Chairing Darran Anderson & Wendy Erskine Birmingham Lit Fest

Focus on: Northern Ireland –

Darran Anderson & Wendy Erskine

8th October, 8pm Birmingham Rep

Northern Ireland – often overlooked, or dismissed as “troublesome” – has generated some of the best contemporary writing in the English language.

Invited by Guest Curator Paul McVeigh, Darran Anderson and Wendy Erskine are some of the most exciting new literary voices coming out of the nation, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Come and find out what wonderful fiction you’ve been missing out on, and who you should be looking out for next.

Chaired by Paul McVeigh

About the speakers:

Darran Anderson is an Irish writer living in London. He is the author of Imaginary Cities and Inventory. He has co-edited The Honest Ulsterman3:AM MagazineDogmatika and White Noise. He writes for the likes of the Atlanticfrieze magazine, and Magnum, and has given talks at the V&A, the LSE, the Robin Boyd Foundation and the Venice Biennale.

Wendy Erskine lives in Belfast. Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Stinging Fly Stories and Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland. She also features in Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (Faber and Faber), Winter Papers and on BBC Radio 4.

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Chairing Julia Armfield & Paul Mendez at Birmingham Lit Fest

Julia Armfield & Paul Mendez

8th October, Birmingham Rep, 2-3pm

Two of the UK’s most exciting voices in queer writing, Julia Armfield (Our Wives Under the Sea) and Paul Mendez (Rainbow Milk) talk to our Guest Curator Paul McVeigh about their novels, their writing and the LGBTQ+ writing scene, which is finally seeing the celebration it deserves.

Julia Armfield is a fiction writer and occasional playwright. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. She was commended in the Moth Short Story Prize 2017, longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review short story prize 2018.Her critically acclaimed short story collection, salt slow, was published in2019. Our Wives Under the Sea is her first novel.

Paul Mendez is a British writer, based in Birmingham. His debut novel Rainbow Milk (Dialogue, 2020), an Observer Best Debuts choice, was shortlisted for the Polari First Novel Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction and a British Book Award (Fiction Debut). He has written for VogueAnOtherEsquireHarper’s BazaarThe Face, the London Review of Books, the TLS,the WritersMosaic and the BBC. He is currently adapting Rainbow Milk for television, and is a student on the MA programme in Black British Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Tickets here.

That Killer First Page at Birmingham Lit Fest

That Killer First Page – with Paul McVeigh

8th October, 10am-12noon, The Exchange.

“Short stories are where a lot of writers start, and short story competitions are enormously valuable to an emerging writer.

You’ll find out what competition judges and journal editors look for in a short story and how to avoid the rejection pile. In a form where every word counts, get tips on staying focused on your story and where to start the action.

You’ll also look at submission opportunities; how to find them and where you should be sending your stories.

Paul McVeigh is co-founder of London Short Story Festival and Associate Director at Word Factory. He’s been a reader and judge for national and international literary competitions and prizes. He had also edited four anthologies and reviews for the Irish Times and the TLS.”

Book here.

You can still listen to my short story ‘Dady Christmas’ on BBC Radio 4 here.

The Good Son 3rd Editon
You can buy here

Winner of The Polari First Novel Prize

‘A triumph of storytelling. An absolute gem.’ Donal Ryan

Raw, funny and endlessly entertaining’. Jonathan Coe

Birmingham Literature Festival with Kit de Waal & Osman Yousefzada

Birmingham, the city that raised me: Kit de Waal & Osman Yousefzada

****PLEASE NOTE: the time of this event as printed in the programme is incorrect. The event is 7pm – 8pm. Oct 7th.****

Two memoirs set in the same part of Birmingham: geographically, very close – but culturally, miles apart.

Kit de Waal grew up to a white Irish mother and Black Caribbean father in 1960s Springfield, South Birmingham, with 4 siblings, not enough
food and huge expectations imposed by her Jehovah’s Witness mother. Not 3 miles away, 15 years later, Osman Yousefzada grew up in a
closed-off Pakistani immigrant community where everyone knew his and his family’s business and he and his siblings – especially
his sisters – were under permanent scrutiny.

Kit and Osman join us at Birmingham Literature Festival in the year both their memoirs have been published to talk about their childhoods in the city, their families, and how that set them on the track to stride out and break with expectations to forge their own careers and lives.

Chaired by Paul McVeigh

Sponsored by Newman University

About the speakers:

Kit de Waal is the author of the novels My Name is Leon, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, and The Trick to Time, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and a short story collection, Supporting Cast. She is also editor of the Common People anthology, and co-founder of the Big Book Weekend festival. My Name is Leon was adapted as a one-hour film for BBC1, and broadcast in June 2022 to rave reviews.

Osman Yousefzada was born in Birmingham to migrant parents who are illiterate in English and their mother tongue. He is an interdisciplinary artist and designer who studied at SOAS and Central Saint Martins, and went on to obtain an MPhil at Cambridge University. He has exhibited at international institutions including the Whitechapel Gallery, Dhaka Art Summit, V&A and more. The Osman Yousefzada clothing line is worn by celebrities including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Lupita Nyong’o, Thandiwe Newton, Gwen Stefani, Emma Watson, Freida Pinto and many more.

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That Killer First Page

At Birmingham Literature Festival

“Learn from short story writer and champion, Paul McVeigh.

You’ll find out what competition judges and journal editors look for in a short story and how to avoid the rejection pile. Get tips on where to start the action and how to grab the reader. You’ll also look at submission opportunities; how to find them and where you should be sending your stories.”

Biography:
Paul McVeigh’s short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies, and been read on BBC Radio 3,4 & 5. He was shortlisted for Irish Short Story of the Year 2017 at the Irish Book Awards. His short story blog shares writing opportunities and advice has reached 2.5 million views. Paul co-founded London Short Story Festival and is Associate Director at Word Factory, the UK’s national centre for excellence in the short story. He is a reader and judge for national and international short story competitions. He has edited Southword Journal and three anthologies, commissioning work from Kevin Barry, Roddy Doyle and Deborah Levy.

Event Details

Sat 17th October 2020 2:00PM

Price

Place price
£30.00*

*booking fee applies

Podcast: Kit de Waal for Birmingham Literature Festival

I even bought a proper mic and everything.

Today I recorded my first podcast interviewing Kit de Waal about her work especially her new short fiction collection ‘Supporting Cast’ for Birmingham Literature Festival.

Look out for it coming this October.

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The Good Son: Winner of The Polari Prize & The McCrea Literary Award

“The Good Son is a work of genius from a splendid writer.”

Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler

“A triumph of storytelling. An absolute gem.” Donal Ryan