Novel Writing Retreat in France May 10-17

January 30, 2026 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

CIRCLE OF MISSE INTRODUCTION

Let’s start by saying that each course at Misse is an individual journey, we don’t believe in a “one size fits all” approach. Our goal is to meet you where you stand, to find out and identify where you want to land and to help you plot a journey there. To this end our courses are small with no more than six writers; this allows us to focus on your needs.

COURSE INTRODUCTION

During the week you will look at how to use in emotion in your writing, how to create memorable characters and how to edit your work. Paul will lead writing exercises, give talks using concrete examples from texts and help you fill your writer’s toolbox with skills you can apply to your work. There will also be plenty of time for questions and a session on how the industry works.

PRACTICALITIES

Course Length: One week. The week starts with a welcome introduction after you have settled in on Sunday evening, then wraps up with our open mic night on Saturday evening (7 nights).

Schedule: Morning: Teaching and one-to-one feedback sessions. Sessions can include excursions to a nearby market, chateau or other adventures. Writing/free time in the afternoon and early evening each day.

Travel Details:

Free pick-up (Sunday) and drop-off (Sunday) at:

Saumur Station. Saumur is accessible by train from Nantes Atlantique International Airport, Tours airport and CDG airport in Paris.
Full details here.
- Pick-up 17:15
- Drop-off 12:00 (or earlier if necessary)
You can also take the train to Thouars, our nearest town, and we’ll collect you
You can also drive. We’ll send directions and GPS coordinates.

Meals & Drinks: Misse is also home to the Loire Kitchen cooking school, so food is of a very high standard. Breakfast, lunch & dinner each day, including wine & cocktails. Coffee, tea, juices, soft drinks and snacks available all the time.

Accommodation: Misse guest rooms have been designed to be the perfect writer’s space year-round: you’ll have comfort, quiet, privacy and a wonderful view over your surroundings. All of our guest rooms have en suite bathrooms, good lighting, a desk and a comfortable chair. For more details see our rooms pagee.

Check out the website here.

The Paul McVeigh West Cork Residency 2026

October 17, 2025December 15, 2025 / Paul McVeigh Writer / 9 Comments

Applications are *CLOSED* for the Paul McVeigh Residency. Now in its third year, previous winners have gone on to get agents, book deals and win literary prizes.

The residency will take place near Glengariff, in its stunning forest park, West Cork, from Sunday 25th January until Sunday 1st February 2026. The opportunity is for emerging writers of fiction and non-fiction aged 21 and over living in Ireland and the UK.

What’s new this year? There are three places in total; two available in the cottage and one in the detached out building. Before applying please read the detailed description of the property below.

There is a £20 application fee which entitles ALL applicants to three professional development sessions:

An hour-long group zoom session on writing a query letter with Sam Blake and Maria McHale, Directors of Writers Ink.
An industry session by Writers and Artists Yearbook team on ‘How to Pitch Your Book’. This 30-minute session will look at ways to approach the challenge of summing up a whole book in so few words, discuss pitch research, and share examples of successful pitches that you can use as a model for your own. We’ll also discuss how pitches can differ depending on the kind of book you are writing (fiction genres, memoir and non-fiction), as well as how the pitch functions in the context of your submission package. The session will end with a brief Q&A, so come ready with your questions!
A 30 min group zoom session on reading your work live with actor Tony Flynn.

THE WINNERS

Pre Care:

The three writers will have an online session academic/author, Yvonne Battle-Felton, to discuss how to make the most of the residency.

Standard class travel provided.

Welcome

Anna Burtt and Paul McVeigh will greet the three winners to settle them into their accommodation and answer any questions. There will be a welcome dinner and drinks.

ON RESIDENCY

During the residency the winners will get one-hour group sessions with Louis de Bernières, Irish Ficiton Laureate Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Martina Devlin, Kirsty Logan, Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler and Leone Ross.

The winners will be taken on a trip to the beautiful harbour town of Bantry to visit Bantry Bookshop where they will get one-on-one reading recommendations, receive €50 book tokens to spend in-shop and a special gift from the shop.

There will be a trip to Cork city to meet literary festival director, Pat Cotter, to talk about the industry and the festival circuit.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner provided – family style. Basic tea and coffee provided. Alcohol, food outside of meals, special food items must be covered by the individual.

AFTERCARE

1.   Anna Burtt will give each writer a half-hour publishing consultancy by zoom.

2. Pervious residency winner, Patrick Holloway, will give a group zoom session on his experience as a debut novelist – getting an agent and a publishing deal.

3. All three residency winners will also receive a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and a bundle of W&A Writing Companion Guides. They’ll receive a year’s free subscription to the Writers & Artists Listings Subscription (a digital database of publishing industry contacts), which also includes access to Agent Pages – individual profiles for over 500 literary agents – to help writers personalise their approaches when submitting to literary agents.

4. The winners will get membership for Writing.ie – a platform for the writing community filled with advice and resources.

Entry Eligibility & How to apply

Send an email to pmcveighresidency@gmail.com attaching 1000 word extract of your prose – fiction and non-fiction accepted. Include in the body of the email a short bio outlining your publication history, if any.

*We are not looking for poetry at this time, thank you.

2. You must be available on the full dates of the residency – no changes possible.

3. Applicants must be 21 or over at time of residency.

4. Please put in your subject heading UK, or Ireland (if on the island of Ireland).

5. You can have had some short works published but not a solo book. (Poetry pamphlet/collections and self-published excepted)

6. Deadline: 30 November 2025

7. Please attach proof of payment. If not available, please provide date and time of payment.

7. Judges are Cathy Galvin, Paul McVeigh and previous residency winner Hilary White.

Longlist announced Friday December 5th.

Shortlist announced Friday December 12th.

Winners announced Friday December 19th.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The two bedrooms in the cottage are in its converted attic. Three important things to consider; firstly, the short staircase to the attic very study but steep. Secondly, the bedrooms are adjoining. Thirdly, there is only one toilet/shower for you both to share and it is downstairs.

If the stairs are off-putting, the ground floor has a daybed that extends into a double. The out building is single floored but there is a slight grass incline to access it.

You are out in the countryside in the middle of national park with beautiful scenery and walks. The nearest village is Glengariff, a 10-15 min drive, and not walkable. I will be staying nearby and will have a car for excursions etc.

PLEASE CONSIDER THE ABOVE CAREFULLY BEFORE APPLYING. Questions to pmcveighresidency@gmail.com

Cork International Short Story Festival

August 22, 2025 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

So happy to be returning to this festival. Hope to see some of you there. Tickets here.

Peter Bradshaw & Paul McVeigh

9.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Peter Bradshaw is an author and critic who has been chief film critic for The Guardian since 1999 and is also contributing editor of Esquire UK. His most recent publication is The Body In the Mobile Library and Other Stories and in addition he has written three novels and an edited selection of his Guardian reviews entitled The Films That Made Me. He also writes for radio and television and is currently co-writing a drama-thriller for Channel Four TV entitled I Am Not Alice Bell. He lives in London with his wife and son.

Buy The Body in the Mobile Library (Lightning Books).

“Bradshaw relishes the grotesque and improbable; his set-ups are outrageously inventive … Characters are sympathetically drawn and their longings, insecurities, vanities and weaknesses feel all too credible.” — Emma Beddington

Paul McVeigh‘s short 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, RTÉ Radio 1, and 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. His debut collection of radio stories, I Hear You, was published by Salt in March 2025. Paul co-founded the London Short Story Festival and was associate director of Word Factory, described by The Guardian as ‘the UK’s national organisation for excellence in the short story.’

Visit the author’s website.

“This is a world of escape artists and fraudsters, of body swaps and comedy cuckoos, of misfits and trespassers of every ilk … where else would you want to be than amongst the outliers, where the tender, the vulnerable and the brave reside?” — Bernie McGill

(Moderator) Patrick Holloway’s debut novel, The Language of Remembering, is published by Epoque Press (2025). He is the winner of the Bath Short Story Award, The Allingham Fiction Prize, The Flash 500 Prize and The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize. He is an editor of the literary journal The Four Faced Liar.

Irish Times Review of ‘I Hear you’

March 18, 2025 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Thank you to novelist Neil Hegarty, for this lovely review of, I Hear You, in the Irish Times.

“My mind found an old shoebox full of memories, and as I opened it, the moths of the past flew out”: in The Singer, one of the short stories in Paul McVeigh’s vivid and memorable new collection, we meet a nameless female protagonist as she sifts through the stuff of her life. The scene is an ordinary family home in north Belfast – but as each of these stories reminds us, there is no such thing as an ordinary family or home. Rather, each family, home, life is invariably extraordinary, in myriad ways – and all we need do to see this is to pay attention.

The Singer is a story of sibling rivalry, envy, tension – and to add further to such pleasures, this is also a complex retelling of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The protagonist’s sister (and indeed, her name is Jane) has always been the favourite one, the talented one, the one who triumphed at the local talent competition three years running – though also the one who even as a child liked to take nips from the bottle of cooking brandy in the kitchen cupboard. The other sister has gone off and earned a degree, has been good, has carved out a sensible place in the world – has been thoroughly eclipsed: but now she teeters on the edge of something remarkable, of a longed-for switch in life; and to add to her satisfaction, Jane has taken to calling from London, looking for money. There is sleekness in the telling, there is satisfaction in the glimpse of a happy ending – and best of all, this happy ending will not be for everyone.

The Singer is one element in The Circus, a sequence of linked stories that shows us a multifaceted society, and provides a much-needed corrective to the version of north Belfast glimpsed from time to time in the television news. Each story was originally written for radio, and this genesis explains the collection’s depth of colour and vividness of voice. And its variety: Paul McVeigh’s writing has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to working-class and queer representation, and this sustained energy flows through this collection, to illuminating effect – for this is a world of change, of openness, of the drunkenness of things being various.“

Read here.

Buy here.

Teaching Course at Look North Festival

January 31, 2025 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Workshop: On the Short-Story with Paul McVeigh

Sat `1` Mar `2025` `2:00 PM` – `4:00 PM`

Girdwood, 10 Girdwood Avenue, Belfast, Antrim BT14 6EG

Tickets: Here

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.

The Winners of The Paul McVeigh Residency at The Harrison

December 13, 2024December 13, 2024 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

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

Congratulations to all the winners.

Interviewing Martina Devlin

December 2, 2024December 2, 2024 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

The Black Box

Wednesday 15 January, 1.00pm

Doors 12.30 | Unreserved seating

£12:00 including lunch

Tickets

“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.”

Interviewing Donal Ryan

September 14, 2024 / Paul McVeigh Writer / 1 Comment

Heart, Be At Peace: Donal Ryan in conversation with Paul McVeigh

Donal Ryan has rapidly become one of Irelands most celebrated authors. Join Donal as he talks about his new book, Heart, Be at Peace, and his career, with author Paul McVeigh.

Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, is the author of six number one-bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and four Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. In 2016 his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was voted Irish Book of the Decade. In 2021 he became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages. A law graduate and former civil servant, Donal has lectured in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick since 2014 and lives in Castletroy with his wife Anne Marie and their two children. His seventh novel, Heart, Be At Peace, will be published worldwide in August 2024.

Paul McVeigh’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize, The McCrea Literary Award and was shortlisted for many others including the Prix de Roman Cezam. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, journals and newspapers, as well as, on BBC Radio 3, 4 & 5, and Sky Arts. He edited the Queer Love anthology and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices. His writing has been translated into seven languages.

His collection of short stories written for BBC Radio, I Hear You, will be published by Salt Publishing in March 2025.

Date	Wednesday October 16th
Venue	Rathfarnham Castle
Admission	€10 / €8
Time	7pm

Book here.

Interviewing Marlon James at ILFD

May 25, 2024 / Paul McVeigh Writer / Leave a comment

Ten Years of Seven Killings

Marlon James

Celebrating the book’s tenth anniversary and his historic prize win, James takes the stage to discuss his work to date and how the success of A Brief History of Seven Killings shaped the trajectory of his writing career.

On December 3rd 1976 at around 8:30 PM, seven men armed with guns broke into 56 Hope Road where Bob Marley and his band were rehearsing for an upcoming gig. The gunmen managed to shoot Marley’s wife, his manager, a band employee, and Marley himself before fleeing the scene. Later, the gunmen would be tried and executed in a ghetto court with both the singer and his manager present.

A Brief History of Seven Killings reimagines this defining moment in the singer-songwriter’s storied life and career. Spanning three decades, its cast of characters range from drug dealers to journalists, ghosts to the CIA as they navigate the streets of 1970s Kingston, the crack houses of 1980s New York, and the radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s.

This masterpiece of speculative fiction won Marlon James the 2015 Man Booker Prize, making him the first ever Jamaican writer to win the prize. In this event celebrating the book’s tenth anniversary and his historic prize win, James takes the stage to discuss Marley’s legacy, his work to date, and how the success of the book shaped the trajectory of his writing career.

Marlon James is the author of the New York Times-bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf. A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, and the Minnesota Book Award. His other publications include The Book of Night Women and John Crow’s Devil.

This event will be chaired by writer Paul McVeigh, Paul’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. His short stories have appeared in anthologies, journals and his writing has been translated into seven languages.

Date :

Sat 25 May

Time :

19:00

Venue :

Merrion Square Park – Speranza

Price :

€20 / €18