Women’s Voices from Northern Ireland

Join us for a morning of readings, performance and lively discussion with writers from Northern Ireland as they talk about their work with Margot McCuaig (The Birds that Never Flew).

Jane Talbot (The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories) and Hilary McCollum (Golddigger) will discuss genre, character, place and much more! Listen as they share excerpts of their work.

Margot McCuaig’s debut novel, The Birds That Never Flew, was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize. She is a published features writer in newspaper and book chapter form and regularly contributes to Paragraph Planet. Margot also makes award-winning documentary films and was shortlisted for a Celtic Media Bronz Torc for Excellence last year. 

Jane Talbot is a writer, theatre-maker and performance storyteller. Jane’s first book, The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories, is a collection of seven dark faerie tales set in Northern Ireland’s beautiful North Coast area. She is one of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland ACES for 2018 and founder of Women Aloud NI, which aims to raise the profile of the women’s writing scene in Northern Ireland. Her two-person show, The Wonder Tales is touring Northern Ireland in June 2018.

Hilary McCollum writes both historical fiction and contemporary drama. Her first novel, Golddigger which spans the California goldrush and the Irish Famine, won the Golden Crown Literary Society award for historical fiction in 2016. In 2014 her play, Life and Love: Lesbian Style, was nominated for best original writing at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. Hilary’s new novel, set within the British suffragette movement will be published this year.