anthology

BOOK LAUNCH: A Little Unsteadily Into Light 

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A New Short Story in Dementia-Inspired Anthology

Launch invitation:

  • Please join us on Wednesday 31st August, 6:30pm to celebrate the launch of an exciting new collection of dementia-inspired fiction edited by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea.
  • Readings from Chris Wright and Paul McVeigh
  • Location: Senate Room, Lanyon Building, Queen’s University of Belfast, BT7 1NN
  • RSVP at link below, queries to info@newisland.ie

About the book:

To live with dementia is to develop extraordinary and various new ways of being – linguistically, cognitively and practically. The storyteller operates similarly, using words and ideas creatively to reveal a slightly different perspective of the world.

In this anthology of fourteen new short stories, commissioned by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea, some of the best contemporary writers from Ireland and the UK powerfully and poignantly explore the depths and breadth of the real dementia experience, traversing age, ethnicity, class and gender, sex and consent. Each writer’s story is drawn from their own personal experience of dementia and told with outrageous and dark humour, empathy and startling insight. Here are heroes and villains, tricksters and saints, mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, characters whose past has overshadowed their present and characters who are making a huge impact on the world they currently find themselves in. They might have dementia, but dementia is only a small part of who they are. They will challenge, frustrate, inspire and humble you.

Above all, these brilliant pieces of short fiction disrupt the perceived notions of what dementia is and, in their diversity, honesty and authenticity begin to normalise an illness that affects so many and break down the stigma endured by those living with it every day.

Featuring new fiction by:

Suad Aldarra, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Jan Carson, Elaine Feeney, Oona Frawley, Sinéad Gleeson, Anna Jean Hughes, Caleb Klaces, Naomi Krüger, Henrietta McKervey, Paul McVeigh, Mary Morrissy, Nuala O’Connor, Chris Wright.

Copies will be available on the night or you can order here: newisland.ie/fiction/a-little-unsteadily

Find out more about the AHRC-funded research project based at Queen’s University Belfast, from which this anthology has emerged: http://www.blogs.qub.ac.uk/dementiafiction/

Link here.

Free Event August 12th Belfast

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Buy here

Award-winning novelist and playwright Paul McVeigh is no stranger to producing anthologies such as The 32

Following the success of Belfast Stories which he co-edited, McVeigh has delivered once again with The 32, described as an ‘intimate and illuminating collection of memoires and essays that celebrates workingclass voices from the island of Ireland’. A number of contributors from the book will participate in the Scribes event, chaired by the book’s editor Paul McVeigh.

Without these 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. 

This event is hosted by Stories@theDuncairn, a volunteer-led, community literary project, in partnership with the Greater New Lodge Community Festival and Féile an Phobail. All welcome!

You can read here.


My Essay in ‘Impermanence’Picked by Reviewers

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My essay Sixteen, commissioned by editors Neil Hergarty and Nora Hickey M’Sichili for the Centre Culturel Irelandais, in Paris.

“Novelist Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son, recalls what it was like to grow up in Belfast during the Troubles as he came to realise he was attracted to both boys and girls, a state of affairs which, he notes with admirable understatement, “made life difficult for me”.

The liminal spaces here are sexual. “I was one way, I was the other. I was both. Now, mostly, I am neither.”

McVeigh unpicks too his attempts to navigate class divisions, another subject that is too little explored in writing about the North, where sectarian divides loom larger. The point is that nothing is ever entirely one thing or another. It’s both. It’s neither. It’s something else entirely.” Writes Eilis O’Hanlon in the Irish Independent.

“Paul McVeigh suggests a vocabulary for this molecular disruption in his experience as a young person from the Ardoyne discovering himself, and others, in the Ulster Youth Theatre. “Everything I am now is made from some dust of then,” he writes, an ash that falls on many of the essays.” Nicolas Allen writes in The Irish Times.

You can buy here

Impermanence Essay Collection Review

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A great review by Eilis O’HanIon of the ‘Impermanence’ essay collection edited by Neil Hegarty and Nora Hickey M’Sichili published by No Alibis Press and the Centre Culturel Irlandais.

It includes an essay from me as quoted here by Eilis;

Novelist Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son, recalls what it was like to grow up in Belfast during the Troubles as he came to realise he was attracted to both boys and girls, a state of affairs which, he notes with admirable understatement, “made life difficult for me”.

The liminal spaces here are sexual. “I was one way, I was the other. I was both. Now, mostly, I am neither.”

You can read the whole review here.

Buy Here

‘The 32’ Event in Belfast June 15

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The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices

At Áras Uí Chonghaile, 15th June 7pm. ‘Our panel will disucss the challenges they faced as working-class writers and their journey to getting their voices heard in the literary world.’

Registerinfo@arasuichonghaile.com

Me, Dr Michael Pierse and working class writer Kate Burns.

Ireland: A literary Invitation

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I’ve edited a new anthology for my German publisher, Verlag Wagenbach. It’s called ‘Ireland/Irland: A Literary Invitation‘ and it is an anthology of short works (and a little poetry) from all over Ireland – acting like a fictional travel guide. There’s new work from Darran Anderson, Jan Carson and Riley Johnston, with new and classic stories and book extracts from Kevin Barry, Evelyn Conlon, Rob Doyle, Liam O’Flaherty, Dave Lordan, Frank O’Connor, Eilis Ní Dhuibhne, Kerri Ní Dochartaigh, and a bit from The Good Son (they are my publishers, they insisted!).

There’s been a wonderful review in the German Newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’.

Irland. Eine literarische Einladung

“…this book prepares you better for a visit to Ireland – including Northern Ireland – than most travel guides can. Because at its core it is always about attitudes on the island, about the wounds of division, the consequences of Brexit, about the effects of economic upswings and declines of recent times. It is about attachment to one’s homeland against the background of a desertification of rural areas, which one may find picturesque as a tourist. In the stories, current attitudes to life meet and create friction. Reflects the everyday life of the people – and what Ireland and Northern Ireland stand for today.” Irland. Eine literarische Einladung published by Verlag Klaus Wagenbach

Excellent Review of The 32

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“The 32 voices in this anthology are truly diverse, culled from all corners of our island.” 

A wonderful review of The 32 in The Irish Independent.

“The 32 is an insightful, funny and touching collection, with a range of voices and viewpoints that must be heard.”

You can read the whole interview here.