This winter-long series will involve some of Ireland’s most exciting writers taking the stage at The Attic for candlelit readings. Each writer will read, be interviewed by E.M. Reapy on their writing life and take questions from the audience.

Tickets for my event on 13 November are available here.

Sheila Armstrong & Noel O’Regan — in conversation with Mairéad Hearne.

Sheila Armstrong is a writer and editor from the north-west of Ireland. How to Gut a Fish, her first collection of short stories, was shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Falling Animals, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2024 and chosen for BBC2’s Between the Covers TV book club. Her stories have appeared in The London Magazine and The Stinging Fly and been shortlisted for the Society of Authors Awards and Irish Book Awards. She is an Arts Council Next Generation Artist.

Noel O’Regan is from Co. Kerry and is the recipient of a number of awards, including an Arts Council Next Generation Artist Award. His short fiction has appeared in publications such as The Stinging Fly, Granta, Banshee and The London Magazine. His debut novel, Though the Bodies Fall (Granta) was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year at the 2023 An Post Irish Book Awards, the John McGahern Book Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.

A reading by the debut novelists Brendan Casey and Noel O'Regan, both of whose books have made a distinctive mark on Irish writing in the past year.

Brendan Casey’s poetic and ecologically pulsing first novel, She That Lay Silent-Like Upon Our Shore, is the unforgettable story of a boy on a remote island who lives out a profound sense of loyalty to the natural world by defending a beached whale against the bitter suspicions of a religious community.

Noel O'Regan’s first novel Though the Bodies Fall has been shortlisted for the 2024 James Tait Black Fiction Prize. In a mature and vivid style, and with a deeply authentic sense of place and landscape, Though the Bodies fall is a gripping meditation on mental illness and the personal and community commitments that make survival and recovery possible.

Book here.

Irish literature has always been in dialogue with the ocean. Contemporary writers continue to wrestle with what it means to be an island nation inspired by and at the mercy of the sea. In this lively conversation two brilliant Irish novelists discuss their recent coastal novels. Sheila Armstrong’s critically acclaimed Falling Animals explores the mysterious appearance of a body on an isolated beach and how it impacts a small seaside community. Told through a chorus of voices, Falling Animals follows the crosshatching threads of lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present. Kerry-born writer Noel O’Regan’s debut novel, Though the Bodies Fall, introduces us to Micheál Burns, a young man who lives alone in his family’s bungalow at the end of Kerry Head. It is a picturesque spot, but the cliffs have a much darker side. Both novels are beautifully crafted and gripping meditations on community, loss and the natural world.

Part of our Ireland in Focus series, curated by Jan Carson, which brings some of Ireland’s most exciting contemporary voices to Paisley.

The Singularity, Balsam Karam’s second novel, and Though the Bodies Fall, Noel O’Regan’s debut, both grapple with the idea of loss and the internal struggles of their characters as they come to terms with what they have witnessed. Though the Bodies Fall follows one man’s journey through depression, trauma and absence. The Singularity is an astounding study of grief, migration and motherhood.

Join Balsam and Noel in conversation with Martin Doyle.