On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Sophie Mackintosh to read and discuss David Hayden’s short story, ‘Leckerdam of the Golden Hand’, originally published in our Summer 2016 issue.

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of three novels: The Water Cure, Blue Ticket and Cursed Bread. Her debut novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and won a Betty Trask Award 2019, and Cursed Bread was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2023. Sophie’s short story ‘Revivalists’ was published in our Summer 2018 issue.

David Hayden was born in Ireland and lives in England. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines including The Stinging Fly, Granta online, Zoetrope All-Story, The Dublin Review, AGNI, The Georgia Review and A Public Space. His first book of stories, Darker With the Lights On, was published by Transit Books and Carcanet Press.

Nicole Flattery is a writer and critic. Her story collection Show Them A Good Time, was published by The Stinging Fly and Bloomsbury in 2019. Her first novel, Nothing Special, was recently published by Bloomsbury.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites writers to choose a story from the Stinging Fly archive to read and discuss. Previous episodes of the podcast can be found here. The podcast’s theme music is ‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan. All of the Stinging Fly archive is available to subscribers.