‘At the end of the corridor, through a door, Sylvester emerged into a games room. A skittles alley games room. It was a long room, whose centre was two brightly polished skittles alleys, and the boy. For there was a boy. There was.’
Jacob Parker Fiction 5th April 2024
‘Before I became a writer, I had already failed quite a lot. I like to think it was good practice.’
Emily Cooper Essay 13th March 2024
‘There’s just something about the way you are together. It’s a quiet sort of thing, but I’d say it works, doesn’t it?’
Rebecca Ivory Fiction 5th March 2024
‘After a while he forgot he was dancing with his pen pal’s mother and he believed she forgot that he was the soft pouchy boy her daughter had brought home. That was the joy of it. They forgot themselves.‘
Mary Morrissy Fiction 7th February 2024
The text of our 2023 lecture, which was delivered by short-story writer and novelist, Evelyn Conlon.
Evelyn Conlon Essay 26th January 2024
So Gelon says to me, ‘Let’s go down and feed the Athenians. The weather’s perfect for feeding Athenians.’
Ferdia Lennon Fiction 10th January 2024
A chance to look back on our essay series reflecting on the pains and pleasures of writing and publishing – with a new Afterword by Series Editor, Olivia Fitzsimons.
The Stinging Fly Essay 13th December 2023
‘They may not realise it, but the positive impact queer people in progressive countries have on queer people across the world cannot be overstated. For those of us who live in countries where it is dangerous to express our identities, this connection means everything.’
‘Words slip on each other, he had thought. We get out from under what we know, we fail to get out from what we think. We never discover what thinking is.’
David Hayden Fiction 15th November 2023
‘When I say I am lonely, my friends tell me, “At least you have your book,” as if the publicity stands in for a partner.’
Sheena Patel Essay 9th November 2023
A story by Maeve Brennan to mark her 30th anniversary: ‘All that night, she lay awake in a panic, thinking of ways to break with him. It would be heartless to tell him straight out that she had no use for him.’
Maeve Brennan Fiction 1st November 2023
‘They go around the block, dancing in their seats, screaming the lyrics at the bewildered Chris, and she finds herself wishing that they’ll never get there—that they could keep driving around and around like this forever.’
Lisa Owens Fiction 11th October 2023
‘I watch myself and I know what I’m thinking. I watch myself and I also know what I’m not thinking. I watch myself and I know I’m thinking, a week ago we were together in that little cottage on the farm in Wales, and now she’s in A&E in the hospital down the road and I’m sitting here waiting for her laundry to finish.’
Colm O’Shea Fiction 13th September 2023
‘Thinking about friendship now, I think about the ways in which we are able to do things with others that we could never do on our own. The way that friends drag unknown parts out of our bodies, allowing us to be braver than we can feel by ourselves.’
Thomas Morris Essay 6th September 2023
‘I was not an open-minded person when I first began to publish books. Writers befriended and accepted me with all my fundamentalist baggage. They gave me the time and space to change. They did not judge me.’
Jan Carson Essay 16th August 2023
‘When I developed my illness and could no longer work, he took pity on me and gave me a room and an allowance.’
Camilla Grudova Fiction 9th August 2023
‘Sometimes I tell myself that the words will come if I just sit here long enough.’
Donal Ryan Essay 2nd August 2023
‘In the early days, people told me my disease disgusted them. They didn’t say it in those words—they used phrases like ‘I hope this email finds you well,’ but the implications were clear enough.’
Ed Garland Fiction 19th July 2023
‘After the book I’ve been working on for three years gets rejected countless times by publishers and agents, I happen upon a bit of spare cash and say, fuck it, I’m getting a shed.’
Kevin Curran Essay 12th July 2023
A story from Mary O’Donoghue’s new collection, The Hour After Happy Hour.
Mary O’Donoghue Fiction 21st June 2023
Author and academic Tim Groenland talks to our incoming editor Lisa McInerney about reading submissions, the magazine’s editorial process, and keeping up with an ever-changing publishing landscape.
Tim Groenland Interview 18th May 2023
‘I have a habit of telling stories too fast, expecting a coherent narrative to spring up from a few words flimsily strung together on a string. The problem is words words words. The more neatly I arrange them, the more they lose their flavour.’
Cathy Sweeney Fiction 1st March 2023
‘I remember my uncle cutting his toe nails with a razor blade. I remember my father drunk from Sunday to Sunday. There has to be a monument to the failures as well.’
Michael J. Farrell Fiction 2nd February 2023
As the year ends, we asked more of our editors, writers and collaborators to write about something that has made a significant impact on them over the past while.
The Stinging Fly Blog Post 31st December 2022
‘Something always came down like a guillotine to split her life in two, so that on one side was happiness, and on the other, the present.’
Chetna Maroo Fiction 14th December 2022
‘This was in Montpellier, in 2012. He was a legionnaire from Birmingham; his reclaimed name was Roger, and he was the most intelligent murderer I have ever met.’
Oisín Fagan Fiction 9th November 2022
‘We are many selves, and often these selves have rival needs. Some kind of truce must be established, if the work is to get written.’
Kevin Power Essay 2nd November 2022
‘In the hours and days after seeing Eugene, I was particularly bad: sobbing uncontrollably, vomiting, roaring into the hell’s bells of night. I prayed for typhus, Asiatic cholera, plain old consumption, anything that would do the job for me. I had no way to impart how terrible and terrified I felt except to write it down.’
June Caldwell Fiction 5th October 2022
‘Her husband was asleep beside her, snoring gently, and she lay, breathing shallowly, planning her next move.’
Lisa Owens Fiction 7th September 2022
‘Marcello's not a guy who likes used underwear, old shoes or bare feet. He’s a perfectionist, or maybe just a hypocrite.’
Gianluca Nativo Fiction 10th August 2022
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