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Join Me in Athens for Flash Fiction Course

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Athens – Flash Fiction with Paul McVeigh  4–8 June 2018

  • Designed for aspiring and accomplished writers alike who want to enhance their skills for writing flash fiction and short fiction
  • Participants will explore and discuss flash fiction and micro literature from a variety of authors and consider their sources of inspiration, and will also have the opportunity to experiment with voice and style
  • Workshops will centre on exercises, constructive feedback, experimentation and discussion in a supportive and friendly atmosphere

In partnership with the Kingston Writing School and Kingston University & The British Council is pleased to announce the courses that comprise our sixth annual International Creative Writing Summer School in Athens and Thessaloniki.

international-creative-writing-summer-school-passionate-about-writing

The Summer School provides opportunities for writers from across the world to develop their critical and analytical skills, enhance their writing abilities, and work intensely in an inspiring and creative workshop environment with experienced writers associated with the Kingston Writing School, Kingston University, London. Among the writers and professors who have taught at the Summer School in the past are: Ed Docx, Ahren Warner, Ann Fischer Wirth, Norma Clarke, Rachel Cusk, Adam Baron, Aimee Parkinson, KJ Orr and Maurice Walsh.

This year, the Summer School offers students the opportunity to enhance their writing skills through writing fiction, flash fiction and/or poetry, and to extend their knowledge of publishing, editing and writing for the web under the supervision and guidance of highly accomplished writers and academics.

Students can choose from seven one-week courses in Athens and a one-week course in Thessaloniki. Workshops in each course will be scheduled from Monday to Friday between 18.30 and 21.00, with extra-curricular activities such as readings and tutorials taking place throughout the week.

Courses will be held in English and are suitable for writers at all levels. See here for dates and course details.

Judging The Edge Hill Short Story Prize

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The Edge Hill Short Story Prize

The Edge Hill Prize (First Prize: £10,000) is awarded annually by Edge Hill University for excellence in a published single author short story collection. The Prize remains unique as the only annually presented award that recognises excellence in a published, single-authored collection of short stories in the UK and Ireland.

I’m delighted to one of the judges of The Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2018. Perhaps you are eligible to enter? Please go over to their site and see.

Edge Hill

The other judges:

Professor Ailsa Cox – The world’s first and only Professor of Short Fiction and expert of Nobel Prize winning short story writer, Alice Munroe

Daisy Johnson – Winner of the 2017 Prize for Short Story

Alice O’Keffe – Critic for The Guardian, The Observer, The New Statesman, and Literary Programmer for the Brighton Festival.

I’m honoured to be judging both this and the Dylan Thomas Prize this year.

I’m in ‘Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers’

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Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers (edited by Kit de Waal) 

Delighted to be part of this. Please pledge to Unbound.

Want to help unpublished working class writers get into print? Join Kit de Waal and her contributors to give new writers a platform…

In a recent documentary, novelist Kit de Waal asked ‘where are the working class writers?’ The answer is right here.
Inspired by a shared concern that working class voices are increasingly absent from the pages of books and newspapers, Kit de Waal has come together with Unbound and the regional writing development organisations, including New Writing North and Writing West Midlands, to do something about it.
Common People will be a collection of essays, poems and pieces of personal memoir, bringing together sixteen well-known writers from working class backgrounds with an equal number of brand new as-yet-unpublished writers from all over the UK.
These new writers will be selected by the regional writing development agencies, who will support and mentor them in the run-up to publication.
Too often, working class writers find that the hurdles they have to leap are higher and harder to cross than for writers from more affluent backgrounds. Common People will see writers who have made that leap reach back to give a helping hand to those coming up behind.

We read because we want to experience lives and emotions beyond our own, to learn, to see with others’ eyes – without new working class voices, without the vital reflection of real lives, or role models for working class readers and writers, literature will be poorer. We will all be poorer. Pledge for Common People and join these writers to help to make a difference.

Contributors Include:
Damian Barr
Malorie Blackman OBE
Lisa Blower
Jill Dawson
Louise Doughty
Stuart Maconie
Chris McCrudden
Lisa McInerney
Paul McVeigh
Daljit Nagra
Dr Dave O’Brien
Cathy Rentzenbrink
Anita Sethi
Adelle Stripe
Tony Walsh
Alex Wheatle

Judging Dylan Thomas Prize 2018

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2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize

I’m honoured to join the judging the panel for this prestigious international literary prize – the world’s largest for young writers. You can read more about it below or by clicking here. 

Distinguished novelists, playwrights, writers, a poet and a festival director make up the judging panel for the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize in partnership with Swansea University, one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for young writers.

Dylan Thomas Prize

The £30,000 prize, which opened for entries on 4 September 2017, is awarded to the best eligible published literary work in English, written by an author aged 39 or under.

‌‌Launched in 2006, the annual International Dylan Thomas Prize is aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide.  Past winners have come from Wales, England, the USA, Vietnam and Australia, and include: Fiona McFarlane (The High Places [Farrar, Straus, Giroux (US) and Sceptre (UK)], Max Porter (Grief is the Thing with Feathers [Faber & Faber]), Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour [Penguin]); Claire Vaye Watkins (Battleborn [Granta]); Maggie Shipstead (Seating Arrangements [HarperCollins]); and Rachel Trezise (Fresh Apples [Parthian]).

The judging panel for the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize:

•    Namita Gokhale:  writer, publisher and festival director; author of sixteen books; co-founder and co-director of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival;  Director of Yatra Books.

•   Kurt Heinzelman:  poet, translator and scholar; professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

•    Paul McVeigh:  playwright, director and award winning writer; associate director of Word Factory; founder of the London Short Story Festival.

•    Dai Smith CBE (chair of panel):  historian and writer on Welsh arts and culture; Honorary Raymond Williams Research Chair in the Cultural History of Wales at Swansea University.

•    Rachel Trezise:  award winning novelist and playwright.

Professor Dai Smith, Honorary Raymond Williams Research Chair in the Cultural History of Wales at Swansea University said:

“The panel of judges assembled for 2018 under my chairmanship bring to their formidable task experience of Wales and the world, of the practice of creative writing in prose and poetry, of drama and communication, of readers’ expectations and writers’ risk taking, and, of course, of the multifariousness of Dylan himself. We have a hard act to follow after last year’s panel chose Fiona McFarlane’s book of short stories, The High Places, but the entrants for 2018 are already queuing up for the amazing accolade of being acclaimed the winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize in Swansea in May next year.”

The winner will be announced at the final awards ceremony in Swansea University’s Great Hall, Wales, on 10 May 2018.

31 May – 2 June, Listowel Writers Week, Ireland

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I’ll be teaching a three day short story course next May. Here’s a little more about it…

Workshop Theme:

Find out how to write ‘That Killer First Page’ and get the attention of editors and competition judges.  Get feedback on your writing of that crucial opening and explore how to write complex and engaging short stories.  You’ll also take a detailed look at using dialogue to further action and reveal character and the power of emotion to hook the reader.

You can pop over to their website to find out what else is on and book tickets.

Listowel

 

 

Franco-Irish Literary Festival March 2018

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FRANCO-IRISH LITERARY FESTIVAL Theme: Sexe, Sex, Gnea, 23, 24, 25 March 2018

I hope to see some you at this wonderful festival in Dublin which includes authors like Anne Enright, Rob Doyle and Lisa McInerney.

Event One: Panel discussion: An chéad bhlaiseadh / Like a virgin / Toute première fois

Time: Sat 24th March 12.15 to 1.15pm  

Venue: Dublin Castle, Castle Hall

Moderator: Dominique Le Meur

WITH:

  • Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
  • Myriam Gallot
  • Paul McVeigh

Event Two: Panel discussion: An 21ú céad: gnéas fíor nó fíorúil /The 21th Sex /Le 21e Sexe 

Time: 12.15 to 1.15pm, Sunday 25 March

Venue: Alliance Française, 1 Kildare Street, Dublin 2

Moderator:  Michael Cronin

WITH:

  • Lisa McInerney
  • Françoise Rey
  • Paul McVeigh
  • Sylvain Bosselet

francophonie

25–27 JAN 2018, #BRITLITBERLIN

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Writing Gender – Sexuality, Feminism and Masculinity

#BRITLITBERLIN, 25 – 27 JANUARY 2018

Registration is now open for the 33rd British Council Literature Seminar. Professor Bernardine Evaristo MBE will chair the seminar which this year will focus will be on gender diversity in contemporary UK writing.

Authors include: Juno Dawson, Kerry Hudson, Sabrina Mahfouz, Nick Makoha , Monique Roffey and me!

I hope to see some of you there.

More info…

#BritLitBerlin 2018 – in Bernardine Evaristo’s words…

“The 2018 seminar will be an exploration of some of the ways in which British writers are exploring gender and sexuality in the twenty-first century. We will look at the current conversations around gender identity that have been gaining ground in the mainstream recently, including the challenge to the social construction of gender binaries. As the spectrum and categories of transgender identities and LGBTQ+ sexualities continue to revolutionise how we define ourselves as humans, we will examine how this is being played out in literature. At the same time feminism has recently enjoyed a rebirth and gone mainstream. The post-feminist era is over and young women, in particular, are taking ownership of Fourth Wave Feminism, a shift as individualised as each proponent. We will ask how this is being addressed by writers of fiction and poetry, whose work appears to subscribe to a range of feminist ideas or ideals. We will ask how we can create literature that is complex and nuanced, while also being consciously political. As notions of masculinity and femininity are called into question, subverted, rejected and expanded, we will examine the decisions we make that informs our literature in this regard. Who and what do we write about? What fictional characters do we create, and why? What are the self-imposed limits that determine whether or how we write across gender and sexuality. And what are our responsibilities as writers when addressing these issues. Finally, what are the expectations imposed upon us by the reading public and the publishing industry to write from a perspective that correlates to our (cis) gender? (Bernardine Evaristo)”

Appearing at Irish Embassy Kuala Lumpur

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The Irish Ambassador to Malaysia is holding a special night at the Irish Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in my honour on November 30th. I’m so honoured.

I will read from my novel, The Good Son, followed by a Q&A. There will be music in between and a party after.

Thanks to Cat Brogan for all her help in organising this.

Thanks to Culture Ireland and Arts Council of NI for their generous support.

 

 

 

 

Irish Short Story of the Year Deadline Today!

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Hello there – I hope you’re well 🙂
As you made have heard me mention (ahem) I’m up for an award …. Irish Short Story of the Year!
Do you fancy voting for me (insert cheesy smile)?
It only takes 2 minutes – promise.
You click the link below – put in your email and click me on the Irish Short Story of the Year – ‘Hollow’.
No pressure of course – honest.  http://www.irishbookawards.irish/vote2017/
Thanks to Numero Cinq for putting my story up for nomination in the first place.
Wish me luck.
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