‘The smell on me is all chemicals, and it’s chapped hands that reach for the rum and coke. There’s a woman at the end of the bar who looks in a bad way, and I recognise her as Sam, the mother of the young woman whose blood I was just pulling from the floors.’
We are delighted to announce Isla Thomson as the winner of the 2026 Irish Writers Centre New Writing Prize in partnership with The Stinging Fly.
On this month’s episode Nicole is joined by Susannah Dickey to read from and discuss her story ‘Diplomats’ published in Issue 54 Volume Two of The Stinging Fly magazine.
‘I know from the caravan beforehand that the villain wears more make-up than the maiden. Black pencil and they’ll twist the edges of your moustache, if you have one. To look grotesque and merciless, they said, it’s important.’
Maxwell and O’Hare’s dispatches from the cross-border precariat capture the unique paralysis of trying to inhabit the present while pinned beneath the weight of ‘lost futures’.
Poetry editor Annemarie Ní Churreáin is joined by Róisín Leggett Bohan, featured poet of our summer issue, to read and discuss her work.
‘The smell on me is all chemicals, and it’s chapped hands that reach for the rum and coke. There’s a woman at the end of the bar who looks in a bad way, and I recognise her as Sam, the mother of the young woman whose blood I was just pulling from the floors.’
‘I know from the caravan beforehand that the villain wears more make-up than the maiden. Black pencil and they’ll twist the edges of your moustache, if you have one. To look grotesque and merciless, they said, it’s important.’
‘Cows turn their big faces, and I am afraid of how life goes on until we die. All those dead tucked into the ground as the ancient Mercedes purrs by.’
‘We resented the fact that she thought we would be impressed by Doug. And we also resented that we were, maybe, impressed by Doug.’
‘He brings his bottom lip over his top lip and makes it touch his small nose. It makes him look older somehow and like he’s disappointed in me. I remember feeling disappointed in my father when I asked him simple questions and received complicated answers.’
‘A radio station blares such shitty muzak that I double-check to make sure this is, in fact, the man who was my father back in Dublin.’
Susannah Dickey
The Stinging Fly Podcast
Róisín Leggett Bohan
The Stinging Fly Podcast
Thomas Morris
The Stinging Fly Podcast
1st October 2026
25th September 2026
21st August 2026
‘The smell on me is all chemicals, and it’s chapped hands that reach for the rum and coke. There’s a woman at the end of the bar who looks in a bad way, and I recognise her as Sam, the mother of the young woman whose blood I was just pulling from the floors.’
‘I know from the caravan beforehand that the villain wears more make-up than the maiden. Black pencil and they’ll twist the edges of your moustache, if you have one. To look grotesque and merciless, they said, it’s important.’
Five years on since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, we celebrate the resilience of Afghan women through publishing this letter exchange between Maryam Mahjoba, a young fiction writer living in Kabul, and the Somali British novelist, Nadifa Mohamed, living in London.