Tickets are selling fast for the London launch if ‘I Hear You’ at The Word Factory on March 21st. This will be a wonderful chance to celebrate with friends, old and new, and I’ll be back to my short story home. It has been too long. Thrilled that the brilliant Kit de Waal will be reading and leading a literary conversation with me.
The launch is at the beautiful Georgian venue, Bloomsbury’s Music Room. Hope to see you there and details – including how to pre-order a copy of the book – here.
*PLEASE NOTE BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE NIGHT BY CASH ONLY*
Join award-winning novelist Paul McVeigh in conversation about his new book, ‘I Hear You’ – booking is not required but please indicate if you are coming
The stories in this collection were all written especially for BBC Radio 4, including a ten-part sequence: ‘The Circus’, set in North Belfast. Other stories include ‘Tickles’, a story about a man visiting his mother in a nursing home, ‘Cuckoo’, about a man who feels something sinister has happened to him during surgery; and ‘Daddy Christmas’, where a gay man writes a letter to the son he never had. ‘These moving short stories are brave, honest, raw and funny, doing what fiction does best, showing us the lives of others and in so doing showing us ourselves. Wonderful.’ —Kit de Waal
Paul McVeigh’s stories have been in numerous anthologies including Being Various, The Art of the Glimpse and Common People. They have also appeared in The London Magazine, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, on BBC Radio 3, 4, 5, and RTE Radio 1, as well as, on Sky ARTS. His ten-part short story series, The Circus, aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2023 and was repeated on BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle. Paul co-edited the Belfast Stories anthology, edited Queer Love and The 32: Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices. Paul co-founded the London Short Story Festival and was an associate director of Word Factory, Paul’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The McCrea Literary Award and The Polari First Novel Prize and was shortlisted for many others including the Prix du Roman Cezam.
Paul has written short stories to be read out on the radio, the stage and television, as well as, in print, for anthologies, literary journals, magazines and newspapers. He will share his knowledge on writing stories for all these platforms and give practical helpful advice of how to approach them, in terms of how you write and what you do with your story once it’s finished. The workshop is a mix of advice from Paul’s professional experience and the tips he was given by editors, producers and publishers.
Paul’s short stories have been in anthologies, journals and newspapers, and read on BBC and RTE Radio,as well as, Sky ARTS. His ten-part story series, The Circus, aired on BBC Radio 4. He co-founded London Short Story Festival and edited three anthologies. His collection, I hear You, is out March 2025.
Come join us for the Belfast-launch of the award-winning Belfast author Paul McVeigh’s BBC-commissioned short story collection. I Hear You is made up of 10 linked stories, plus an additional three – all of which were commissioned by, and read out on, BBC Radio 4, plus BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle.
Pre-order of ‘I Hear You’ now available at the legendary No Alibis Bookstore, Belfast. A wee exclusive pre-order gift will be announced soon. Be the first in line.
Irish Times: Books to Look Out for in 2025
‘These moving short stories are brave, honest, raw and funny, doing what fiction does best, showing us the lives of others and in so doing showing us ourselves. Wonderful.’ —Kit de Waal
‘From a son paring the bunions on his mother’s feet to a man’s soul getting sealed out of his body, and culminating in a deft interlinked cycle, the stories of I Hear You are warm, frank and unsentimental, bursting with character and idiosyncratic detail, written with Paul McVeigh’s characteristic geniality and Belfast wit.’ —Lucy Caldwell
This collection of stories, written especially for BBC Radio 4, includes a ten-part sequence: ‘The Circus’, set around Cliftonville Circus, where five roads meet in North Belfast. It’s five minutes from the nationalist Troubles flashpoint of Ardoyne, where Paul grew up. It’s close to Holy Cross Girls’ School, where protests targeting primary school children drew international attention.
The Circus is situated in the poorest part of the Belfast – it is also the most divided. Each road leads to a different area – a different class – a different religion. The Circus explores where old Belfast clashes with the new around acceptance, change, class and diversity.
But this is 2024 and a fresh energy exists.
Other stories include ‘Tickles’, a story about a man visiting his mother in a dementia ward where he finds he is the one who had forgotten important things.
‘Cuckoo’, about a man’s collapse and surgery – where he feels something more sinister has happened to him; and ‘Daddy Christmas’, where a gay man writes a letter to the son he never had.
I’ll be visiting The Outing Festival at the Inn at Dromoland, Co. Clare, Ireland.
I’ll be reading from The Good Son and talking to Kitty Murphy on Saturday 15th February.
“An LGBT+ Weekend like no other!” The Outing Festival is a fusion of music, comedy, ceilí bands, queer arts, and the best of Ireland’s and International performers, drag artists and DJs plus so much more for over 10 Years”
Wow! The Irish Times has done an amazing job with ‘Daddy Christmas’ my Christmas Day short story commissioned by Michael Shannon for BBC Radio Ulster which aired nationally in BBC Radio 4. This is its first time in print thanks to Martin Doyle and Nadine O’Regan at The Irish Times and look at these beautiful illustrations/artworks by Anne O’Hara.
‘Daddy Christmas’ will appear in my collection of radio stories ‘I Hear You’ from Salt Publishing March 2025.
You can read the story here and you can see more about ‘I Hear You’ here.
I’m excited to share the winners of this year’s residency at the beautiful Harrison Hotel. You can read a the long list of writing help the winners receive over at The Harrison website and while you’re there check out the amazing, muti-award-winning Harrison Hotel where they will stay for a week with host Melanie Harrision. Now to the winners…
Tenaya Steed is a visual artist and emerging writer. Her artwork has been supported by BBC Arts, Arts Council England, and The British Council. She is an alumni of The Stinging Fly 6-month fiction programme, and Granta’s Literary Short Fiction workshop. Her story, Heavenly Mutha, won The Michael McLaverty Short Story Award in 2024. Another story, Missing the Eclipse, was published in The Stinging Fly’s 2024 summer issue. She was selected for The Irish Writers Centre’s National Mentoring Programme 2024, paired with mentor Wendy Erskine. Tenaya lives in Dublin and teaches Illustration at the National College of Art and Design. She is currently working on her first book, Canada House, named after the since demolished council flats she started out in.
Leeor Ohayon is a writer from London, based in Norwich where he is working on his PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. His work has featured in the London Magazine, the White Review, Apartamento, Brick Lane Bookshop New Short Stories 2021 & 2023, Paper Brigade, RSL Review and Prospect Magazine.
And the Writing West Midlands is…
Jane Commane was born in Coventry and lives in Warwickshire. She is a tutor, mentor, writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and director / editor at Nine Arches Press. Jane is alumni of Writing West Midlands’ Room 204 writer development scheme, and was awarded the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2017-18. Her first poetry collection Assembly Lines, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2018. Her poems have been anthologised in The Best British Poems (Salt Publishing), Being Human (Bloodaxe Books) and featured in The Guardian, and on BBC Radio 2, 4 and 6 Music. Jane has written essays about writing and the nature of creativity for several publications and anthologies, and co-wrote, with Jo Bell, the handbook and creative guide How to be a Poet (Nine Arches Press). She is currently working on both non-fiction and fiction writing projects; a book on living the creative life, and a novel set in the West Midland edgelands at the turn of the twenty-first century. www.janecommane.com
Eight years after the publication of The Good Son by Salt Publishing my debut novel will be translated into Italian. The book will be published in Italy by Barta Edizioni.
My Grandmother was Italian and although I sadly never met her I have always felt a close affinity with the country. I lived there on three occasions and travelled up and down the country.
The Italian edition joins translations in French, German, Hungarian and Russian!
Now, here’s the really interesting part of the story.
Valentina Vigilucca, a PHD student, got in touch with me about translating some of The Good Son into Italian as her thesis. Valentina then approached the publisher on my behalf. Without her they wouldn;t have happened. Thank you Valentina!
“Charlotte Brontë, who dazzled the world with some of literature’s most vital and richly-drawn characters, spent her brief but extraordinary life in search of love. She eventually found it with Arthur Bell, a reserved yet passionate Irishman. After marrying, the pair honeymooned in Ireland – a glimmer of happiness in a life shadowed by tragedy.
That moment of joy was destined to be short-lived however, as Brontë died just nine months into their marriage. Her genius, and the aura of mystery surrounding her, meant she’d been mythologised even within her own lifetime – a process which only intensified after her death.
Observed through the eyes of Mary Nicholls – who encountered Charlotte on that fateful journey to Ireland, and who went on to wed her widower Arthur –Charlotte is a story of three lives irrevocably intertwined. Bound by passion and obsession, friendship and loss, loyalty and deception – this a story of Brontë’s short but pivotal time in Ireland as never before told.
Martina Devlin’s enthralling new novel Charlotte weaves back and forth through Charlotte’s life, reflecting on the myths built around her by those who knew her, those who thought they knew her, and those who longed to know her. Above all, this is a story of fiction: who creates it, who lives it, who owns it.
‘Charlotte is elegant and sophisticated but also completely gripping. Martina Devlin brilliantly creates the world around this iconic writer, with characters who have the power to surprise and compel. I loved it.’Emily Hourican
‘In Charlotte, the raw gold of Charlotte Brontë’s marriage to Arthur Nicholls has been wrought in a wonderful artefact; this is a beautiful novel full of mystery, intrigue and story.’ Carlo Gébler
‘A powerful and compelling novel that expertly imagines the lives and times of those closest to Brontë, and captivates the reader with its cleverness and eloquence.’Mary Costello
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Martina Devlin has written novels, plays and short stories. She has won the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, a Hennessy Literary Award, and been shortlisted three times for the Irish Book Awards.
She writes a weekly current affairs column for the Irish Independent for which she has won a number of prizes, including National Newspapers of Ireland commentator of the year. She holds a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin.”
Paul McVeigh 