Who will win the €20,000 prize for The Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year? I’m traveling down tomorrow to Listowel Writers’ Week to help present the prize I co-judged this year.
The shortlist for the 2025 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award is: Christine Dwyer Hickey – Our London Lives (Atlantic Books, 2024) Joseph O’Connor – The Ghosts of Rome (Harvill Secker, 2025) Colm Tóibín – Long Island (Picador and Pan Macmillan, 2024) Niall Williams – Time of the Child (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024) Donal Ryan – Heart, Be At Peace (Penguin Random House, 2024)
Delighted to be returning to West Cork Literature Festival this year. I’ll be running the course below.
This workshop will run from Wednesday 16 to Friday 18 July, from 9.30am to 2.30pm each day with two breaks built into the day.
Join award-winning novelist Paul McVeigh for a three-day novel writing workshop. Over the three days we will explore the elements needed to write a novel that hooks a reader; looking at how to create characters that capture us, the use of dialogue, how to master emotion on the page, the importance of plotting and how to make your setting more than a passive backdrop to your story.
You will also find out what every debut novelist needs to know about the industry and what do you do when you’re novel is finished. This is for writers at all levels; with talks, writing exercises and lots of Q&A time.
Max: 15 participants
Location:
Saint Finbarr’s Boys National School Seskin, Bantry, Co. Cork P75 NY51
“I think that’s why a short story can be a good place to start when setting out to write prose. You can experiment with voices, characters, points of view, and so on. If the story isn’t working, you can abandon it and move to another idea. Starting by writing short stories is not to suggest that a short story is merely a stepping stone to writing novels. The short story is a glorious form in its own right, and mastering it can take many years.”
Heart, Be At Peace: Donal Ryan in conversation with Paul McVeigh
Donal Ryan has rapidly become one of Irelands most celebrated authors. Join Donal as he talks about his new book, Heart, Be at Peace, and his career, with author Paul McVeigh.
Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, is the author of six number one-bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and four Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. In 2016 his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was voted Irish Book of the Decade. In 2021 he became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages. A law graduate and former civil servant, Donal has lectured in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick since 2014 and lives in Castletroy with his wife Anne Marie and their two children. His seventh novel, Heart, Be At Peace, will be published worldwide in August 2024.
Paul McVeigh’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 numerous anthologies, journals and newspapers, as well as, on BBC Radio 3, 4 & 5, and Sky Arts. He edited the Queer Love anthology and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices. His writing has been translated into seven languages.
His collection of short stories written for BBC Radio, I Hear You, will be published by Salt Publishing in March 2025.
April 24, 2021, 12:30pm Cúirt International Festival of Literature
ONLINE (YOUTUBE) / PAY WHAT YOU CAN
“A thoughtful, witty and heartfelt debut novel, Bryan Washington’s Memorial explores the challenges of intimacy, hard-won vulnerability and building relationships while dealing with your own shit. Fans of Sally Rooney will enjoy Memorial, a story about relationships and what binds us together. When Mike finds out his estranged father is dying, he leaves to visit him in Japan just as his mother arrives to visit, leaving her in the incapable hands of his live-in boyfriend, Benson. He and Mitsuko become unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that is at once moving and hilarious.”
“Bryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and The Paris Review. He is also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize.
Bryan is joined in conversation by Paul McVeigh.”
‘A new vision for the 21st-century novel. It made me happy.’ Ocean Vuong
West Cork Literary Festival’s writing workshops are moving online and you can take at a workshop from the safety and comfort of your home. Thanks to the support of Cork County Council they can offer these workshops at 50% of their normal tuition fee. Course details and booking info.
“The J G Farrell Fiction Award is for the best opening chapter of a novel-in-progress by a writer resident in Munster. The prize includes a place on the West Cork Literary Festival’s Novel with Paul McVeighworkshop (13 – 17 July) and accommodation in Bantry.
Applicants must submit the first chapter of their novel (max 3000 words) both via email and one printed copy (double-spaced and printed on one side of the page only) by Friday 15 May. Place your name and address on a separate sheet.
Send the print copy to J G Farrell Award, West Cork Literary Festival, 13 Glengarriff Road, Bantry, Co Cork; and email a copy to sara@westcorkmusic.ie with JG Farrell Award in the subject line. Entries will only be considered if submitted in both hard copy and by email. Only one entry per person, late entries will not be accepted and entries will not be returned.
The award will be adjudicated by Paul McVeigh. His debut novel, The GoodSon, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award and was shortlisted for many others including the Prix du Roman Cezam in France. The Good Son was also Brighton’s City Reads 2016 and was given out around the UK for World Book Night 2017. His short stories have been read on BBC Radio 3, 4 & 5, published in many journals and anthologies including The Stinging Fly, and Faber’s Being Various: New Irish Short Stories, as well as appearing on Sky Arts. His work has been translated into seven languages.
Paul has edited the Southword Journal, the Belfast Stories anthology and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Writers which includes new work from Kevin Barry, Roddy Doyle and Lisa McInerney. He has judged many literary prizes including The Edge Hill Short Story Prize and The International Dylan Thomas Prize. He has taught his writing courses around the world including in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.”
J G Farrell was born in Liverpool and died at the age of 44, when he was swept into the sea while fishing from rocks near his home in Kilcrohane, West Cork. His book Troubles won the Faber Prize in 1971, and in 2010 it won the Lost Man Booker Prize. The Siege of Krishnapur, about the Indian Mutiny of 1957, won the 1973 Booker Prize and in 2008 it was shortlisted for the Best of Booker public vote.
West Cork Literary Festival would like to thank Richard Farrell for his continued sponsorship of this award, now in its eleventh year.
Plus – come along to West Cork Literary Festival and take my novel course. You’ll also get to see amazing writers like… Roxane Gay, Cynan Jones, Eimear McBride & Paul Muldoon.
The TLC’s Guardian-recommended Literary Adventure writing retreat 2020 in September, at the beautiful Casa Ana in the Alpujarra region of Spain, has sold out 6 months in advance.
The first batch of world-famous West Cork Literary Festival writing workshops are now on sale. I’m honoured to say I’ll be teaching the novel week long workshops (July 13-17) alongside the incredible Paul Muldoon for poetry and Cynan Jones for short story.
This year the festival will also host Anne Enright, Roxane Gay and Eimear McBride among many others.
The last time I was a West Cork it was wonderful and I met so many amazing writers and did events with Eoin McNamee, Glenn Patterson and Liz Nugent.
“Over the five days you will look at how to grow your story idea into a novel that grips your reader from start to finish. You will look at that crucial opening that hooks the reader, how to keep the narrative momentum going through that difficult middle and lead to a satisfying ‘inevitable surprise’ of an ending. You will look at creating believable complex characters that stand out and stay with your reader, the many uses of dialogue and how to find your voice. You will explore world building, the importance of setting and how it can become another character in your story. If you are happy to you can share your work-in-progress and get constructive problem-solving focused feedback. The course will finish with advice on what every debut novelist needs to know, covering agents, building a readership and an online presence, making industry connections and a behind-the-scenes look at those coveted literary prizes.”
Paul McVeigh 