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The Good Son Chosen for Brighton’s City Reads

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / 4 Comments

A few years ago I moved to Brighton. To get to know the city and throw myself back into writing I volunteered for a project called City Reads. The city-wide celebration of My Policeman by Bethan Roberts was so much fun. I gave out fliers, asked shops to put up posters, collected tickets on city walks and even acted in a play!

Spotted_Dog

All those events were related to the book and I was struck by the inventiveness of City Reads and what an amazing job they did bringing the book to life.

Who would have thought that 4 years later it would be my book that would be chosen? You couldn’t write it. I’m overwhelmed. You can see the programme of events here. I can’t wait to get stuck in. There’s whiskey tasting, movie screenings, a quiz – and readings from me. That it will part of The Brighton Festival’s 50th anniversary is amazing.

Have a great day! I know I will.

City Reads

The Good Son Audio Book is Here

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Last year I went into a recording studio in north London to read The Good Son. I had to audition (well, do a sound/voice test) beforehand and the powers that be gave me the thumbs up. It wasn’t quite what I expected (me having a laugh reading my book!). It was hard work. I’d recommend trying anything once but I’d have a good long think before doing it again because…

 

Audio Book

Reading The Audio Book

There are definitely pros and cons to reading your own book – for you and the listener. I’d say the main pros are that you feel in control of the material- that you are giving the listener what you intended when you wrote it – and they are getting insights into the text they may not have picked up on.

I think the cons are that quite soon you realise your limitations – not being someone with experience/ability in this platform. If you have 5 characters speaking in one page, are you really good enough to differentiate between them? If not, the listener won’t know which character is speaking until the end of the dialogue when you’ve assigned a name. You don’t want them stumbling, you want them seduced by the story. Also, often an actor can bring something out of the text that you hadn’t seen (just like when you’ve written a play). As writers, we are not always aware of what we are doing. Actors can also add a layer of subtly that you, no matter how good you are as a reader of your work, don’t have the training or talent to do as a performer.

I enjoy reading my work and I think the audio book will really help to bring The Good Son to life. The added bonus for the listener is, as the story is set in Northern Ireland and has some of the vernacular, the delivery can help with the understanding. I can’t wait to hear some feedback. Be gentle. It’s my first time.

 

Audio Book Cover

The New Cover

You can buy the audio book over at Audible. You can even listen to a free sample. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

Fundraising Event in Kinvara

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A wonderful event last night to raise funds for the old courthouse in Kinvara. Thanks to the generosity of writers Sarah Clancy, Lisa Quackinerney and N Ní Chonchúir who gave their time and talent to the help the local community here. You are amazing. And so I say good-bye to Kinvara and head home to Brighton. Thank you to Kinvara for having me and Liadain O’Donovan whose generosity I accepted in coming to Kinvara to get space to write. I’m so lucky to have a life where the currency is kindness and generosity. I think it’s going to be a good year.

Group

Nuala O’Connor, Sarah Clancy, Lisa McInerney and me.

The Good Son longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award

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The Good Son has been longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. It’s such lovely news. I had to find out about the award and if you don’t know about it you can read a little below. Click here to read the other longlisted books – its quite a line up.

From their website –

The Story of Waverton Good Read

An article by Susannah Hickling about Le Prix De La Cadière was the starting point for the Waverton Good Read Award in 2003. Francois Dufour, the doctor of La Cadière D’Azur, (a Provencal village – population about 4000) had speculated that reading a good book might be as useful to some of his patients as the medication he would normally prescribe. So he set up an annual prize for the French debut novel of the year, which attracted most votes from the readers in the village.

The idea was a great success and Le Prix De La Cadière was born.

Wendy Smedley and Gwen Goodhew decided to try to replicate this idea in Waverton, a village of 2000 outside Chester. They set out to find fifty or more debut novels – first adult novels written by British citizens and published in the previous twelve months. The aim was not only to stimulate reading in the village but also to provide encouragement to British writers. It took some persistence to identify and then gather several copies of each book, although publishers became more and more helpful as they realised what was going on. Even more remarkably, more than 50 people from in and around the village were recruited to read and review the novels.

Read more here.

Thanks for reading. I might celebrate.

Irish Writers Pay Tribute To Bowie

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I join Julian Gough, Joseph O’Connor, Edna O’Brien, Roddy Doyle, Eimear McBride and more in personal tributes to David Bowie from Irish writers in The Irish Times.

Here’s an extract from my contribution. Head over to The Irish Times to read it all and the contributions from some amazing writers.

“I’ve always had guides when it came to music and I remember the when and where of every significant artist for me. As a young boy my older brother played me Al Green in our bedroom. In secondary school a friend led me to Kate Bush. I remember who introduced me to Nina Simone at a summer camp, Bessie Smith in the common room at college, Billie Holiday at university digs and David Bowie on the A406 in London.”

This is a photograph I saw for this first time recently.

What a loss.Bowie