This weekend, Sunday Miscellany on RTE Radio 1, dips into their 2023 and 2024 archive from the Belfast Book Festival. Among the five chosen is my story ‘Queen of the South’.
The programme…
Café by Wendy Erskine
Where Are You From? by John Toal
Swift Boxes by Neil Hegarty
Postscript and The Map, two poems by Marie Howe
Queen of the South by Paul McVeigh
with music from Eimear McGeown, Donogh Hennessy, Jack Warnock, and Trú
You can also get my radio short story collection, I Hear You, out now.
“A rare date for Julie and her husband Frankie turns sour when a toddler in the restaurant is let roam free, uncontrolled. Their own children are being minded by auntie Terry. On the way into Belfast city centre earlier, Julie and Frankie had passed near The Bray, where when she was a child her father had been shot dead for no reason at all.”
You can listen to my latest short story ‘The Bray’ read by this year’s Bafta-nominee, Roisin Gallagher.
The story was commissioned by Cliodhna Ni Anluain as part of the ‘Spoken Word’ series for RTE Radio 1 which includes Anne Enright, Lisa McInerney and Donal Ryan.
I have 5 min memoir piece recorded for RTÉ One’s Sunday Miscellany a couple of weeks ago. You can listen to it here.
“I am in Dumfries.
‘It’s a smallish town,’ Martin says, as we walk to the pub, ‘its bid to be seen as a city, failed.’
‘Oh dear,’ I say.
I don’t tell him that I’d read the nickname of the city is the Queen of the South. I’ll save it for later as there’s an easy laugh to be had, and as it’s my first visit to his, we may have some awkward moments that need lightening….”
I hope you like it!
Date Sunday 09 June 2024
Time 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Price: Pay What You Decide – Recommended Price £12.50
Join us for a special Belfast edition of the iconic RTÉ Radio 1 programme, Sunday Miscellany.
Recorded live in The Cube at The Crescent, join us for a magical mix of spoken word and live music.
Sunday Miscellany has been a weekend institution of Irish Radio since 1968 and we are delighted to welcome the programme back to Belfast Book Festival.
This special edition will include new writing and readings of work from Lucy Caldwell, Jan Carson, John Toal, Paul McVeigh, Marie Howe, Maria McManus, Glenn Patterson and Emily Byers Ferrian, and music from Scott Flanigan and Trú vocal ensemble.
RTÉ Sunday Miscellany is produced by Sarah Binchy.
Lovely responses my essay ‘Sixteen’ on RTÉ Radio 1 last night – a rare occasion where I read something myself. Covering education, the Troubles, escaping into the arts, the arts and class, sexuality and returning home.
The essay is from the anthology ‘Impermanence’ commissioned by Centre Culturel Irlandais, and edited by Nora Hickey M’Sichili & Neil Hegarty published by No Alibis Press. Recordings beautifully produced by Cliodhna Ni Anluain.
There’s a a great chat beforehand and the essay lasts about 20 mins. Click : https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/11512834/
Paul McVeigh, Emma Donoghue and Neil Hegarty have come together as editor and contributors to a new book, Queer Love: An Anthology of Irish Fiction, published byThe Munster Literature Centre.
As well as talking about their own stories, RTÉ Arena asks the trio to choose a work by another that was pivotal in their lives as young gay people – listen above.
You can listen here.
We’ll be talking the anthology I edited called ‘Queer Love’. Please tune in if you fancy – you can use this link.
‘demonstrates why queer writers excel at writing’ The Irish Times
Last night the first part of John Kelly’s new radio series, The Reading List, was aired. Eimear McBride, Bailey’s Prize-winning author of ‘A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing’, and myself, discuss the Anaïs Nin classic ‘A Spy in the House of Love’.
You can listen here – The Reading List with John Kelly
Here’s what they say on the RTE website:
‘A Spy in the House of Love’ by Anaïs Nin.
“Writers Eimear McBride and Paul McVeigh discuss Nin’s 1954 novella, the story of Sabina and her pursuit of pleasure through her relationships with four very different men.”
Paul McVeigh 