CloudNine

        What is it about the Irish? A few weeks ago, on a balmy midsummer’s evening, I was a guest speaker at a talk for the inaugural London Short Story Festival, held at Waterstone’s Piccadilly. This three-day literary event was an expertly-run boutique festival packed with workshops, readings and talks, all dedicated to various aspects of the art (and craft) of the short story. The talk had the somewhat provocative moniker What is it about the Irish? and aimed to explore, and explain, the copiousness of the Irish short story. Sharing the panel with me were writers Claire Keegan, Colin Barrett and Mary Costello, none of whom I had met before, with proceedings chaired by the event’s director, Paul McVeigh, who is himself a writer of short stories and novels. Prior to the talk, I had given this assertion-framed-as-a-question a lot of thought. I re-read Anne Enright’s feature on the same subject, which, as editor of the Granta ...

Hard to believe that we are almost halfway through the year already. It still feels like spring, artistically speaking. Having said that, I have been very busy. My book of stories, The Scattering, was shortlisted for the 2014 Edge Hill Prize - results in July - and I have to say it is an enormous kick to me to be on the same shortlist as John Burnside, a writer I've long admired, ever since I read his short story, The Lime Kiln, in an edition of Granta. His poetry is also some of my favourite written work ever - so I am pretty thrilled to be on the shortlist for this award: http://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/pid/event/edge_hill_short_story_prize_2014 I also had the good fortune to have been asked to be the flagship writer for the first READ/WRITE/PERFORM festival at Clapham's beautiful Omnibus Arts Centre. I really enjoyed working there. I loved the warm reception to my reading event 'Afternoon Tea with Jaki McCarrick' and the reading of my new play THE NATURALISTS was ...