Alannah Hopkin & Carlo Gébler in conversation with Paul McVeigh
The Munster Literature Centre has put this video online of an event which I chaired at Cork Short Story Festival last year. I hope you enjoy it.
Cork
SOLD OUT: Cork World Book Festival
I’ve made no secret about how much I love Cork. I’ve been to the Cork World Book Festival for the last 3 years (and the Cork Short Story Festival). I’m delighted to be returning again this year to teach. Details below;
Writing Workshop with Paul McVeigh –
That Killer First Chapter
April 28th | 10am to 12pm | €30
In association with Cork World Book Festival 2018
Have an idea for a novel and don’t know where to start? Have you finished your novel and want to make sure you avoid the rejection pile?
Writer Paul McVeigh will help you write a first chapter that grabs the attention of agents, editors and readers. With lots of no-nonsense advice and practical exercises this course sold out in London with Felicity Yap’s ‘Yesterday’ selling for 6 figures just 2 weeks later.
You will learn
how to grab the attention of readers, agents & editors
what a first chapter needs
how to introduce characters and themes
how to write fiction with emotional impact
how to use dialogue to reveal character and further the plot
About Paul McVeigh
Paul McVeigh’s debut novel, ‘The Good Son’, won The Polari First Novel Prize, The McCrea Literary Award, was Brighton’s City Reads 2016 and part of the UK’s World Book Night 2017. His short stories have appeared in journals and anthologies, on BBC Radio 3,4 & 5 and ‘Hollow’ was shortlisted for Irish Short Story of the Year 2017. He is associate director at Word Factory and co-founder of London Short Story Festival. His work has appeared on TV, on stage in London’s West End and has been translated into 7 languages.
The Good Son: Winner of The Polari Prize
World Book Night Choice 2017
‘A triumph of storytelling. An absolute gem.’ Donal Ryan
Winner of The Polari Prize
“Pungently funny and shot through with streaks of aching sadness.” Patrick Gale
“I devoured it in a day, but I’ve thought about it for many, many more.” Lisa McInerney
“Funny, raw and endlessly entertaining.” Johnathan Coe
Cork Short Story Festival 2017
Cork International Short Story Festival 2017
It’s no secret how much I love Cork and the Cork International Short Story Festival. Every year Patrick Cotter brings together the best short story writers from all over the world to celebrate the form. This year is no exception with Carlo Gebler, Claire Keegan, David Means among many. There are films, panel events, workshops and interviews by Rob Doyle, Tom Morris, Sinead Gleeson and me!
I’m involved in three events this year. I’m chairing events with Carlo Gebler & Alannah Hopkin and Alan McMonagle & Billy O’Callaghan. This year I had the honour of judging the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition and I will giving the prize to the winner at a special ceremony on Friday.
Last year at CSSF with Sinead Gleeson and Claire-Louise Bennett
My events:
1. Alannah Hopkin & Carlo Gébler Readings by two Irish writers, moderated by Paul McVeigh.
14th September at 8.30pm Firkin Crane Theatre, Shandon Admission: €5
Alannah Hopkin is a novelist, travel writer and critic from Kinsale, Co Cork. She has published two novels (Hamish Hamilton, London); other books include West Cork, the People & the Place (The Collins Press, Cork). Her stories have appeared in the London Magazine and The Cork Literary Review. The Dogs of Inishere (Dalkey Archive Press) is her first story collection.
Carlo Gébler was born Dublin in 1954, the eldest son of writer parents, Ernest Gébler and Edna O’Brien. His recent publications from New Island are The Projectionist: The Story of Ernest Gébler, The Wing Orderly’s Tales, and The Innocent of Falkland Road. He teaches at Trinity and is a member of Aosdána.
2. The Seán Ó Faoláin Prizegiving With a reading by the 2017 winner and prize presentation by judge Paul McVeigh.
15th September at 4pm Cork Central Library (Grand Parade) Admission: FREE
Louise Nealon is a twenty-six year old writer from Co. Kildare. She studied English literature in Trinity College Dublin, and then completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast in 2016. She currently lives on her family’s farm where she divides her time between reading, writing and milking cows. She will be reading her prizewinning story, ‘What Feminism Is’, at this event.
The Sean O’Faolain Prize is awarded to the best single story entered in competition from anywhere in the world. The first prize is €2000. The winner also receives a week’s residency at the Anam Cara artist retreat in West Cork and publication of their winning story in Southword. The winner, if they choose to travel to Cork for this event, also receives accommodation with meals for the duration of the festival and entry into all events. This occasion is an opportunity to hear the winning story and the judge’s citation from Paul McVeigh. The competition is now closed, and the winning and shortlisted stories have been announced on our competitions page.
3. Alan McMonagle & Billy O’Callaghan Readings by two Irish writers, moderated by Paul McVeigh.
15th September at 8.30pm Firkin Crane Theatre, Shandon Admission: €5
Alan McMonagle has written for radio and published two collections of short stories, Liar Liar (Wordsonthestreet, 2008) and Psychotic Episodes (Arlen House, 2013), both of which were nominated for the Frank O’Connor Award. In November 2015, he signed a two-book deal with Picador, and in March 2017, Ithaca, his debut novel was published and immediately nominated for the Desmond Elliott Award for first novels. He lives in Galway.
Billy O’Callaghan, from Cork, is the author of three short story collections: In Exile (2008) and In Too Deep (2009), both published by Mercier Press, and The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind (2013), published by New Island Books, which won the 2013 Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Award for Short Story of the Year, and which has been selected as Cork’s ‘One City, One Book’ for 2017. His first novel, The Dead House, was published by O’Brien Press/Brandon Books in May 2017. A novella, A Death in the Family, will be published in late 2017 as a Ploughshares Solo.
I hope to see some of you there.
Teaching: Cork World Book Festival April 21
Turning a short story into a novel.
In association with Cork World Book Fest 2017
Triskel Project Space
€50 per person. Spaces limited. 11am to 4pm
Have you a short story that is crying out to be a novel?
Paul McVeigh developed one of his short stories into his award-winning debut novel ‘The Good Son’. He will share his process and give lots of feedback on your ideas.
Come prepared to work hard.
I hope to see some of you there.
Festival Time! Cork, Ireland and Wraclow, Poland.
I’m really looking forward to Cork International Short Story Festival next week. I’m especially excited to be chairing an event with Edge Hill Prize-winner Kirsty Gunn and one of my all-time favourite writers Claire Keegan. I’ll also get to see my good friend Liadain O’Donovan give out the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, on behalf of her father, to Carys Davies, that evening.
Liadain O’Donovan at 13th International Conference on the Short Story, Vienna ’14.
After returning home to Brighton, I head off to Wroclaw, Poland on Oct 1 to attend the Międzynarodowy Festiwal Opowiadania – International Short Story Festival where I’m honoured to be joining the other international guests Jon Boilard, Clare Wigfall & Colin Barrett. I’m reading on Saturday Oct 3. You can check out the programme here.
Maybe I’ll see some of you in Cork or Poland. Come and say ‘hello’.
Cork International Short Story Festival. Sept 22-26.
I am very excited to be attending the Cork International Short Story Festival for the second year (you can download the programme here). It will be my third visit to Cork, having read at last year’s short story festival and the Cork World Book Festival this April for the Irish launch of The Good Son. I love this city and have made some great friends there. I love The Penny Dreadful lit mag that comes out of Cork too.
At this year’s festival I won’t be reading, instead I have the honour of chairing an event with this year’s Edge Hill Prize-winner Kirsty Gunn and one of my favourite short story writers Claire Keegan, on Saturday 26th.
If you love short stories I urge you to go to Cork this year. The festival is chock full of the finest short story writers from around the world. Festival Director Patrick Cotter always puts on a great programme and this year is no exception. You get to hear authors read and hang out with them too if you’re lucky. You can also takes classes. This year there are courses delivered by new Irish sensation Danielle McLaughlin who has just had her second short story published in The New Yorker.
There’s also a course with Claire Keegan. I brought Claire to the London Short Story Festival last year and watching the writers leave her masterclass was quite a sight. They were stunned. I asked a few for feedback and they said they’d never experienced anything like it. One said she got more from that afternoon than the whole of her 2 year MA course! Don’t miss this opportunity.
Among the many other writers there you have Toby Litt, Frank O’Connor Award-winner Carys Davies and Helen Link from the USA. I hope to see some of you there.
Paul McVeigh 