It’s finally here! My first memoir piece ‘Night of the Hunchback’ is published in Kit de Waal’s anthology of working class voices ‘Common People’. Here are the other authors included…
Damian Barr
Malorie Blackman OBE
Lisa Blower
Jill Dawson
Louise Doughty
Stuart Maconie
Chris McCrudden
Lisa McInerney
Daljit Nagra
Dr Dave O’Brien
Cathy Rentzenbrink
Anita Sethi
Adelle Stripe
Tony Walsh
Alex Wheatle
Pick up your copy soon…
FRI 26 APR 2019 8:00pm | €8/6
Kit de Waal and Anne Griffin will be in conversation with me.
“The Trick to Time is Kit de Waal’s second novel, taking place during the IRA pub bombings in Birmingham in 1974. Born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and an African-Caribbean father, de Waal began her writing career at the age of 45, after leaving school at 15. Seeking to address the under-representation of working-class voices in the arts, de Waal has established a creative writing scholarship.
Anne Griffin has worked with various charities following completion of a postgraduate diploma in Youth and Community Work. A recipient of the John McGahern Award for Literature, Griffin’s debut novel is When All Is Said. The protagonist is 84-year-old Maurice, who sits at a bar and toasts five individuals who have most profoundly impacted on his life in five internal monologues.
7.30pm: Join us for a pre-event whiskey tasting event from Master of Malt and discover the wonderful world of Irish whiskey through the distilleries while remembering the characters beautifully brought to life in Anne Griffin’s poignant bestselling novel, When All Is Said. Whiskies from Midleton and Bushmills showcase the incredible spectrum of flavours found in Ireland’s favourite drink and reflected in the toasts raised by character Maurice Hannigan to his loved ones in When All Is Said.”
Ain’t she pretty?
My short story ‘The Swimmers’ is in here alongside these wonderful writers – Darren Anderson, Kevin Barry, Jan Carson, Jill Crawford, Wendy Erskine, Nicole Flattery, Yan Ge, Sinead Gleeson, David Hayden, Arja Kajermo, Eimear McBride, Lisa McInerney, Belinda McKeon, Adrian McKinty, Danielle McLaughlin, Peter Murphy, Stuart Neville, Louise O’Neill, Sheila Purdy, Elske Rahill, Sally Rooney and Kit de Waal.
Edited by Lucy Caldwell, published by Faber.
Out May 1.
And they’re off…
Heading out into the world for review are the proofs for the ‘Common People’ anthology edited by Kit de Waal. I’m delighted to have written my first piece of memoir alongside these wonderful writers…
Contributors Include:
Damian Barr
Malorie Blackman OBE
Lisa Blower
Jill Dawson
Louise Doughty
Stuart Maconie
Chris McCrudden
Lisa McInerney
Daljit Nagra
Dr Dave O’Brien
Cathy Rentzenbrink
Anita Sethi
Adelle Stripe
Tony Walsh
Alex Wheatle
The anthology is out to buy in May 2019.
Lovely to see this praise for The Good Son from author Kerry Hudson in The Observer newspaper yesterday;
“When I think of exceptional working-class novels from the last few years, I inevitably think of Kit de Waal’s My Name Is Leon and Paul McVeigh’s The Good Son, both skilfully written books about two very different boys’ challenges growing up in working-class environments.”
She also mentions de Waal’s Common People Anthology out next year which includes my first piece of memoir. You can head over and read the whole article here.
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.
Kit and me read together at a festival in Morges
You can read my interview with author Kit de Waal in The Irish Times today.
“When I arrive at Kit de Waal’s she’s in her writing cabin in the back garden of her house in Leamington. De Waal gets a kick out of using the no-frills Leamington while the locals insist on its full title:Royal Leamington Spa. No surprise, really, as though outwardly seeming to have fallen far from the tree in this wealthy, white, middle-England town, this author holds tightly to her roots; Brummie, Irish, West Indian and working class.”
Read the full interview on their site.
Kit’s new novel is the Irish Book Club choice for this month.
de Waal and I shared the stage at a festival in Morges last year and at the above event for Royal Society of Literature
