The Stinging Fly Podcast

On this month’s episode, publisher and founding editor Declan Meade is joined by poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin who has just been announced as  The Stinging Fly ’s next poetry editor . Annemarie will take over the role from Cal Doyle in November. Here she talks about her own work as poet and editor, and reads recently published poems by Paula Meehan and Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan. Annemarie Ní Churreá...

On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Kevin Power to read and discuss Eimear Ryan’s short story, ‘ Body Clock ’, originally published in our  Winter 2009/10  issue. Kevin Power  is the author of two novels,  Bad Day in Blackrock  (2008) and  White City  (2021), as well as a book of criticism,  The Written World  (2022). He is the winner of the 2009 Rooney Prize for Iris...

On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Sophie Mackintosh to read and discuss David Hayden’s short story, ‘ Leckerdam of the Golden Hand’ , originally published in our  Summer 2016 issue . Sophie Mackintosh is the author of three novels:  The Water Cure ,  Blue Ticket  and  Cursed Bread . Her debut novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and won a Betty Trask A...

On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Lucy Caldwell to read and discuss Niamh Prior’s short story,  ‘Peter and Jane’ . ‘Peter and Jane’ was originally published in July 2021 as part of our online fiction series. Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of four novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and two collections of short stories: Multitu...

On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Darran Anderson to read and discuss Mary O’Donoghue’s short story, ‘ During the Russian Blizzard ’. The story first appeared in the  Summer 2014  issue of the magazine and was included in  Stinging Fly Stories , 2018. It is one of twelve stories included in  The Hour After Happy Hour , Mary’s forthcoming short-story collection, whic...

On this month’s episode of the podcast, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer and editor Michael Magee to read and discuss Louise Kennedy’s short story, ‘ The End of the World is a Cul de Sac ’. The story first appeared in the Summer 2018  issue of the magazine. It went on to become the title story of Louise’s first collection of stories, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. Trespass...

On this month’s episode of the podcast, host Nicole Flattery is joined by novelist and critic Rachel Connolly, to read and discuss a short story, ‘Rustlers’ , by Michael Magee, which first appeared in the Summer 2017 issue of the magazine. Michael Magee is the fiction editor of The Tangerine and a graduate of the PhD Creative Writing programme at Queen’s University, Belfast. His writing has appear...

On this month’s episode of the podcast, new host Nicole Flattery is joined by novelist and poet Susannah Dickey, to read and discuss a short story, ‘How They Live Now’ , by Wes Lee, which first appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of the magazine. Wes Lee lives in New Zealand. Her work has appeared in a wide array of publications. She has won a number of awards, including The Over the Edge New Writer...

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....

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...

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...

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 o...

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 Nove...

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...

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...

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, cel...

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 Worl...

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 i...

In this month's episode of the podcast, Declan Meade is joined by novelist Rónán Hession to read and discuss the story 'Eight Days', by Chinese writer Zou Jingzhi.  Rónán Hession is an award-winning musician and writer. He wrote and recorded music as Mumblin’ Deaf Ro and was nominated for a Choice Music Award for his album, Dictionary Crimes . Leonard And Hungry Paul , Rónán's first book, was...

Caelainn Hogan is the author of Republic of Shame: Stories from Ireland's Institutions for Fallen Women , published in 2019 by Penguin. She has worked as a journalist and filed stories from all over the world for publications like National Geographic , the New York Times magazine, Harper's , the New Yorker , and The Guardian . She's also written essays and reported pieces for The Dublin Review and...

Mark O'Connell, author of To Be A Machine and Notes from an Apocalypse , joins Ian Maleney to read and discuss ' Bland God: Notes on Mark Zuckerberg ', an essay from our Summer 2018 issue written by Roisin Kiberd. Mark O'Connell is a writer based in Dublin. His books, To Be a Machine: Encounters With a Post-Human Future , and  Notes From An Apocalypse , are published by Granta in the UK, and...

Naoise Dolan, author of the acclaimed debut novel, Exciting Times , joins Declan Meade in studio to read and discuss the subtle gothic horror of Emma Donoghue's 'Looking for Petronilla', a story that appeared way back in Issue 11 of the magazine in Winter 2001. Naoise Dolan was born in Dublin, studied at Trinity College, and completed a master's degree in Victorian literature at Oxford. Her writin...

To celebrate the publication of her debut collection, Modern Times , Cathy Sweeney reads 'The Chair', a dark and funny story from the book.  Modern Times is available to purchase from The Stinging Fly: https://stingingfly.org/product/modern-times/ Praise for Modern Times: "Cathy Sweeney's stories have already attracted a band of fanatical devotees, and this first collection is as marvellous a...

In the first episode of 2020, Declan Meade is joined by Cathy Sweeney, to read from and discuss the work of Tania Hershman.  Cathy Sweeney’s writing has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Egress, Winter Papers, Banshee, and The Tangerine. Her stories have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short fiction, Modern Times , will be published by Stinging...

Stephen Sexton joins us on this month's episode of the Stinging Fly podcast, to read and discuss two poems by Sinéad Morrissey. Stephen Sexton's debut collection, If All The World And Love Were Young , was published in September 2019 by Penguin, and won The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in October. Sexton’s first pamphlet, Oils (Emma Press), was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice...