Wednesday, 15th October

Festival Pass (all events) | €50

Southword Showcase

2.30pm, Cork City Library | Free, unticketed

Alan McMonagle and Alannah Hopkin are writers who will feature in the upcoming issue of Southword (issue 49, November 2025), their short stories chosen from open submission by fiction editor Billy O’Callaghan. There will be readings of two stories each from Alan McMonagle and Rosie O’Regan (who will read the stories of Alannah Hopkin).

Alan McMonagle has published two novels, Ithaca (Picador, 2017) and Laura Cassidy’s Walk of Fame (Picador, 2020). Ithaca was nominated for the Desmond Elliott Award for First Novels, the Dublin Literary Award and an Irish Book Award. He has also published two collections of short stories, Psychotic Episodes (Arlen House, 2013) and Liar Liar (Wordsonthestreet, 2008).

Alannah Hopkin is a writer and journalist based in southwest Ireland. In 2020 she was the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Fellow. Her story collection The Dogs of Inishere was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2017. Her work has been read on RTÉ Radio 1 and shortlisted for the RTÉ Short Story Award.

The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story

4.00pm, Cork City Library | Free, unticketed

Frank O’Connor’s The Lonely Voice, published in 1962 was one of the earliest and most seminal analyses of the short story form. It has been republished several times since, various editions carrying introductions by Russell Banks, Richard Forde and Kevin Barry. This event features Cork-based practitioners of fiction discussing the continued relevance of O’Connor’s book and comparing the takes of the various introductions.

Danny Denton is a writer from Cork. He is the author of the novels The Earlie King & the Kid In Yellow and All Along the Echo. He lectures on writing at University College Cork and is a contributing editor to The Stinging Fly.

Mary Morrissy is the author of four novels, Mother of Pearl, The Pretender, The Rising of Bella Casey and Penelope Unbound and three collections of stories, A Lazy Eye, Prosperity Drive and Twenty-Twenty Vision.

Billy O’Callaghan’s books include The Boatman and Other Stories (Jonathan Cape, 2020) and The Paper Man (Jonathan Cape, 2023). His stories have appeared in Agni, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Saturday Evening Post, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere.

Buy The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (The Lilliput Press).

(Moderator) Patrick Holloway’s debut novel, The Language of Remembering, is published by Epoque Press (2025). He is the winner of the Bath Short Story Award, The Allingham Fiction Prize, The Flash 500 Prize and The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize. He is an editor of the literary journal The Four Faced Liar.

Mary Morrissy & Mary O’Donnell

7.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Mary Morrissy is the author of four novels, Mother of Pearl, The Pretender, The Rising of Bella Casey and Penelope Unbound and three collections of stories, A Lazy Eye, Prosperity Drive and Twenty-Twenty Vision. Her short fiction has been anthologized widely. She has won a Hennessy Award and the prestigious US Lannan Award for her work. A member of Aosdána, she is a journalist, teacher of creative writing and a literary mentor. She blogs on marymorrissy.com and curates a second site (unawattersartist.com) devoted to the work of Dublin artist Una Watters.

Buy Twenty-Twenty Vision (The Lilliput Press) and visit the author's website.

“Mary Morrissy’s writing has always been characterised by both humanity and barbed wit … these 18 stories view all manners of troubles and unravellings with a brackish yet benevolent gaze.” — Henrietta McKervey

Mary O’Donnell has written award-winning poetry, novels, short fiction collections and dynamic essays. Published fiction includes the novels The Elysium Testament and Where They Lie. In 2023 she received an An Post/Irish Book Award for her political poem ‘Vectors in Kabul’. In 2026 Wake Forest University Press (USA) will publish her ninth poetry collection, Tenderness. In May this year, a new short fiction collection, Walking Ghosts was published by Mercier Press, and her translated short stories—Nomadas—will appear in Argentina next year. Her latest novel, The Good Daughter, will be published by Epoque Press in late 2026 in the UK.

Visit the author's website.

“There’s a quiet intensity to her storytelling, as if she’s standing just out of frame, watching everything with razor-sharp empathy … her stories move like tidewater: slow, deliberate, pulling you under.” — Lorraine Courtney

(Moderator) Sarah Harte has won or been shortlisted for prizes in Ireland and the UK including The Bryan MacMahon short story prize, The Bridport Prize, the Manchester Fiction Prize, the Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Prize, and the Fish Short Story Prize. She is completing a novel and is a columnist for The Irish Examiner.

Laura Jean McKay

9.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country – winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia and her latest collection is Gunflower. She is the 2025 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow and teaches Creative Writing at Massey University.

Buy Gunflower (Scribe) and visit the author's website.

“Amidst a pile of shed skin and fur, McKay moulds a kaleidoscopic and horrifyingly real portrait of life at the fringes. By turns gritty, surreal, and absurd, Gunflower isn’t afraid to weigh flesh on the scales of our own judgments, a delicate balancing act between life and death, connection and disconnection.” — Sequoia Nagamatsu

(Moderator) Patrick Cotter is an Irish poet, born in Cork City where he still lives. His poems have been published in journals such as the Financial Times, The London Review of Books, Poetry and Poetry Review. He is a recipient of the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry. Quality Control at the Miracle Factory, his fourth full-length collection, is published by Dedalus Press in 2025.