Paul McVeigh, Emma Donoghue and Neil Hegarty have come together as editor and contributors to a new book, Queer Love: An Anthology of Irish Fiction, published byThe Munster Literature Centre.
As well as talking about their own stories, RTÉ Arena asks the trio to choose a work by another that was pivotal in their lives as young gay people – listen above.
You can listen here.
We’ll be talking the anthology I edited called ‘Queer Love’. Please tune in if you fancy – you can use this link.
‘demonstrates why queer writers excel at writing’ The Irish Times
“Ireland is more than one voice and in Queer Love, edited by Paul McVeigh, we see more than one Ireland. Love is a beautiful thing—especially in the hands of familiar writers like John Boyne, Emma Donoghue and Colm Tóbín—but in this anthology of short stories are new writers and new voices; it’s this combination which lends the collection its charm. Paul McVeigh steers the collection through our history, from a time of secrecy to the new freedoms of growing up gay in an era of the Yes vote.”
Delighted with this review in Books Ireland and you can it read it in full here.
You can buy the book here.
“Let’s fill those bookshelves in homes, libraries, and shops with more and more stories of us.” Click to read the article.
Thanks to Martin Doyle for spreading the word about the ‘Queer Love’ anthology by Southword Editons (Southword Literary Journal / Munster Literature Centre) edited by me. This is an extended version of the foreword with contributions from Shannon Yee and Neil Hegarty. Thanks to the other contributors to the anthology John Boyne, Emma Donoghue, Mary Dorcey, James Hudson, Emer Lyons, Jamie O’Connell, Colm Toibin & Declan Toohey.
It’s here: The Art of the Glimpse, an anthology of 100 Irish short stories, edited by Sinead Gleeson and published by Head of Zeus. It features established and emerging voices and will be published in October 1st.
There will be stories by Samuel Beckett, Sally Rooney, William Trevor, Kevin Barry, Edna O’Brien, Claire-Louise Bennett, Bernard McLaverty, Anne Enright, Eimear Bride and many more.
Join me tomorrow on Facebook for the Alliance Française Live Series, a short live reading my short story Hollow, which was shortlisted for Irish Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and will appear in the upcoming The Art of the Glimpse – 100 Irish Short Stories.
I’m delighted that my short story, Hollow, will appear in The Art of the Glimpse, an anthology of 100 Irish short stories, edited by Sinead Gleeson and published by Head of Zeus. It features established and emerging voices and will be published in October 1st.
Hollow was shortlisted for Irish Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards a couple of years back.
There will be stories by Samuel Beckett, Sally Rooney, William Trevor, Kevin Barry, Edna O’Brien, Claire-Louise Bennett, Bernard McLaverty, Anne Enright, Eimear Bride and many more.
dlr LexIcon Library and Cultural Centre, Saturday March 28th, 1.30pm.
As editor, of ‘Belfast Stories’ anthology, I’ve been asked to chair this wonderful event. I do hope some of you can come.
“Chaired by novelist Paul McVeigh, we are pleased to welcome two of Belfast’s most compelling voices, Wendy Erskine and Lucy Caldwell for discussion and readings from Belfast stories. This collection of short fiction presents a composite view of local life which invites us to view Belfast afresh through the imaginations of some of its finest writers. Join us and hear each of our guests pay homage to contemporary Belfast in all its vivacity, multiplicity, and complexity.
Wendy Erskine lives in Belfast. Her debut collection of stories, Sweet Home, was published by The Stinging Fly Press in September 2018. It will be published by Picador in the UK in June 2019. Her stories have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and on RTÉ Radio One.
Lucy Caldwell is the multi–award winning author of three novels, several stage plays and radio dramas and, most recently, two collections of short stories: Multitudes(Faber, 2016) and Intimacies (forthcoming, Faber, 2020). She is also the editor of Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (Faber, 2019). Awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Irish Writers’ and Screenwriters’ Guild Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Award (Canada & Europe), the Edge Hill Short Story Prize Readers’ Choice Award, a Fiction Uncovered Award, a K. Blundell Trust Award and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.
Two bits of exciting news – ‘The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices’, which I’m editing, has received a huge donation of £3,000 from the wonderful people behind The Spaniard Belfast, Muriel’s Kitchen, Panama Belfast and new owners of The Chester Bar.
I have also secured a piece of writing by Lyra McKee who had agreed to be in the anthology before her tragic death. You can read all about it in the Belfast Telegraph article by Claire McNeilly.
“I met Lyra through Anna Burns, the Booker Prize winner, and the three of us had lunch together – three working class Ardoyne authors from three different generations,” he said.
“She told me her book was coming out and I spoke to her about being part of the anthology – that was before her book deal – and then, heartbreakingly, the tragedy happened.
“I recently talked to her publishers, who are bringing out a new book from her next month, and after I explained the back story, they are now giving me an unpublished piece of her writing to include, which is really amazing.”
Please pledge here to help make this book happen: unbound.com/books/32/.
The 32 is launched on the Unbound site. The Bookseller covered the launch here.
Please pledge to read 16 new pieces of work from the best writers in the country and help 16 new writers from working class backgrounds at the same time!
In a recent documentary on BBC Radio 4, novelist Kit de Waal asked ‘where are the working class writers?’ The answer is ‘right here’ in The 32.
Inspired by a shared concern that working class voices are increasingly absent from the pages of books and newspapers, Kit de Waal came together with publishers Unbound to create the hugely successful Common People anthology.
The Observer recently described Kit de Waal’s My Name Is Leon and my novel The Good Son as the ‘exceptional working-class novels from the last few years’ so it seems apt that Kit passes the baton to me to edit The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices.
Like Common People, The 32 will be a collection of essays and memoir, bringing together sixteen well-known writers from working class backgrounds with an equal number of new and emerging writers from all over the island of Ireland.
These new writers will be selected by an open call and we are working with the Cork World Book Festival, Irish Writers Centre, Munster Literature Centre, and Words Ireland to provide additional support.
Too often, working class writers find that the hurdles they have to leap are higher and harder to cross than for writers from more affluent backgrounds. The 32 will see writers who have made that leap reach back to give a helping hand to those coming up behind.
We read because we want to experience lives and emotions beyond our own, to learn, to see with others’ eyes – without new 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. Pledge for The 32 and join these writers to help to make a difference.
Contributors So Far Include:
Claire Allan
Kevin Barry
Dermot Bolger
June Caldwell
Martin Doyle
Roddy Doyle
Rosaleen McDonagh
Lisa McInerney
Dave Lordan
Danielle McLaughlin
Eoin McNamee
Melatu Uche Okorie
Senator Lynne Ruane
Rick O’Shea
Dr Michael Pierse
Please pledge if you can!
Me and Kit in Morges
Paul McVeigh 