‘From inside this hell, in this dazed state of terror, I write to you about my adventure yesterday, offering a testimony of defeat from a man who longs for a hot bath like the ones he used to take before the war.’
‘[N]one of us likes to think we live and have our days in a time more stupid than others we might have lived in. All previous ages were the dark ages, we like to believe, and we are the new and enlightened ones.’
'Every plainly elegant passage here is charged by shadow narratives around the book, its project, its author and its ‘author’. No matter how outlandish the image or the detail, everything scans as a mise-en-abyme—an image of the book within the book. How’s this resignification achieved so absolutely? What is this thing that you’re reading?'
On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Oisín Fagan to read and discuss Mariana Enriquez's story, ‘Back When We Talked to the Dead', translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, and published in The Stinging Fly Issue 35, Volume 2: Winter 2019/20.
On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Mary O'Donoghue to read and discuss Colm O'Shea’s story, ‘Feeling Gravity's Pull’, originally published as part of the Online Fiction series on The Stinging Fly website in October 2023.
In Old Romantics, the drudge becomes the show. Pain is distilled into humour and absurdity. Here is a writer who likes to amuse, indulge, titillate and engage, inviting us to follow the chaos right from the opening lines of the opening story.
‘From inside this hell, in this dazed state of terror, I write to you about my adventure yesterday, offering a testimony of defeat from a man who longs for a hot bath like the ones he used to take before the war.’
‘[N]one of us likes to think we live and have our days in a time more stupid than others we might have lived in. All previous ages were the dark ages, we like to believe, and we are the new and enlightened ones.’
For this month’s story, Nuala O’Connor takes inspiration from Elizabeth Bowen’s 1925 short story, ‘The Parrot’.
This month’s story is co-authored by Eley Williams and Nell Stevens. It’s from Duets, a new anthology of co-authored stories, published this month by Scratch Books.
A new story by Lucy Sweeney Byrne from her second collection of stories, Let’s Dance, which will be published next month by Banshee Press.
'As she flew through the sky in the white clouds, Fatma agonised over the expectations placed on her. She thought about all the cars she was expected to bring back to her village, and the promises she had made to find people jobs – as if she could create opportunities in Bahari!'
‘Reading Maeve Brennan is like watching a master jeweller construct a ticking watch from an array of tiny, inanimate parts—her exquisite skill in piecing together the emotional landscape of her characters is evident in every line.’ — The New York Times Book Review
18th December 2024
30th October 2024
10th July 2024
‘From inside this hell, in this dazed state of terror, I write to you about my adventure yesterday, offering a testimony of defeat from a man who longs for a hot bath like the ones he used to take before the war.’
‘[N]one of us likes to think we live and have our days in a time more stupid than others we might have lived in. All previous ages were the dark ages, we like to believe, and we are the new and enlightened ones.’
For this month’s story, Nuala O’Connor takes inspiration from Elizabeth Bowen’s 1925 short story, ‘The Parrot’.