Short Stories: Adam Marek & Paul McVeigh

Sun 23 Nov 2025, 12th – Tickets here.

Two award-winning masters of the short story come together for an unmissable hour of fiction, feeling, and fierce imagination. Belfast-born Paul McVeigh – author of The Good Son and I Hear You and co-founder of the London Short Story Festival – writes with humour, compassion and razor-sharp insight. His work, celebrated internationally, explores working-class life, queer identity and the power of language to wound or redeem.

Folkestone-based Adam Marek – winner of the prestigious Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship and author of The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need – is known for his brilliantly strange, deeply human stories that bend reality and tap into the surreal edge of everyday life.

Together, McVeigh and Marek will read from their work, talk about their playfully different approaches to the form, and explore how short stories can capture the biggest questions in the smallest moments. Expect a rich conversation about craft, vulnerability, play, and why the short story continues to punch above its weight.

A must-attend for readers, writers, and anyone who believes in the power of a well-told tale to shake the world – or shift your soul.

You can also buy my radio short story collection, I Hear You, out now.