For our Winter 2021-22 issue, Editor-at-large Thomas Morris invited Marie-Helene Bertino, Rebecca Ivory, Jon McGregor, and Stephen Sexton to each write a short story in a single night: starting at dusk and submitting by dawn.

In this second episode of a two-part series, we are joined by Jon McGregor, who reads and discusses his story ‘Dwell’, which he wrote from start to finish in a single night.

You can listen to the first episode – featuring Marie-Helene Bertino, Rebecca Ivory, and Stephen Sexton – here.

Jon McGregor is the author of five novels and a two story collections; his most recent novel is Lean Fall Stand (4th Estate). He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham, where he edits The Letters Page, a literary journal in letters. He lives in Nottingham.

You can read all the astonishing One Night Stands in our Winter 2021-22 issue.

And you can read Thomas Morris’s introduction to the stories here.

For our Winter 2021-22 issue, Editor-at-large Thomas Morris invited four authors to each write a short story in a single night: starting at dusk and submitting by dawn.

On this month’s episode of the podcast, he is joined by three of those authors – Marie-Helene Bertino, Rebecca Ivory, and Stephen Sexton – who read from their ‘One Night Stands’ and discuss what happens when you stay up all night to write a story.

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novels Parakeet and 2 a.m. at The Cat’s Pajamas, and the story collection Safe as Houses. Her alien opus novel Beautyland is forthcoming from FSG in 2022. She lives in New York.

Rebecca Ivory lives in Dublin and writes short fiction. Her stories have appeared in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Tangerine and Fallow Media.

Stephen Sexton is the author of two books of poetry: If All the World and Love Were Young; and most recently Cheryl’s Destinies. He teaches at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Jon McGregor is the fourth author who wrote us a story in a single night. Jon was unfortunately unwell on the evening we recorded the podcast, so couldn’t participate. But happily, he’s on the mend now!

You can read Jon’s story, and all the astonishing One Night Stands, in our Winter 2021-22 issue.

And you can read Thomas Morris’s introduction to the stories here.

On this month's episode of the podcast, editor Danny Denton is joined by translator Frank Wynne, to read and discuss a short story, "Britney Spears' Sandwich", by Togolese writer Kangni Alem, which first appeared in English in our most recent issue, Summer 2021.

Kangni Alem is an award-winning Togolese writer, critic and playwright. He founded the Atelier Théâtre de Lomé in 1989. He has published five novels and three collections of short stories, the most recent of which is Britney Spears’ Sandwich (Lomé, 2019). This is the first time his work has been translated into English.

Frank Wynne is an Irish literary translator from French and Spanish whose authors have included Michel Houellebecq, Javier Cercas and Virginie Despentes. He jointly won the DUBLIN Literary Award, and has twice won both the Scott Moncrieff Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán. He edited the anthologies Found in Translation (2018) and QUEER: LGBT writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday (2021). During 2021, Frank is collaborating with The Stinging Fly as our first translator-in-residence.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish 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 for everyone to read during the coronavirus crisis.

On this month's episode of the podcast, editor Danny Denton is joined by writer John Patrick McHugh, to read and discuss Sean O'Reilly's story 'All Day And All of the Night', which first appeared in our Winter 2011 issue.

John Patrick McHugh is from Galway. His fiction has appeared in Winter Papers, The Tangerine, Banshee, Granta and The Stinging Fly. Pure Gold, his debut collection of short stories, was published by New Island in February of this year, and by Fourth Estate in June. He is currently guest editing an issue of Banshee.

Sean O'Reilly was born in Derry in 1969. He has published two collections of short stories, Curfew and Other Stories (2000) and Levitation (2017), and three novels: Love and Sleep (2002), The Swing of Things (2004) and Watermark (2005).

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish 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 for everyone to read during the coronavirus crisis.

On this month's episode of the podcast, editor Danny Denton is joined by novelist Niamh Campbell, to read and discuss Kevin Power's darkly surreal story 'The Dead Hotel', which first appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of the magazine.

Niamh Campbell's debut novel This Happy was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2020, and nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, and the John McGahern Book Prize. In 2020 she also won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for her story 'Love Many'. Her short work can be found in The Dublin Review, 3:AM, Banshee, Tangerine, Five Dials, Granta, and gorse. She has been funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and is 2021 Writer in Residence at University College Dublin. Her second novel We Were Young is forthcoming with Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2022. She lives and works in Dublin.

Kevin Power's first novel, Bad Day in Blackrock, was published by Lilliput Press in 2008 and filmed as What Richard Did, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, in 2012. His second novel, White City, was published earlier this year by Scribner. He won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2009 and the Hennessy XO Award for Emerging Fiction, also in 2009. Kevin is currently Assistant Professor of Literary Practice in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin, and he holds a PhD in American Literature from University College Dublin. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Irish Times, The Dublin Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish 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 for everyone to read during the coronavirus crisis.

On this month's episode of The Stinging Fly Podcast, Declan Meade is joined by Nuala O'Connor, to read 'Sing, Dance, Earn Your Keep', an essay by Nicole Flattery first published in the Winter 2015 issue of the magazine.

Nuala O'Connor is a writer of novels, short fiction, poetry, and essays. She also publishes under the name Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Nuala's fifth novel NORA, about Nora Barnacle, wife and muse to James Joyce, was published earlier this year by New Island, and her chapbook of historical flash fiction, Birdie, was recently published by Arlen House. She is the editor at flash e-zine Splonk and she lives in Galway.

Nicole Flattery's work has been published in the Stinging Fly, the White Review, the Dublin Review, BBC Radio 4, the Irish Times, Winter Papers and the 2019 Faber anthology of new Irish writing. Her first collection of stories, Show Them A Good Time, was published by The Stinging Fly Press and Bloomsbury. Her story 'Track' won the 2017 White Review Short Story Prize, and 'Parrot' won the Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards in 2019.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish 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 for everyone to read during the coronavirus crisis.

On this month's episode of The Stinging Fly Podcast, Ian Maleney is joined by Adrian Duncan, to read a piece from the Summer 2008 issue of the Stinging Fly, an essay from the 'First Passions' series written by the Longford poet Vona Groarke.

Adrian is the Berlin-based author of two novels, Love Notes from A German Building Site, which won the John McGahern Book Prize in 2019, and A Sabbatical in Leipzig. His first collection of short stories, Midfield Dynamo, was published earlier this year by Lilliput Press. Aside from writing, Adrian has also worked as a structural engineer, visual artist, and film-maker. He is the co-editor of Paper Visual Arts, a contemporary art publication based between Berlin and Dublin. 

Vona Groarke has published six collections of poetry with the Gallery Press, as well as the book-length essay, Four Sides Full. A former editor of the Poetry Ireland Review, Vona's writing has won the Michael Hartnett Award, and been shortlisted for the Forward Prize. She currently teaches at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, and is a member of Aosdána.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish 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 for everyone to read during the coronavirus crisis.

This month on the Stinging Fly podcast, we're taking a little diversion from our usual format to present a special reading of a story from our Summer 2020 issue. 'Getting the Electric' was written by Louise Hegarty, and is read here by musician Maija Sofia. 

This recording was made as part of View Source, a unique online publication, curated by Fallow Media and commissioned by Solas Nua, celebrating contemporary Irish literature at its most adventurous. Working alongside six cutting-edge literary publications in Ireland today – The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Gorse, Banshee, Winter Papers, and Fallow Media – View Source invited writers and artists to reimagine stories, poems, and essays first made available in print. You can experience all the writing and sounds, and find out more about the project, at https://viewsource.solasnua.org/.

Louise Hegarty has had work published in Banshee, The Tangerine, and The Dublin Review. Recently, she had a short story featured on BBC Radio 4’s Short Works. She lives in Cork.

Maija Sofia Makela is a musician, songwriter and artist who works between the overlapping worlds of sound, performance and text. Across various forms, her work explores language, shadowed histories, hauntings, diasporic identity, feminism, mysticism and folklore. She is from rural Galway and is of mixed Irish, Finnish and Turkish-Cypriot heritage. She is a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Award for music (2020), her debut album, Bath Time, was shortlisted for the Choice Award album of year and she was artist-in-residence at Sirius Arts Centre for the duration of winter 2020-21.

In this month's episode of the podcast, Danny Denton is joined by novelist Conor O'Callaghan to read and discuss the essay 'Suddenly A Duck', by Claire-Louise Bennett.

Conor O'Callaghan was born in Newry in 1968 and grew up in Dundalk. His first novel, Nothing on Earth, was published in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. His second novel, We Are Not in the World, is due to be published in February 2021. He has also published five collections of poetry, and a memoir: Red Mist: Roy Keane and the Football Civil War, an account of Roy Keane's departure from the 2002 FIFA World Cup squad. He currently lectures at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.

Claire-Louise Bennett's short fiction and essays have been published in several publications including The Moth and The Irish Times. She received the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize in 2013. Her first book, Pond, was published in 2016 by The Stinging Fly Press. A novel, Checkout 19, will be published by Jonathan Cape next year.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites Irish 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 for everyone to read during the coronavirus crisis.

This month on the Stinging Fly podcast, we're taking a little diversion from our usual format to present a lecture by the novelist Paul Lynch. Paul is the author of four internationally acclaimed novels: Beyond the Sea, The Black Snow, Red Sky In Morning, and Grace, which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in 2018. He was born in Limerick, raised in Donegal, and currently lives in Dublin with his wife and two children. 

This lecture, entitled 'The Dream That Wakes You Up', was commissioned by Words Ireland and delivered – via Zoom – to the Bray Literary Festival in September 2020. You can read this lecture, as well as previous years' lectures by Mia Gallagher and Seán O'Reilly, in full on our website: stingingfly.org.