, Poland.

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I’m really looking forward to Cork International Short Story Festival next week. I’m especially excited to be chairing an event with Edge Hill Prize-winner Kirsty Gunn and one of my all-time favourite writers Claire Keegan. I’ll also get to see my good friend Liadain O’Donovan give out the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, on behalf of her father, to Carys Davies, that evening.

Liadain O'Donovan at 13th International Conference on the Short Story, Vienna '14.

Liadain O’Donovan at 13th International Conference on the Short Story, Vienna ’14.

After returning home to Brighton, I head off to Wroclaw, Poland on Oct 1 to attend the Międzynarodowy Festiwal Opowiadania – International Short Story Festival where I’m honoured to be joining the other international guests Jon Boilard, Clare Wigfall & Colin Barrett. I’m reading on Saturday Oct 3. You can check out the programme here.

Maybe I’ll see some of you in Cork or Poland. Come and say ‘hello’.

 

 

 

Get writing! Get submitting! Get Published!

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I’m Associate Director at the wonderful Word Factory. If you love short stories you should come along to the monthly event to hear the best short story writers in the world read their work and discuss the form.

Each month Word Factory produces a list of short story submission opportunities for writers and there’s also links to interesting resources. These are taken from my blog for writers which you find and have a look here.

Get writing! Get submitting! Get published!

PaulMcVeigh short story

 

Missed My Sold Out Class in Bath? Try Brighton Oct 10.

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‘That Killer First Page’, my class on the short story, has now sold out in Bath on Oct 17. It’s been quite a run… sold out in Belfast, Cork, Waterstones Piccadilly and Writers Victoria, Melbourne, where it broke records by selling out in 20 minutes!

If you missed your chance in Bath you could always try Brighton. I’ll be teaching the class for New Writing South writer development agency on October 10. Click here to find out more.

PaulMcVeigh short story

Don’t forget I’m judging the Penny Dreadful Novella Prize alongside Sarah Baume and Colin Barrett and am the sole judge of the Bare Fiction Short Story Prize.