‘Heart gripping!’
The Good Son has been chosen for this month’s Book Club on the Kerry McLean Show on Radio Ulster. Skip to 52 minutes in to hear Esther Haller-Clarke review the book and it will be reviewed again later this month.
Author: Paul McVeigh Writer
That Killer First Page Sold Out – Special Guest Lucy Caldwell
‘That Killer First page’ continues its sold out run as the last place went yesterday for this Saturday at Waterstones Piccadilly. My special guest is Lucy Caldwell winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize whose debut collection comes out with Faber next year. Lucy has also won… hold on to your seats… The George Devine Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Irish Playwrights’ and Screenwriters’ Guild Award, Richard Imison Award, Rooney Prize for Irish Literature & Dylan Thomas Prize. You are in for a treat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p033yt4m/player
Watch Lucy talk about short stories at The Small Wonder Festival this year.
Great fun at City Reads. See you in Hastings?
Lots of fun reading at City Reads Brighton last night. Reading alongside a long list of wonderful writers.
If you like live literature and you want to catch me reading you can come to Hastings on Oct 27 (my birthday) for my third Polari salon. It ‘s always an excellent line up. I met comedian Chris Green year’s ago when I was writing and directing comedy in London. I watched his first show and gave him some directing notes. I wonder if he’ll remember me? I hope to see some of you there.
Profile in The Belfast Telegraph
A profile about me in The Belfast Telegraph. From my home town, it’s also Northern Ireland’s best-selling newspaper and I’m profiled here by local legend Ivan Little. A few errors in there – I went to the University of Ulster at Coleraine for example… I can’t blame Ivan as we talked for hours and I was caffeine fuelled.
I hope you like it.
Man A-Live! Brighton, Bath and Hastings.
Do you like going to live events? Watching and listening to authors read their work? I’m staying in my home town of Brighton tonight for Polari, hosted by the rather fab Paul Burston. I’ll be reading alongside VG Lee, Fergus Evans, Juliet Jacques and Damian Barr. Come along to The Marlborough Theatre at 7.30pm. You can get your tickets here.
My most unusual reading at the Wroclaw International Short Story Festival this month.
Tomorrow I’m off to Bath to teach my ‘Killer First Page’ class (sold out I’m afraid but tickets available for London). In the evening I’m reading with Tania Hershman and Sarah Hilary at St James Wine Vaults at 7.30pm.
Back in Brighton again on Wed 21st as part of the City Reads celebration of Matt Haig’s ‘The Humans’. A wealth of writing talent will respond to this work in their own way. Check out the list below.
On my birthday, October 27th, I’ll be reading in Hastings at my second Polari event of the month alongside Adam Mars-Jones, Chris Green, Diane Perry and Erica Smith. The event starts at 7.30pm at The Print works, 14 Claremont, America Ground.
Hope to see some of you there. Say hello.
West Sussex Writers Tonight in Worthing
I’m talking at West Sussex Writers tonight about writing, Word Factory, London Short Story Festival and my ‘Not The Booker’ Prize shortlisting.
Come to Inclusive Arts at Heene Gallery, Worthing at 7.30pm. Non-members very welcome, £5 including tea/coffee and cake.www.westsussexwriters.co.uk
Did you hear that? Includes tea and cake. And apparently there’s a raffle. I’d go just for that.
Not The Booker – LIVE EVENT. Oct 10 at 7pm, London.
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?
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| 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.
‘On Being Human’ Live Event Brighton, Oct 21
This sounds like a wonderful evening and I’m very excited to be part of it. Celebrating Matt Haig’s ‘Being Human’ with responses on the text from writers. Hope to see some of you there.
Vote for ‘The Good Son’ to win The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize
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.
My Q&A with bestselling Mexican author Monica Lavin in The Irish Times
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.)
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.
Paul McVeigh 