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Writing History: Dublin Book Festival, Nov 11

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Join us as we take a step back in time for an evening of conversation in the beautiful surrounds of the Reading Room in the National Library of Ireland. Writer and playwright Paul McVeigh will be in conversation with three contemporary writers bringing history to life with their most recent novels. Edith (The Lilliput Press) by Martina Devlin is a captivating and insightful novel based on the life of Edith Somerville, a writer struggling to keep her art and spirit alive in the turbulence of 1920s Ireland. The Other Guinness Girl (Hachette) by Emily Hourican is the latest in a fascinating and deeply researched series of books about the glamorous world of the women in the famous Guinness family; a story of love, friendship and ambition set in the turbulent years preceding WWII. A Quiet Tide (New Island) by Marianne Lee is a beautifully crafted fictionalised account of the life of Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s first female botanist, illuminating her passion and determination in the face of the many obstacles she faced.

Martina Devlin

Martina Devlin has written 11 books and two plays and is an award-winning journalist. She has won a VS Pritchett Prize from the Royal Society of Literature and a Hennessy Literary Award. Martina presents the City of Books podcast for Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and is the first holder of a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin where she has taught Irish literature.

Emily Hourican

Emily Hourican is a journalist and author. She has written features for the Sunday Independent for fifteen years, as well as Image magazine, Condé Nast Traveler and Woman and Home. She was also editor of The Dubliner Magazine. Emily’s first book, a memoir titled How To (Really) Be A Mother was published in 2013. She is also the author of novels The Privileged, White Villa, The Outsider and The Blamed, as well as two bestselling novels about the Guinness sisters: The Glorious Guinness Girls and The Guinness Girls: A Hint of Scandal. She lives in Dublin with her family.

Marianne Lee

Marianne Lee grew up in Tullamore, Co. Offaly and now lives in Dublin with her husband and two cats. She has a degree in Visual Communications from the National College of Art and Design and an MPhil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin. She works as a designer and copywriter. Her debut novel, A Quiet Tide, a fictionalised account of the life of Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s first female botanist was shortlisted for the 2021 Kate O’Brien Award, featured on RTÉ Radio One Book on One in spring 2022. Marianne is currently adapting A Quiet Tide for the screen and working on her second novel. @ThisMarianneLee www.mariannelee.ie

Paul McVeigh

Paul’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 The Art of the Glimpse and Being Various, as well as, on BBC Radio 3, 4 & 5, and Sky Arts. His writing has been translated into seven languages.

Chairing Julia Armfield & Paul Mendez at Birmingham Lit Fest

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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 Vogue, AnOther, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, The 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.

Appearing at Primadonna Festival with Joanne Harris & Kit de Waal

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I’ll be chairing an event with Joanne Harris author of 20 novels & journalist, editor and interviewer Sarah Shaffi. Pretentious? Moi?! ‘In this light-hearted session, we look at the heavy-handed writers who allow their imaginations to be overruled by their egos, and think about how to avoid the pitfalls of authorial pretension.’

The second event also sounds like a lot of fun.

Dear Kit and Paul… ‘Need help? Why not join our literary agony Aunt and Uncle, Kit de Waal and Paul McVeigh as they offer advice and solutions to all of your writerly (and other) problems.’

You can buy your festival tickets here.

This year’s lineup includes Jordan Stephens of hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks; bestselling author and screenwriter Juno Dawson; podcaster Viv Groskop; screenwriter and author Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Suffragette, The Split); social media influencers Alex Light and Natalie Lee aka StyleMeSunday; superstar musician La Roux; multiple-award winning writer and Primadonna Kit de Waal; TV presenter and writer June Sarpong; Sunday Times bestselling-author Cathy Rentzenbrink; top crime writer Erin Kelly… and many more famous names and emerging talent from the world of books, entertainment and music. Plus walkabout Alice in Wonderland, late-night disco sessions, pop-up dance classes, nature walks, stand-up and loads of things for kids to do. And if you’re a writer (or want to be) Primadonna offers you the chance to rub shoulders with agents, authors and publishers or take our ‘MA’. And loads more still to announce!

Chairing Wendy Erskine & Bernie McGill at JHISS ’22

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Celebrating the Short Story with Wendy Erskine & Bernie McGill

in conversation with …Paul McVeigh

Wednesday 27th July at 1.30pm Market Theatre, Armagh.

Wendy Erskine’s first collection, Sweet Home, (2018) was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and won the 2020 Butler Literary Award. In her new collection, Dance Move, we meet characters who are looking to wrest control of their lives, only to find themselves defined by moments in their past. In these stories – as in real life – the funny, the tender and the devastating go hand in hand.

“Truly magnificent. These stories buzz with life and verve and humour. A collection that reminds us how glorious the short story can be.” Danielle McLaughlin

Bernie McGill

Bernie McGill has written two novels, The Butterfly Cabinet and The Watch House, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Irish/European Union Prize for Literature, a collection of short stories, Sleepwalkers, and two plays, The Weather Watchers, and The Haunting of Helena Blunden. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for numerous awards and is anthologised widely. Her latest collection of short stories is This Train is For, published by
No Alibis, June 2022.

“[Bernie] McGill writes about life, love and telegraphy with a poet’s clarity.” The Sunday Times

For the full festival programme go 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

‘The 32’ Event in Belfast June 15

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The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices

At Áras Uí Chonghaile, 15th June 7pm. ‘Our panel will disucss the challenges they faced as working-class writers and their journey to getting their voices heard in the literary world.’

Registerinfo@arasuichonghaile.com

Me, Dr Michael Pierse and working class writer Kate Burns.

Kit de Waal and me at Listowel Writers’ Week

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“A Working Class Writer is Something to Be” June 2 at 1.30pm The Listowel Arms Hotel

We read because we want to experience lives and emotions beyond our own, to learn, to see, with others’ eyes. Join us as Kit De Waal and Paul McVeigh engage in a lively discussion of the short story writing of working-class writers across the UK and Ireland. This event will be moderated by Deirdre Walsh.

Please do join us. You can check out the rest of the programme here.

Interviewing Damon Galgut current Booker Prize-winner

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The Price of Privilege: Damon Galgut

I’ll be meeting Damon Galgut to discuss his writing and his Booker Prize-winning novel The Promise at the International Literary Festival Dublin on May 24. Check it out here.

“As a literary form, the novel has a unique capacity to capture the realities of life. The things we shouldn’t forget. A good novelist understands this. A great novelist takes this knowledge and uses the form to do something unexpected. Damon Galgut was praised by the Booker Prize judges for exactly this feat in 2021 when The Promise was awarded the prestigious prize. Set on a farm on the outskirts of Pretoria, and focusing on a seemingly ordinary family in crisis, Galgut’s novel asks relentless questions of the past and the present, and of the ways in which we deny ourselves and each other when confronted with truth.

Damon Galgut is a South African author, based in Capetown. The author of nine novels, he was twice nominated for the Booker Prize before winning it in 2021 for The Promise.

‘A masterpiece…A moving, brilliantly told family epic’ – Elizabeth Day

**Please note that you also have the option to watch this event live from the comfort of your own home. Make sure you select “Book Online Event” if you wish to do so.**”

Jamie Attenberg, Cate Kennedy, Rosie Schaap and me!

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The Writing Life: Friendship, Travel & Creativity Across Continents

The Crescent is delighted to welcome two best-selling international authors to Belfast: Jami Attenberg (New Orleans-based author of seven books of fiction and most recently a memoir),  and Cate Kennedy (Australian-based author of two short story collections, a novel, three poetry collections and a memoir). Cate and Jami will be in conversation with Northern Ireland-based writers Roise Schaap and Paul McVeigh, to share their work and discuss travel, writing experience and friendship.

Jami Attenberg is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All This Could Be Yours. She has contributed essays to the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, and The Guardian, among other publications. She lives in New Orleans.

Cate Kennedy is the author of two short story collections, a novel, three poetry collections and a memoir.  Her awards include the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for Poetry for her collection The Taste of River Water (Scribe, 2011) and the NSW People’s Choice Award for her novel The World Beneath (Scribe 2009, published Australia, the U.S.A, the U.K, France and Hong Kong). Her short story collections are both on the Australian school syllabus as study texts.  She teaches widely both in Australia and the U.S., and has just completed her PhD in Creative Writing.

Rosie Schaap is the author of Drinking with Men: A Memoir and Becoming a Sommelier. From 2011 to 2017 she was a columnist for The New York Times Magazine. Her essays appear in numerous anthologies, most recently the new edition of Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York.  She teaches creative nonfiction at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the Irish Writers Centre and her next book, The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country, will be out next year. A native New Yorker, she has lived in the Glens of Antrim since 2019.

Paul McVeigh is a writer, author and performer. His novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Award and the McCrea Literary Award. He is the Editor of three anthologies, including, 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices, (Unbound), published in 2021. paulmcveighwriter.com

Date Monday 09 May 2022

Time 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM

Price£4

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A Writing Trip to Belgium

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Two Events – Leuven and Kortrijk.

The first is ‘An evening with Irish writers Sinéad Gleeson, Mike McCormack and Paul McVeigh’

Irish college Leuven, May 5th, 8pm.

The evening is a co-organised by the Leuven Centre for Irish Studies, the EFACIS Irish Itinerary programme and ‘Druk in Leuven’ (30CC). The event is free for KU Leuven students and personnel, but please register through this link.

Tickets can also be found on the Druk in Leuven website! 

The second event is for students at Korkrijk campus for students only.

Hope to see some you there.

Interviewing Armistead Maupin

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Armistead Maupin is heading back out on the road and stopping off in Belfast’s Ulster Hall on 8 June 2022. And I get to interview him. Can’t tell you how much this means to me – I feel like I grew up with his characters.

‘Following a successful UK tour in 2019, the bestselling, much-loved author and LGBT activist, Armistead Maupin is bringing his brand new show to Belfast.

Maupin has been blazing a trail through US popular culture since the 1970’s, when his iconic and ground-breaking series Tales of the Citywas first published as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

The novel series has been taking the literary world by storm ever since, and was recently adapted by Netflix into a critically acclaimed series, starring Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis and Elliot Page.

Don’t miss the chance to join America’s ultimate storyteller, as he recounts his favourite tales from the past four decades, offering his own engaging observations on society and the world we inhabit.’

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