As a previous winner of The Polari First Novel Prize I was asked to judge the inaugural Polari Prize, founded by the amazing Paul Burston.

The shortlist has been announced in The Bookseller.

-1970s tale Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale (Tinder); novel Prodigal by Charles Lambert (Gallic); gay drama A Simple Scale by David Llewellyn (Seren); childhood-set Playtime by Andrew McMillan (Cape Poetry) and Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (Granta), which tells the story of a teenage Silvie living in a hut in Northumberland, will go head to head with Bradbury for the Polari Prize.

Commenting on the Polari Prize, author and judge Paul McVeigh said: “What a rich and diverse body of LGBT themed work we had to read for this inaugural Polari Book of the Year. It was hard to select just 6 for this shortlist from work of such high quality.”-

Me receiving the Polari Frist Novel Prize

What is Not Said –

Celebrating the Short Story

Divya Vijay, Jan Carson, MS Madhavan & Uday Prakash,  chaired by me.

You can watch and listen to this event on the short story at Jaipur Literature Festival 2019.

It was one of 5 events I did at the festival, some of which I’ve posted on the website.

I hope you enjoy it.

BBC Arts launches ‘ambitious’ new season celebrating the novel

”BBC Arts is launching an “ambitious new season” across BBC TV and radio this autumn with a year-long festival celebrating the novel and a series on how novels have shaped the world.

The centre piece of the season will be the three part BBC Two Series, “The Novels That Shaped Our World”. The series will examine the novel from three unique perspectives: Empire and slavery, women’s voices and working class experiences.  These unique films will argue that the novel has always been a revolutionary agent of social change spearheading shifts in both colonial and post-colonial attitudes, female equality and social mobility.”

I did some filming for this in London. Look out for it later this year. Read more about it here.

Beginnings and Endings

With Pulitzer Prize-winner Andrew Sean Greer, Anjum Hassan, Jayant Kaikini and Mahesh Roa.

Here is an hour-long video of an event at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2019.

Jayant Kaikini and me at Jaipur Literature Festival

I’ll be teaching at Writers’ Day at Salisbury Literature Festival on Oct 20th.

“This year the Writers’ Day offers six fantastic sessions. In the morning, award winning novelist, Paul McVeigh (The Good Son) kicks things off looking at the killer first chapter, focusing on that crucial story opening and what agents, competition judges and journal editors look for. Yvonne Battle-Felton, Creative Writing Lecturer, and author of Remembered (longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction) then leads a session on characterisation. The morning events conclude with a session on description and the senses with Susmita Bhattacharya (prize-winning author of Table Manners.)

After lunch, the afternoon begins with a session on editing with Helen Corner-Bryant, the director of transatlantic literary consultancy Cornerstones and the author of On Editing. We then welcome literary agents Amy Fitzgerald (Blair Partnership) and Charlie Campbell (Kingsford Campbell) who will discuss the submission process and tips on finding the right agent. Concluding the Writers’ Day sessions, we are given an insight into the publishing process as we are joined by John Bond (Director of Whitefox) and Tariq Goddard (Publisher of Repeater Books.)”

Hope to see some of you there.

I’ll be reading at the Embassy of Ireland in London tonight, launching the new Faber anthology alongside Bailey’s Prize winner Eimear McBride, Lucy Caldwell, and Kit de Waal.

Meanwhile…

Storgy Review of ‘Being Various’ Anthology includes a review of my story ‘The Swimmers’.

“Paul McVeigh – The Swimmers – McVeigh delivers a broiling tale which as I was reading gave me a very unsettling vibe. There is something hidden deep within the prose that was disturbing to read and digest, something lurking in the periphery of the story that isn’t uttered but lurks there with a malignant intent. An unspoken secret (possible abuse) sewn delicately throughout the story – but at the heart of the story there is an innocence too, a childlike purity which McVeigh captures mesmerically, the innocence punctuates the story masterfully, blending perfectly with the underlying deep and dark themes that are deftly sewn into the fabric of the story. The Swimmers is about a son who wants to impress his Da, wants his Da to love him for who he is and what he is. He wants to do anything and everything he can to impress him, to spend time with him, to keep swimming with him. No matter the cost, the hurt or the trouble. A very impressive tale from a writer I always enjoy reading – a powerful and gripping story which unsettles the reader…and what a joy it is to be unsettled from time-to-time.”

Thanks 🙂

Writer Paul McVeigh on Al Green,

David Bowie and Billy Wilder

‘Belfast author Paul McVeigh is involved in organising this month’s inaugural Jaipur Literature Festival Belfast.’

You can read a Q&A with me here, about fantasy wedding music to favourite films.