Reading for Word Factory at Waterstones Piccadilly this week was a whole lot of fun. It was great to read alongside friends and colleagues. I can remember only a couple of years ago being so terrified I stopped reading and froze after just a few lines. Now I look like a pro.
The ceiling was bouncing from the music and dancing above and below there were readings from authors such as Booker Prize-winner Marlon James. Lots to distract and get nervous about.
I say look like a pro because I never feel like one. I think it’s all a confidence trick. Just pretend you’re a pro and see what happens. Readings can be funny things – a mixture of ‘can’t wait for my turn’ and ‘please let me disappear’. My legs were shaking so badly I had to keep shifting from my front leg to my back leg so they didn’t give way completely. I couldn’t stand still or both legs. On the other hand – or rather, the top half – I was giving it my all. If I’m totally honest I was showing off. I got lots of great feedback from people who had seen me read before and no-one noticed. Not one. That’ll do for me. And I really enjoyed it.
One great piece of advice you’re given is that when reading you should make an effort to look up from the page. It drives the energy out, the audience see more of your ‘performance’ and with some eye contact they become more engaged. And I just found out – by looking up you could catch some images like this… people really having a good laugh. Strong and genuine reactions to your work.
Thanks to James Lawson for the pics. A video of the reading is coming soon… yikes!
Another wonderful review of The Good Son, this time from Susie Wild in Bare Fiction Magazine. Read the whole thing by clicking the link.
‘A vivid, playful, fence-hurdling, page-turning act of cocky bravado and endearing imagination. Mickey is a shining star of a protagonist; charming, erudite, and warmly, infectiously funny.
…a startling debut, McVeigh proves he more than warrants the literary company he keeps. The writing is sharp and the voice, a difficult one to sustain over a novel’s length, rarely falters. With pages so full of heart and helter-skelter movement, it is no surprise to learn that he also has a background in theatre. The pages of his first novel are alive with sparky dialogue and this visual language, the brash and the subtle, the compelling, the compassionate.
An engaging storyteller, I hope to see more from Paul McVeigh…’
You can hear me read from The Good Son Thursday Dec 3 at Waterstones Piccadilly at 6.30. For tickets to the Word Factory salon at the Waterstones Xmas evening email piccadilly@waterstones.com .
You can listen back to the wonderful review of The Good Son on BBC Radio Ulster by Mike Philpott on the Kerry McLean Show at 42.15 mins in.
“Heart-rending… It has everything… the casual brutality of the Troubles seems worse because it’s seen through this child’s eyes. It’s so real, one the best protagonists I’ve read in a long, long time… The last time a character had stayed with me like that was Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
One of McVeigh’s talents is he takes you from sadness to humour to horror to a whole range of other emotions quite often even in the space of one page which is not an easy thing to do.”
Listeners:
“A bitter-sweet experience… One I’d reccomend to all.”
“Amazing, disturbing, sad and funny.”
“It’s the story of every child. I really enjoyed it but it did make me cry.”
“A cracking read. One I’d definitely recommend.”
Amazing! Thanks everyone.
Really excited that The Good Son has been chosen as one of Gransnet’s Christmas Books for 2015. It’s a honour to be listed alongside so many excellent authors like Sebastian Faulks and Patrick Gale, who said of The Good Son – “Pungently funny, shot through with streaks of aching sadness”.
Have a look through their picks here.
‘Heart gripping!’
The Good Son has been chosen for this month’s Book Club on the Kerry McLean Show on Radio Ulster. Skip to 52 minutes in to hear Esther Haller-Clarke review the book and it will be reviewed again later this month.
A profile about me in The Belfast Telegraph. From my home town, it’s also Northern Ireland’s best-selling newspaper and I’m profiled here by local legend Ivan Little. A few errors in there – I went to the University of Ulster at Coleraine for example… I can’t blame Ivan as we talked for hours and I was caffeine fuelled.
I hope you like it.
Do you like going to live events? Watching and listening to authors read their work? I’m staying in my home town of Brighton tonight for Polari, hosted by the rather fab Paul Burston. I’ll be reading alongside VG Lee, Fergus Evans, Juliet Jacques and Damian Barr. Come along to The Marlborough Theatre at 7.30pm. You can get your tickets here.
My most unusual reading at the Wroclaw International Short Story Festival this month.
Tomorrow I’m off to Bath to teach my ‘Killer First Page’ class (sold out I’m afraid but tickets available for London). In the evening I’m reading with Tania Hershman and Sarah Hilary at St James Wine Vaults at 7.30pm.
Back in Brighton again on Wed 21st as part of the City Reads celebration of Matt Haig’s ‘The Humans’. A wealth of writing talent will respond to this work in their own way. Check out the list below.
On my birthday, October 27th, I’ll be reading in Hastings at my second Polari event of the month alongside Adam Mars-Jones, Chris Green, Diane Perry and Erica Smith. The event starts at 7.30pm at The Print works, 14 Claremont, America Ground.
Hope to see some of you there. Say hello.
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| This Year’s Prize |
Hello lovely people. Judgement is upon me. It appears it is time when you can vote for your choice to win The Guardian‘s Not Booker Prize from the shortlist. Would be appreciated muchly if you had the time to vote for The Good Son.
Click this link and…
“Voting is simple. All you have to do is nominate your favourite book in the comments below this article. Please make it easy for us by writing the word “vote” and then specifying the name of the book you’re going for and the author at the start of your comment. We just want one vote from you, for one book. We’d also like to see 50 words or so explaining your choice. As ever, please don’t worry if you’ve changed your mind during the course of the competition.”
You could use the same review you gave last time, if you voted – its probably still on their site.
Many thanks… and wish me luck.
