The wonderful Irish writer Donal Ryan will now chair ‘A Working Class Writer is Something to Be’ at Listowel Writer’s Week.
Unfortunately, Kit de Waal is unable to travel so she will be participating by Zoom.
Tickets are available here.


The wonderful Irish writer Donal Ryan will now chair ‘A Working Class Writer is Something to Be’ at Listowel Writer’s Week.
Unfortunately, Kit de Waal is unable to travel so she will be participating by Zoom.
Tickets are available here.
“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.
‘The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices’ hits the USA and is a ‘striking anthology’ according to Publishers Weekly. You can read the full review here.
Thanks to Arts Council Northern Ireland for funding this anthology.
“It’s a funny, moving, thought-provoking read, with stories so beautifully rendered you will still be thinking about them long after you finish the book.” Thanks The Independent.ie for including #The32 in their ‘Notions & Necessities’ page.
In #the32 “Working-class clichés are dismantled” says the New Statesman
You can read the full review here.
Date
Thursday 29 July 2021 Time
7:00 pm Location: Online
Zoom Admission
Free Book Now -The 32 is a celebration of working-class voices from the island of Ireland and it features 16 published writers and 16 new voices writing about their experience of being working class in Ireland. In this event editor Paul McVeigh speaks to four of the contributors Riley Johnston, Dave Lordan, Abby Oliveira and Rick O’Shea.
We read because we want to experience lives and emotions beyond our own, to learn, to see with others’ eyes.
Edited by award-winning novelist Paul McVeigh, this intimate and illuminating collection features memoir and essays from established and emerging Irish voices including Kevin Barry, Dermot Bolger, Roddy Doyle, Lisa McInerney, Lyra McKee and many more. The 32 is published by Unbound on 8 July 2021.
Too often, working-class writers find that the hurdles they come up against are higher and harder to leap over than those faced by writers from more affluent backgrounds. As in Common People – an anthology of working-class writers in the UK edited by Kit de Waal and the inspiration behind this collection – The 32 sees writers who have made that leap reach back to give a helping hand to those coming up behind. Without these working-class voices, without the vital reflection of real lives or role models for working-class readers and writers, literature will be poorer. We will all be poorer.
“The 32 voices in this anthology are truly diverse, culled from all corners of our island.”
A wonderful review of The 32 in The Irish Independent.
“The 32 is an insightful, funny and touching collection, with a range of voices and viewpoints that must be heard.”
You can read the whole interview here.
The @FestivalUCD has over 100 *free* online events across science, arts, performance, wellbeing and more.
Paul McVeigh is the editor of The 32 – an upcoming collection of essays and memoir, bringing together sixteen well-known writers from working class backgrounds with an equal number of new and emerging writers from all over the island of Ireland. He’ll be in conversation with two of the featured authors Lisa McInerney and Michael Nolan.
We’ve taken a big step on the way to publication – The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working Class Voices has a cover! We hope you like it.
Our publisher Unbound will close the supporters’ list on Sunday, 7 February, which will be the last opportunity for you get your name in the back of the book. So if you’d like to have your name as a supporter of this historic book please head over and buy your book before Feb 7.
Contributors: Claire Allan, Kevin Barry, Dermot Bolger , June Caldwell, Martin Doyle, Roddy Doyle, Rosaleen McDonagh, Lyra McKee, Lisa McInerney, Dave Lordan, Danielle McLaughlin, Eoin McNamee, Michael Nolan, Senator Lynn Ruane, Rick O’Shea and Dr Michael Pierse.
Tonight at 10pm the Big Scottish Book Club hosted by Damian Barr includes Jessica Fellowes, Graeme Armstrong and me reading from our books and discuss class and Courtney Stoddart closes with a rousing poem – on BBC Scotland at the link below.
I talk about ‘The 32’ & ‘Common People’ from Unbound and ‘The Good Son’ from Salt Publishing.
I hopeyou enjoy you can catch it – of not lve then on BBC Iplayer.