short story

Cork International Short Story Festival. Sept 22-26.

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I am very excited to be attending the Cork International Short Story Festival for the second year (you can download the programme here). It will be my third visit to Cork, having read at last year’s short story festival and  the Cork World Book Festival this April for the Irish launch of The Good Son. I love this city and have made some great friends there. I love The Penny Dreadful lit mag that comes out of Cork too.

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At this year’s festival I won’t be reading, instead I have the honour of chairing an event with this year’s Edge Hill Prize-winner Kirsty Gunn and one of my favourite short story writers Claire Keegan, on Saturday 26th.

If you love short stories I urge you to go to Cork this year. The festival is chock full of the finest short story writers from around the world. Festival Director Patrick Cotter always puts on a great programme and this year is no exception. You get to hear authors read and hang out with them too if you’re lucky. You can also takes classes. This year there are courses delivered by new Irish sensation Danielle McLaughlin who has just had her second short story published in The New Yorker.

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There’s also a course with Claire Keegan. I brought Claire to the London Short Story Festival last year and watching the writers leave her masterclass was quite a sight. They were stunned. I asked a few for feedback and they said they’d never experienced anything like it. One said she got more from that afternoon than the whole of her 2 year MA course! Don’t miss this opportunity.

Among the many other writers there you have Toby Litt, Frank O’Connor Award-winner Carys Davies and Helen Link from the USA. I hope to see some of you there.

 

Why not enter this short story contest? I’m judging!

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I’m judging this short story competition alongside Laura Del-Rivo. You have until 31 August – here’s the details. Or click here.

For this new competition we’re taking inspiration from Arthur Rimbaud’s famous declaration ‘Je est un autre’ – ‘I is another’.

The task

We would like you to write a story in the first person about someone who is not you but which is about a subject close to year heart. Therefore the storyline will really matter to you but the story should not be autobiographical.

It should have a strong theme such as betrayal, sorrow, lust, jealousy or revenge and be under 2000 words.

Take your inspiration from:

Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Notes on Time by Laura Del-Rivo
Development by Karen Jennings

What is the prize?

The author of the winning short story will receive £200.

The winning short story and runners-up will be published in our online magazine.

The winner and runners-up will be announced at an awards ceremony in central London.

The Judges

Paul McVeigh and Laura Del-Rivo

Who can take part?

We accept stories from anywhere in the world but submissions have to comply with these guidelines:
The short story has to be written in English
Translations are not accepted
The short story should be 2000 words or less
The short story must be the original work of the entrant and must not have been previously awarded or published
You can only send in one short story per entrant
We only accept electronic (email) submissions
When is the closing date?

You can send in your entries from 1 February and the competition closes on 31 August 2015.

How to submit your entry

In order to enter the competition you have to email us: submissions@hollandparkpress.co.uk We regret that we cannot process entries that do not follow the guidelines set out below, so please read these instructions carefully.
The short story must be attached as a single Microsoft Word file
The Word file has to be named as follows: ddmmyy_firstnamesurname_another.doc, where ddmmyy is the date on which you send the email, firstname and surname are your names.
‘I is Another’ must appear in the subject line of the email
The body of the email should contain your contact details
Please do not add your name or contact details to the Word file attachment that contains your story
Good luck! We look forward to receiving your story.

 

Teaching ‘That Killer First Page’ in Bath, Oct 17.

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I’ll be running my ‘That Killer First Page’ class for Bath Short Story Award October 17. Here’s the details. Hope to see some of you there.

…We are delighted to host this three-hour workshop with Paul McVeigh, co-founder of the London Short Story Festival, Associate Director at Word Factory, the UK’s leading short story salon and a reader and judge for national and international short story competitions.

Saturday October 17th, 1.45 pm – 4.45 pm Bath Central Library, Bath. Cost £40. Book here, places limited.

Find out what competition judges and journal editors look for in a short story and how to avoid the rejection pile. You’ll get tips on staying focused, where to start the action, how to write with emotional impact, and how to edit your story Then you’ll have a go at writing the opening of your story and get brief feedback from Paul. You’ll also look at submission opportunities; how to find them and where you should be sending your stories.

Paul McVeigh’s short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies and been commissioned by BBC Radio 4. He has read his work on BBC Radio 5 at the International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna, the Belfast Book Festival and the Cork International Short Story Festival where he is appearing again in September this year. He is also appearing at the Wroclaw Short Story Festival Poland in October.

The Good SonPaul’s novel The Good Son was published to acclaim in April by Salt publishing and has recently been short listed for the Guardian Not the Booker Prize.

This year he is judging the Penny Dreadful Novella Prize alongside Sarah Baume and Colin Barrett, The I is Another Short Story Competition alongside Laura Del Rivo and is the sole judge of the Bare Fiction Short Story Prize.

Last year this Killer First Page workshop was a sell out in Melbourne Australia, and Waterstones Piccadilly. Spaces limited to 20.

Comments from previous workshop participants

“Fantastic! Practical, targeted advice like this is wonderful!”
“This was my fave course yet! Informative, entertaining, and engaging. Hard to beat.”

“I emerged from the sleepy hamlet of my writing infancy last Saturday and was sky-rocketed, hurricaned, tsunamied, autobahned and g-forced out of my head by Paul McVeigh’s “That Killer First Page” Masterclass at Waterstones, Piccadilly. He’s on top of his game, gives instinctive, constructive criticism and in a few short hours, had conveyed the essence of how to make a story compelling and unputdownable from the first few lines. Get on one of his courses if you can.”

 

Bare Fiction Short Story Prize

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I’m judging this year’s Bare Fiction Short Story Prize which has opened for entires. If you’re based in Northern Ireland I’ll be running a class at the Crescent Arts Centre on August 5 called ‘That Killer First Page’ all about how you can make your work stand out to judges and editors. Get writing. Get submitting.

Bare Fiction Prize 2015 – Deadline October 31st

International awards for Poetry, Flash Fiction, and Short Story.

Our inaugural prize of 2014 was a great success with an extremely high standard of entries. You can see the results of last year’s competition by clicking here and you can read the winners in our March 2015 edition of the magazine.

2015 Short Story Judge

Paul McVeigh’s short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies and been commissioned by BBC Radio 4. His novel The Good Son was published by Salt Publishing in April 2015. He is the co-founder of London Short Story Festival and Associate Director at Word Factory.

  • Paul-McVeigh-bare-fiction-prize-judge-2015

    BARE FICTION PRIZE 2015 – SHORT STORY ENTRY

    £8.00

Prizes (in each category)

  • 1st Prize: £500 
  • 2nd Prize: £200 
  • 3rd Prize: £100 
  • 2 x Highly Commended Award: £25

1st, 2nd & 3rd prize winners will be published in the Spring 2016 issue of Bare Fiction Magazine and on our website, with the prizes to be awarded at the Spring launch reading in London in March 2016 (date to be confirmed).

Cost per entry

Poetry (max 40 lines):
Flash Fiction (max 500 words):
Short Story (max 3000 words):

£5 / £3 for subscribers
£6 / £4 for subscribers
£8 / £6 for subscribers

You can subscribe during the submission process if you wish.

Payment can be made by Credit/Debit Card, PayPal or by Cheque (GBP Sterling).

Enter online or by post

Bare Fiction Prize 2015: Flyer + Entry Form
Download Now!

Cate Kennedy Interview

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Cate Kennedy and me at the International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna.

I interviewed the wonderful Australian author Cate Kennedy in Australia. Here’s Just one of the amazing things she had to say about writing…   “My problem with having any kind of creative life was that I was a hoarder. I was a hoarder with my own assets. A miserly little person who had this wallet of ideas and I would count them every morning and dole out one for this thing or that. I was a miser. And that is nothing but grief, down that path. The amazing thing that happens when you spend it all, when you put everything you’ve got into that next story, everything you’re hanging on to, make it the best thing you can do, don’t worry that you’ve got nothing else to save, because tomorrow, when you wake up, like a well, it’s rising from beneath. Better ideas. Better currencies. Better things than you’ve been hoarding in that little purse of yours. Don’t be a miser. Be profligate. Spend it all. That was a gigantic turning point for me. That made me realise I really wanted to do this. and I wanted to do it even if it meant self-publishing and getting a blanket on the ground and giving it away.”   Read the full interview here…