Over-the-moon that two critics, Robin Elliot (NVTV) and Jane Hard (Irish News), gave the one-off event at Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival with actors Micheal Condron, Abi McGibbon and Tony Flynn, 4 1/2 stars out of 5. They also had huge praise for my play ‘Big Man’ calling it ‘superb’.
You can watch it here – https://youtu.be/9xqt1JowsvI. Mine is the third and final review.
Stories That Stay with Paul McVeigh, Andrew Meehan & Carol Drinkwater
Date: 29 May 2025
Venue: St John’s Theatre & Arts Centre
Join Paul McVeigh and Andrew Meehan as they discuss their latest works with Carol Drinkwater.
The power of storytelling, their diverse genres, and everything from dark humour and deep emotion to gripping tales of mystery and personal discovery will be explored by the trio.
Paul McVeigh’s I Hear You is a collection of short stories, written especially for BBC Radio 4. The moving short stories are brave, honest, raw and funny and feature the ten-part sequence: ‘The Circus’, set around Cliftonville Circus, where five roads meet in North Belfast.
Andrew Meehan’s much-anticipated Best Friends explores the depth of a relationship between two friends and the complexities of their bond in a world full of uncertainty.
Carol Drinkwater, known for her evocative memoirs and fiction, will share insights from her new book, Summer in Provence which will be published in July.
Tickets: Here.
I will also be at the prize-giving ceremony for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, the night before, as one of this year’s judges.
I join Wendy Erskine, Neil Hegarty, Oliver Jeffers, Eimear McBride and Babita Sharman in The Irish Times today – take a look.
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
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
The books have been read, the deliberations have concluded and a shortlist has been made and sent to Listowel Writers’ Week for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award that I’m judging this year with Carol Drinkwater. The news will be out soon.
If you’re interested, I’m teaching a novel course for West Cork Literary Festival.
The wonderful George Saunders gave the story ‘Liberation Day’ free to download to those on his mailing list and said to share it – so here you go! Lucky us.
“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.
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…
Can’t wait to return to Cork World Book Festival.
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.
Paul McVeigh 