Paul McVeigh
The Good Son, Paul’s debut novel, won The Polari Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. It was shortlisted for The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Prix du Roman Cezam in France, and was a finalist for The People’s Book Prize. The Good Son was chosen as one of Brighton’s City Reads 2016 and was given out as part of World Book Night 2017. Alongside The Good Son, Paul has written comedy, essays, flash fiction, plays and short stories. His work has been performed on stage and radio.
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Paul has taught creative writing and read his work in Australia, Austria, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland and Turkey. In the UK he’s taught at The Barbican Centre, The British Library, Hampstead Theatre, Tricycle Theatre, Waterstones Piccadilly and at universities in Brighton, London and Swansea. He judges international literary prizes including, in 2018, The Edge Hill Short Story Prize, The Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Prize and The International Dylan Thomas Prize. He reviews for The Irish Times where he also interviews authors. These have included Garth Greenwell and George Saunders.
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Paul co-founded The London Short Story Festival, of which he was Director and Curator for 2014 and 2015. He is Associate Director at Word Factory, which according to The Guardian is "the UK’s national organisation for excellence in the short story." Paul’s blog for writers gets 40,000 hits a month and has had over two million visitors.
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Praise for The Good Son:
“A triumph of storytelling. An absolute gem.” – Donal Ryan
“Funny, raw and endlessly entertaining.” – Jonathan Coe
“A work of genius from a splendid writer.” – Pulitzer Prize-winner, Robert Olen Butler
Brian Finnegan
Brian is a Dublin-based author, journalist, ghostwriter and editor. His debut novel, The Forced Redundancy Film Club, was a bestseller in 2012, while his follow-up, Knowing Me Knowing You, was published to critical acclaim in 2014.
He has been a journalist, writing in Ireland’s national newspapers for the past 20 years, and has worked as a magazine editor on two titles, GI and GCN, interviewing authors such as David Sedaris, Armistead Maupin, Sarah Waters and Jeanette Winterson.
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Brian is one of Ireland's foremost ghostwriters, the name behind some several bestselling autobiographies for Irish and international celebrities. He has also has taught ‘Writing Commercial Fiction’ workshops at the Big Smoke Writing Factory in Dublin.
Brian has a passion for working with other writers to help free their creative flow, and has helped several authors to bring their books to publication. He combines a keen understanding of structure, character and plot with know-how on keeping readers turning those pages.
