Belfast Book Festival

Three LGBT Events For Pride Month

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

On Saturday I chaired a very special event for Belfast Book Festival with Colm Toibin and Mary Dorcey about the Queer Love anthology – it was such a warm conversation about the growing up LGBT in Ireland.

This Saturday coming, June 19th, I’m doing my first event in the USA for Carlow University (sadly online) with Mary Dorcey again. This time however I’m a guest writer and will be reading from my work.

The third event is with Jamie O’Connell who has also has a story in Queer Love. We’ll be talking about that and our novels.

Do come along – the two upcoming are free!

27 Mar, Mairtín Crawford Award: Preparing Short Stories For Submission (Online)

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Date Saturday 27 March 2021

Time 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Price Free. Book NowMairtín Crawford Award: Preparing Short Stories for Submission

workshop

Join 2021 Short Story Judges Lucy Caldwell and Paul McVeigh in a lively conversation about submitting your work to Awards. Lucy and Paul will speak about their own experience of Awards – as writers and judges; the specificities of the Mairtín Crawford Award and practical approaches to assembling and presenting work for Submission. 

Lucy and Paul will be in conversation for about 45 minutes, then spend 30 minutes responding to your questions.

Please note that questions must be submitted in advance. To submit a question please email BBFSubmissions@CrescentArts.org by 5pm on Wednesday 24th March. Please include in the email that the question is for the Short Story Workshop. 

Can’t make the 27th? This workshop will be recorded and available to stream online afterwards. 

This event is free to attend and registration is essential. 

Lucy Caldwell is the author of four novels, including the forthcoming These Days (Faber, Spring 2022), two short story collections, including Intimacies, out this May, and several stage plays and radio dramas. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright, a Fiction Uncovered Award and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. In 2019, she edited Being Various, the latest volume in the ongoing Faber series of New Irish Short Stories.

Paul McVeigh‘s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award and was shortlisted for many others including the Prix du Roman Cezam in France. His short stories have appeared in Faber’s Being Various, Kit de Waal’s Common People, The Art of the Glimpse and have been read on Radio 4 and Sky Arts. He is associate director of Word Factory ‘the national organisation for excellence in the short story’ The Guardian, and he co-founded London Short Story Festival. Paul has edited Belfast Stories, Queer Love: Anthology of Irish Fiction and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices.

Me, John Boyne, Kit de Waal & Roddy Doyle

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

thepoliticsoffiction-01.jpg

Well, this is a corker.

The Politics Of Fiction

Date Saturday 15 June 2019
Time 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Price£12 | £10
Venue: The Crescent Arts Centre

A Panel Discussion With Roddy Doyle, John Boyne & Kit De Waal Chaired By Paul McVeigh

Do fiction writers have a responsibility to engage with politics? The line between fiction and nonfiction is constantly blurred, especially in the post-truth climate of today. Fiction reflects the world around us, and the world around us at this particular moment in time is in crisis: politically, socially and culturally.

And so, in this tumultuous political climate, this panel will raise, and attempt to answer questions such as, whether fiction writers hold a responsibility to engage with and write about politics?; whether fiction can affect politics?; and whether all fiction is political?

Making up stories is an inherently political act, but that doesn’t mean that the stories are about politics. Does fiction have the ability to change minds? Come and enter into the conversation with these four writers as they discuss and shed light upon a question of pressing importance.

Hope to see some of you there.

Editor: Belfast Stories Anthology

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / 2 Comments

belfast-stories-anthology-01

Join Doire Press for the launch of Belfast Stories. It is a collection of short fiction set throughout the neighbourhoods of the city, written by both established and emerging writers, who live in or have a strong connection to Belfast.

The writers in Belfast Stories include: Linda Anderson, Lucy Caldwell, Jan Carson, Wendy Erskine, Jamie Guiney, Peter Hollywood, Caoilinn Hughes, Rosemary Jenkinson, Winnie M Li, Bernie McGill, Michael Nolan, David Park, Glenn Patterson, Ian Sansom, Dawn Watson and Shannon Yee.

The anthology also features photos and background information on each neighbourhood, as well as local listings and a map displaying where each of the stories takes place.

The preface and photos are by Malachi O’Doherty.

This launch event will include readings by some of the writers featured in the anthology, including Jan Carson, Bernie McGill, Dawn Watson and Shannon Yee, among others, and will be launched by Damian Smyth.

Date Sunday 09 June 2019
Time 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
PriceA Free Event

 

Me, Nicole Flattery, Lucy Caldwell & Lisa McInerney

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Being Various: New Irish Short Stories

Edited By Lucy Caldwell

With Lisa McInerney, Nicole Flattery & Paul McVeigh

Celebrate the current golden age of the short story in Ireland with the publication of Being Various. A spellbinding selection of Ireland’s most exciting new writers anthologised by Belfast’s own Lucy Caldwell, who will be in conversation with three of the writers.

Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of three novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and a collection of short stories. Awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the George Devine Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Imison Award, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Canada & Europe), the Irish Playwrights’ and Screenwriters’ Guild Award, 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.

Lisa McInerney’s work has featured in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, Granta, The Guardian, BBC Radio 4and various anthologies. Her story Navigation was longlisted for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. Her debut novel The Glorious Heresies won the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2016 Desmond Elliott Prize. Her second novel, The Blood Miracles, won the 2018 RSL Encore Award.

Nicole Flattery‘s stories have been published in The Irish Times, The Dublin Review, The White Review, Winter Papers and The Stinging Fly. She is a recipient of a Next Generation Artists’ Award from the Arts Council of Ireland and The White Review Short Story Prize. Originally from County Westmeath, Nicole now lives in Galway.

Paul McVeigh was born in Belfast. He is the author of one novel, The Good Son, which won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. He is also the author of many essays, plays and short stories which have been read on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 5.

Date Saturday 15 June 2019
Time 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Price£10 | £8
being-various

Me, Louise Doughty and Kit de Waal talk Working Class Writers

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / 1 Comment

Common People: An Anthology Of Working-Class Writers

common-people-01.jpg

Kit De Waal, Paul McVeigh & Louise Doughty

I’m really looking forward to this event at Belfast Book Festival and this one will be a corker with the two authors I admire and also love spending time with. Here’s the burb!

“This new anthology of writing has been collated by Kit de Waal in response to a concern that the working-class voice is still a marginalised one.

Bringing together thirty-three contributors, Common People is a book of essays, poetry and memoir that reflects upon the diverse experiences of growing up working-class.

A celebration told through the eyes of some of our most celebrated writers and brand new as-yet-unpublished writers.

Join Kit de Waal, Paul McVeigh and Louise Doughty as they discuss writing that seeks to illuminate the voices of the many not the few.

Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father. She has published two novels, My Name is Leon and The Trick to Time. My Name is Leon, her debut novel, was an international bestseller and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year in 2016. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, followed in April 2018. She established the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Scholarship at Birkbeck University to help improve working-class representation in the arts.

Paul McVeigh was born in Belfast. He is the author of one novel, The Good Son, which won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. He is also the author of many essays, plays and short stories which have been read on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 5.

Born in the East Midlands and grew up in Rutland, Louise Doughty has published ninenovels, including Black Water and Apple Tree Yard which was adapted into a BBC series. She is the author of nine novels, including Black Water which was nominated as one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and Apple Tree Yard which was adapted into a BBC series starring Emily Watson. Her novels have been nominated for the Costa Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, among others. She is also the author of many radio dramas, short stories and one non-fiction book A Novel in a Year.”

Date Friday 14 June 2019
Time 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Price£10 | £8

 

Interviewing Kit de Waal in Belfast

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Kit De Waal: The Trick To Time

Date Thursday 13 September 2018
Time 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Price£8 | £6

with Paul McVeigh

I’m delighted to be working with Kit de Waal again. We read together at a festival in Morges and for the Royal Society of Literature in London. I’ve also interviewed her for The Irish Times. This time I’ll be interviewing her live in Belfast. Here’s the blurb…

The Crescent is delighted to welcome to Belfast, the author of the Costa shortlisted and Irish Novel of the Year award winning novel, My Name is Leon, Kit De Waal for a Belfast Book Festival Fringe event. She is joining us to discuss her latest novel, The Trick To Time; an unforgettable love story.

Birmingham, 1972. Mona is a young Irish girl in a big city, with the thrill of a new job and a room of her own in a busy boarding house. On her first night out in town, she meets William, a charming Irish boy with an easy smile and an open face. They embark upon a dizzying love affair, a whirlwind marriage, an unexpected pregnancy – before a sudden tragedy tears them apart.

Decades later, Mona pieces together the memories of the years that separate them. But can she ever learn to love again?

The Trick to Time is an unforgettable tale of grief, longing, and a love that lasts a lifetime.

‘Weaving tragedy and joy, big themes and the minutiae of life, this is a love story to take on the classics’ – Emerald Street

Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60’s and 70’s. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, long-listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017.

images-1

Kit and me read together at a festival in  Morges

 

Polari Literary Salon comes to Belfast

/ Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Fri 16 June 8pm: Reading at Polari Literary Salon at Sunflower Pub

You catch me reading at The Belfast Book Festival this year as The Polari Literary Salon comes to Belfast for the first time! Polari was founded by author Paul Burston who also founded the Polari First Novel Award which I won last year.

 

cropped-me-winning-the-polari.jpg

Juliet Jacques, me & Paul Burston at Polari Prize ceremony

 

Paul and author Vg Lee will be flying over and will be reading from their work. Here’s a little but about the Polari  Salon…

London’s award-winning LGBT literary salon. Now in its tenth year, Polari has been showcasing the best in established and emerging LGBT literary talent since 2007. Polari is curated and hosted by author Paul Burston and features a mixture of visiting and local guests.

Polari began in November 2007 in the upstairs room of a bar in Soho. Events are now held monthly at the Southbank Centre and feature the best in established and emerging LGBT literary talent.

“Always fun, always thought-provoking – a guaranteed good night out” – Sarah Waters

“Polari is a unique mix of voices that provokes the strongest responses from its audience – love, laughter, tears, but most of all, thought” – Val McDermid

“London’s most theatrical salon” – The New York Times

Hope to see some of you there.