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Interviewing Kit de Waal for Cork World Book Fest

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The Best of Everything: Kit de Waal in conversation with Paul McVeigh.

Award-winning writer Kit de Waal in conversation with Paul McVeigh on her latest novel The Best of Everything which is released this month, April 2025.

Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among
the Irish community of Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the
Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry
Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022 it was adapted for television
by the BBC. It is now on the GCSE curriculum for schools.

Paul McVeigh’s short stories have been in anthologies, journals and newspapers, and read on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 5, RTE Radio, as well as Sky ARTS. He co-founded London Short Story Festival and has edited three anthologies.

Sunday 27 April 2025

River Lee Hotel | 3pm | Free – booking essential

Booking: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/the-best-of-everything-kit-de-waal-in-conversation-with-paul-mcveigh-tickets-1299329743239?aff=erelpanelorg

Interviewing Lisa Harding & Kathleen Murray In Cork

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Beautiful, Wilful & Adrift: Kathleen Murray and Lisa Harding. In conversation with Paul McVeigh.

If John Irving had been born in Carlow, he would have written The Deadwood Encore by Kathleen Murray. There are similarities in Murray’s tragicomedy, her colourful players, her celebration of the heroism involved in fraternal love. There’s so much here to delight in–fizzing dialogue, offbeat characters, flights of fancy and mad escapades… Kathleen has the guts to take on what’s miraculous and eerie, and spins Frank’s story shrewdly, irreverently, and fondly. A brilliant debut.’ 

‘Gothic and gloriously entertaining, Lisa Harding’s third novel arrives to fill the Secret History-shaped hole in your lives. Wilde is an elite university in Dublin, full of bright young people who talk about poetry and arthouse cinema, act in plays and have turbulent affairs. Jessica and Linda, friends since childhood, are immediately swept up by the glamour and romance. But then Linda meets Mark, a darkly enigmatic figure, and soon tragedy strikes.’ (The Guardian)

Saturday 26 April 2025

Triskel | 7pm | €5

Booking: https://triskelarts.ticketsolve.com/shows/873653553/events

‘I Hear You’ Review in Bookmunch

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“Paul McVeigh has the rare gift of making optimism seem reasonable and an even greater gift for portraying characters who find value in their own lives and in their commitment to each other.”

A wonderful review of ‘I Hear You’ over at Bookmunch. Getting reviews is always nerve-wrecking and such a relief and then joyful when it’s a review like this.

“McVeigh has an enviable ability to create an immediately recognisable character from a quick glance and drawing out the relationships of disparate characters from the common situations that has shaped them. While each individual story can seem like a sketch, there is an overarching plot as the events of the talent competition unravel some relationships and force others into the open. Linking the stories further, there is the common theme: the ability to create one’s own family out of friendship when their own families let them down. No-one will close I Hear You without the life-affirming feeling that there are possibilities in every life.”

You can read there whole review here.

Buy here

Short Forms in the Global Literary Marketplace Symposium

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I’m honoured to be attending the Short Forms in the Global Literary Marketplace Symposium on April 7.

The event is at the Queen Mary University of London, Mile Ed Campus, 2.45 – 4.05.

Panel 4 – The literary marketplace (chair: Rehana Ahmed) 

I’ll be joining…

  • Sana Goyal, editor and publishing director of Wasafiri 
  • Kristen Vida Alfaro, publisher and director of Tilted Axis Press 
  • Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, chair of the Caine Prize for African Writing and editor-at-large at Canongate Books

Talking Radio Stories at Cork World Book Festival

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Can’t wait to return to Cork World Book Festival.

Spoken Stories: Navigating the imaginative breadth of what it means to be alive today. Nuala O’Connor, Paul McVeigh and Colm Ó Ceallacháin, in conversation with Cliodna Ní Anluain.

Spoken Stories is a themed-led trilogy of 36 original stories. Commissioned from some of the most dynamic contemporary writers associated with Ireland and the short story, they navigate the imaginative breadth of what it is to be alive in the world in our time. Tonight’s gathering of tales will be told by Nuala O’Connor, Paul McVeigh and Cork’s own Colm Ó Ceallachain, ably hosted by the brilliant RTÉ culture and arts producer and editor Clíodhna Ní Anluain.

West Cork Festival: Novel Course

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Delighted to be returning to West Cork Literature Festival this year. I’ll be running the course below.

This workshop will run from Wednesday 16 to Friday 18 July, from 9.30am to 2.30pm each day with two breaks built into the day.

Join award-winning novelist Paul McVeigh for a three-day novel writing workshop. Over the three days we will explore the elements needed to write a novel that hooks a reader; looking at how to create characters that capture us, the use of dialogue, how to master emotion on the page, the importance of plotting and how to make your setting more than a passive backdrop to your story.

You will also find out what every debut novelist needs to know about the industry and what do you do when you’re novel is finished. This is for writers at all levels; with talks, writing exercises and lots of Q&A time.

Max: 15 participants

Location:

Saint Finbarr’s Boys National School
Seskin, Bantry, Co. Cork
P75 NY51

Admission: €230

Tickets

The Good Son 3rd Editon
You can buy here

Winner of The Polari First Novel Prize

‘A triumph of storytelling. An absolute gem.’ Donal Ryan

‘Raw, funny and endlessly entertaining’. Jonathan Coe

‘I Hear You’ CQAF w/ Actors Michael Condron, Tony Flynn & Abigail McGibbon 

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‘I Hear You’- Live Readings – Paul McVeigh

The Deer’s Head

Monday 5th May, 7.00pm

Doors 6.30pm

£9.00 / £7.00 Concession BUY TICKETS

Join us as we bring Paul McVeigh’s BBC Radio 4 short story collection, I Hear You, to life on stage. The collection features three standalone stories alongside The Circus—a ten-part series set in Cliftonville Circus, North Belfast, where ten unique voices take centre stage.

In this one-of-a-kind fusion of literature, radio, and theatre, acclaimed actors Tony Flynn (Big Man, Blue Lights), Michael Condron (Coronation Street, Say Nothing), and Abigail McGibbon (Ballywalter, Blue Lights) will perform their radio-recorded stories live, immersing you in the world of The Circus.

And for the first time, Paul McVeigh himself will take the stage to share the inspirations behind his stories.

Paul’s short stories have been in anthologies, journals and newspapers, read on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 5, RTE Radio, as well as Sky ARTS. His ten-part short story series, The Circus, aired on BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Foyle and BBC Radio 4. He co-founded London Short Story Festival and has edited three anthologies. His collection, I hear You, was published in March 2025. His debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrae Literary Award and his writing has been translated into eight languages.

Tickets also available from: 
Visit Belfast | 028 9024 6609
9 Donegall Square North – Open 7 days a Week