Me, Gavin Corbett, Lisa McInerney & Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

Brooks Literary Salon with Paul McVeigh

I’ll be talking to literary guests including Bailey’s and Encore Prize-winner Lisa McInerney, Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year winner Gavin Corbett and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne who received the Irish Pen Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature and a Hennessy Hall of Fame Award for Lifetime Achievement. Join us at the beautiful, boutique, Brooks Hotel situated in the fashionable heart of Dublin city for a one-off special evening of readings and discussion. Brooks are offering a special pre-salon deal – two tapas plus a glass of house wine at €18.50 per person.

Featuring Lisa McInerney who’s work has featured in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, Granta, The Guardian, BBC Radio 4 and various anthologies. Her story ‘Navigation’ was longlisted for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. Her debut novel The Glorious Heresies won the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2016 Desmond Elliott Prize. Her second novel, The Blood Miracles, won the 2018 RSL Encore Award.

Gavin Corbett is from Dublin. He is the author of three novels: Innocence, This Is the Way, and Green Glowing Skull. He is a winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and teaches across the creative writing programmes at UCD.

N Dhuibhne is an Irish novelist, short story writer and playwright in both Irish and English. Eilis has won many awards for her work, including the Stewart Parker Award for Drama, Bisto ‘Book of the Year’ Award, several Oireachtas awards for play and novels, and a shortlisting for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her most recent books are Selected Stories (Dalkey Archive Press 2017), and a memoir, Twelve Thousand Days (Blackstaff Press, 2018). She received the Irish Pen Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature in 2015, and a Hennessy Hall of Fame Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016.

Hosted by Paul McVeigh who’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. His short stories have been in The Stinging Fly and The London Magazine, read on BBC Radio, and performed on Sky Arts TV. ‘Hollow’ was shortlisted for Irish Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2017. He is the co-founder of the London Short Story Festival and his writing has been translated into seven languages.

Brooks Hotel, 62 Drury St, Dublin 2. October 12th 7-9pm.

Tickets here.

Paul will be teaching his ‘That Killer First Page’ class at the same venue the next day, Saturday 13th.

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Interviewing Sarah Perry

An Evening with Sarah Perry

Thursday 22nd November 19:00 – 21:00

at Crescent Arts Centre Cube, 2-4 University Road, Belfast , BT7 1NH

I’ll be interviewing the wonderful Sarah Perry in Belfast in November. I read with Sarah a few years back at a festival in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. Here’s what Waterstones said…

“We are thrilled to welcome Sarah Perry, the author of 2016’s Waterstones Book of the YearThe Essex Serpent, to Belfast in conversation with Paul McVeigh to discuss her new novel Melmoth.

Sarah Perry is the UK’s most extraordinary writer of Gothic literature. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone’s Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. Her latest novel, The Essex Serpent, was a number one bestseller in hardback, Waterstones Book of the Year 2016, the British Book Awards Book of the Year 2017, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and Dylan Thomas Award, and longlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017.

Melmoth is a profound, ambitiously realised work of fiction which asks fundamental questions about guilt, forgiveness, moral reckoning and how we come to terms with our actions in a conflicted world. A compulsive, terrifying and thoroughly modern Gothic novel, and a response to the Irish Gothic classic Melmoth the Wanderer.

Further details: 020892040159″

 

 

Red Line Book Fest, Oct 10, Dublin

Delighted to be reading alongside these great authors in one of my favourite cities. Here’s the blurb…

This Voice: Writing & The Working Class

A working class hero is something to be…Although working class characters are well represented in the Irish literary canon, more often than not, the writers behind the stories derive from more privileged backgrounds.Hosted by poet and writer Colm Keegan (Randomer), a panel of top authors explore the challenges faced by working class writers and the valuable perspectives they have to offer. Joining Keegan are Polari prize-winner Paul McVeigh (The Good Son), acclaimed author Frankie Gaffney (Dublin Seven) and bestselling writer June Caldwell (Room Little Darker).
  • VENUE: Rua Red
  • TIME: Wed 10 Oct, 7.00pm
  • PRICE: €8/€5

 

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Interviewing Kit de Waal in Belfast

Kit De Waal: The Trick To Time

Date Thursday 13 September 2018
Time 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Price£8 | £6

with Paul McVeigh

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.

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Kit and me read together at a festival in  Morges

 

14 Sept, Interviewing Chris Power

Chris Power in conversation with Paul McVeigh

10pm, Firkin Crane Theatre (€5)

Chris Power lives and works in London. His ‘Brief Survey of the Short Story’ has appeared in the Guardian since 2007. His fiction has been published in The Stinging FlyThe Dublin Review and The White ReviewMothers is his first book.

The Good Son, Paul McVeigh’s debut novel, won The Polari Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. It was shortlisted for The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the Prix du Roman Cezam in France and a finalist for The People’s Book Prize. The Good Sonwas chosen as Brighton’s City Reads 2016 and was given out as part of World Book Night 2017. Paul has written comedy, essays, flash fiction, a novel, plays and short stories, and his work has been performed on stage and radio, and published in seven languages.

Attending ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival

I’m delighted to have been invited to speak at the 12th edition of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival to be held from 24th to 28th January 2019.

Hosted at the heritage Diggi Palace, located in the heart of the Pink City of Jaipur, the Festival is among the world’s leading literary events attracting authors, publishers and book lovers from across the world. In 2018, it hosted over 350 speakers in 200 panels and represented over 25 languages, receiving over 4,00,000 footfalls in a span of 5 days.

The ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival provides a potentially life-changing opportunity for audiences from Rajasthan, across India and the world to learn from and exchange ideas with contemporary literary stalwarts.

I’m particularly delighted to be working with Festival Director Namita Gokhale again, after we co-judged the International Dylan Thomas Prize this year.

This trip is made possible by the support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

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What makes a prize-winning short story?

I’m currently reading for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Last year, as judge of THE SEÁN Ó FAOLÁIN INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY PRIZE, I read over 800 short stories. Here’s the winning story read by the author Louise Nealon. Listen to it and see if you can figure out why I chose it.

And if you fancy submitting this year you have until July 31 (I’m judging again).

You can also join my Online Advanced Short Story Clinic here.

 

PaulMcVeigh short story

Winner of The Polari Prize & The McCrea Literary Award
Co-Founder London Short Story Festival
Associate Director at Word Factory
Judge: Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2018

Event on Poverty for Royal Society of Literature

Can Literature Solve Poverty?

Hosted by LSE “Beveridge 2.0” and the Royal Society of Literature

Poverty RSL

“In the run up to the LSE Festival: Beveridge 2.0, rethinking the welfare state for the 21st Century, we bring together a panel to discuss the relationship between literature and poverty. They reflect on questions such as: do you need money to access literature? If not, why are there comparatively few working-class writers? And can literature actively play a part in reducing financial hardship?”

I’ll be sharing the stage with Kit de Waal again – we had a wonderful time at Le Livres sur les Quais in Morges, Switzerland, last year. Kit mentioned The Good Son in her article for the Guardian on working class literature this weekend. Kit also commissioned me for the Common People anthology currently 75% funded on Unbounders. I can’t wait.

The Good Son 3rd Editon

Buy Here

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

Writers in Conversation, Southampton

Writers in Conversation

Free Event!

I’ll be the Writer in Conversation filling the very large shoes of writers like Helen MacDonald and Jennifer Egan. It takes place in Southampton on Feb 19th. Know anyone in those parts? Please share.

You can check out the Facebook events page here.

Date & Time: Monday, February 19 at 7 PM – 9 PM

Venue: John Hansard Gallery, Gallery, Studio 144, 142-144 Above Bar Street, SO14

The Good Son 3rd Editon

Buy Here

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

Interviewing Anne Enright in London

Last year I had the honour of sharing the stage with Anne Enright at Le Livre Sur les Quais in Switzerland last year. This St Patrick’s Eve I’ll be interviewing her live on stage in London for Word Factory. More info below…

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WORD FACTORY PRESENTS:

SPECIAL EVENT – An Evening with Anne Enright

On the eve of St Patrick’s Day, meet one of the most celebrated literary figures of our age. Man Booker prize winner Anne Enright is the Laureate for Irish Fiction, an acclaimed novelist, short story writer and essayist. Her books include The Wig My Father Wore, The Gathering and The Portable Virgin. In this one-off London event, reading new work commissioned by Word Factory for the Change Maker series, Anne will explore the boundaries of short fiction in new work and her writing life, in conversation with Word Factory associate director Paul McVeigh. Paul, who lives in Belfast, is author of the acclaimed The Good Son, set in the Northern Ireland of the 1970’s.

DON’T MISS THIS MEMORABLE EVENING.

Salon limited to 80 places.

Date and Time

Fri 16 March 2018

19:00 – 20:30 GMT

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Location

Waterstones

203-206 Piccadilly

London

W1J 9HD

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