10 highlights of Cork International Short Story Festival
Marni Appleton and Mary Morrissy are among the authors at Cork International Short Story Festival.
Mary Morrissy is the author of four novels and three collections of stories. A journalist, teacher of creative writing, and a literary mentor, she has won a Hennessy Award and the prestigious US Lannan Award for her work.
Mary O’Donnell has written award-winning poetry, novels, short fiction collections, and dynamic essays, including fiction novels and
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,
The evening session with Morrissey and O’Donnell will be moderated by Laura Cassidy, co-founder and contributing editor of Banshee.
Laura Jean McKay is the author of which won 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.
She will be joined by moderator Patrick Cotter, an Irish poet living in Cork city.
Shane Tivenan’s fiction has appeared in and has been broadcast on He was awarded the 2020 RTÉ Francis MacManus Prize and the 2024 John McGahern Award.
Dave Tynan has made one feature and over a dozen shorts, positioning him as a unique and contemporary voice in cinema. His short fiction has been published in and
His first book, was published in August by Grant and was RTÉ's Book Of The Week in September.
The session will be moderated by author Laura Cassidy.
Peter Bradshaw is an author and critic who has been chief film critic for since 1999 and is also contributing editor of
Paul McVeigh's short stories have appeared in numerous publications.
The session will be moderated by Cork author Patrick Holloway.
is the 21st edition of Cork City Council and Library Service annual ‘From the Well’ short story anthology. Patrick Holloway, selected 20 stories from over 150 submissions, five of which will be read at the event by writers Camille Dorney, Billy Fenton, Valentine Jones, Sheila Killian, and Daniel McCarthy.
Marni Appleton is a writer living in London whose short stories have been published in various publications. Her first short story collection, , was published in February 2025.
Dublin-based writer Rebecca Ivory is a recipient of the Arts Council Literature Bursary and, in 2024, she was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize.
Gina Chung is a Korean American writer whose novel was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and a B&N Discover Pick, and the short story collection Green Frog, which was a Good Morning America Book Buzz Pick, an NPR Best Book of the Year, and longlisted for the New American Voices Award.
Mahreen Sohail has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied as a Fulbright scholar, and was a Writing Fellow at A Public Space and a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East Anglia.
The session will be moderated by the author of the short story collection Beverly Parayno.
Tim Collyer is a Wiltshire-based writer of speculative fiction, literary drama, and darkly comic tales. Collyer won the New2theScene Flash Fiction Competition, was runner-up in both the Pokrass Flash Fiction Award and the DuMaurier Literature Award, and published three consecutive sci-fi stories in .
Born in Tokyo, Japan, Yoko Tawada moved to Germany at the age of 22. She published her first collection of prose and poetry in 1987 with Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke and has been writing in Japanese and German ever since.
Tawada is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Kleist Prize (Germany) and the Akutagawa Prize (Japan).
The session will be moderated by Till Weingärtner, senior lecturer in Japanese Studies at University College Cork.
Dublin-born Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is the author of novels, short stories, memoirs and drama. Her most recent books include and
A member of Aosdána and the President of the Folklore of Ireland Society, Ní Dhuibhne has been the recipient of many literary awards, and held the Burns Scholarship at Boston College in the autumn of 2020.
The session will be moderated by Irish poet and novelist Nuala O’Connor.
