This is more of a ‘fireside chat’ than an interview, a back and forth between peers.

We hope you enjoy it!

Seán McNicholl is an award-winning writer and GP from Armagh. He is the winner of the Hammond House International Literary Prize, and his work has been shortlisted for the CRAFT Short Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the Bridport Prize, the Fish Prize, the Hope Prize and the Bedford Prize.

His stories have appeared in Epoque Press, The Storms, Fahmidan, ANMLY, Frazzled Lit, and The Belfast Review. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Microfiction.

Find out more at www.seanmcnicholl.com

Patrick Holloway is a prize-winning Irish writer of fiction and poetry. His debut novel, The Language of Remembering, was published in 2025 to critical acclaim. His second novel is forthcoming in 2027 with Eriu. His work appears in The Stinging Fly, The Moth, The London Magazine, Southword, The Irish Times and The Irish Independent. He is the winner of The Bath Short Story Prize, The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize, The Raymond Carver Contest, The Flash 500, among others. He is an editor of the literary journal, The Four Faced Liar, and is the 2026 Writer in Residence in Maynooth University.

IN THE DESERT is published on March 3rd, 2026, by Cowboy Jamboree.

It is available in U.S. at this link, and in Ireland and the UK at this link.

Irish readers can also get the paperback from O’Mahony’s Bookshop in Tralee, or from O’Mahony’s online store.

Barbara Byar is a working-class American writer living in Ireland for over 25 years with her two boys and two dogs. Her critically acclaimed, collection of stories: Some Days Are Better Than Ours (Reflex Press) was short-listed for the Saboteur Awards. Her short fiction has been published and prize-listed widely. including pushcart, best small fictions and best microfictions nominations. She was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Irish Short Story of the Year in 2023 and longlisted in 2021. A recipient of an Irish Arts Council Literature Bursary and an Agility Award, she is a previous novel fair winner and editor of the MOTEL anthology from Cowboy Jamboree Press.

Neil Hegarty grew up in Derry.

His novels include The Jewel; and Inch Levels, which was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year award.

Neil’s non-fiction titles include:

Dublin: A View from the Ground;

Frost: That Was the Life That Was, a biography of television journalist David Frost;

The Secret History of our Streets, which tells the story of twentieth-century London;

and The Story of Ireland, which accompanies the BBC television history of Ireland.

His short fiction and essays have appeared in the Dublin Review, Stinging Fly, Cyphers, PVA, Banshee, Tangerine, and other journals; and in a range of anthologies. Neil is co-editor of the essay collection Impermanence, which was adapted for radio by RTE. He is a regular writer on the Irish Times.

Neil lives in Dublin.

Gary Finnegan's fiction has appeared in Litro, The London Magazine, Howl, Ropes, and The Irish Independent. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was selected for the Freedom to Write Award in 2024 by PEN/Ireland & The John Hewitt Society. Gary has an MA in creative writing and is working on a novel.

June O’Sullivan lives on an island in Co. Kerry. Her writing has appeared in the The Ogham Stone Journal, The York Literary Review, Seaside Gothic, The Storms Journal, The Waxed Lemon, Fractured Lit, Frazzled Lit and Sonder. She is a recent graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. Her debut novel, The Lighthouse Keeper's Wife, was published in January 2025 by Poolbeg.

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife is available now at your local independent bookstore, and all the usual places!

Rembrandt’s Promise begins in 1642, during the Dutch Golden Age, and is inspired by the life and times of Geertje Dircx, a wronged woman who demanded justice. Geertje was Rembrandt van Rjin’s mistress after the death of Saskia, his first wife.

Barbara Leahy is from Cork. She was a winner of the Irish Writers' Centre Novel Fair in 2023. Her short stories have won numerous awards, appeared in the Bridport Prize Anthology, the Bristol Prize anthology, and been broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1. Rembrandt's Promise is her first novel.

Rembrandt’s Promise is available now at your local independent bookstore, and all the usual places!

Fíona Scarlett is from Dublin but now lives in Co. Kildare, Ireland. Her debut novel Boys Don’t Cry was an international bestseller, shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year in the Irish Book Awards and the Kate O’Brien Award. She was recently named as one of Ireland’s ‘New Voices, 20 Best New Irish Writers’ in conjunction with the Irish Book Awards 2024. She currently lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

Novels By Fiona Scarlett:

May All Your Skies Be Blue:

An unforgettable story of love and loss and how the ones we love never really leave us.

Boys Don’t Cry

‘They say boys don't cry.

But Finn's seen his Da do it when he thinks no one's looking, so that's not true.

And isn't it OK to be sad, when bad things happen?’

Nuala O’Connor lives in Galway, Ireland. Her sixth novel SEABORNE, about Irish-born pirate Anne Bonny, was published in April 2024 by New Island, and has been shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Her novel NORA (New Island), about Nora Barnacle and James Joyce, was a Top 10 historical novel in the New York Times. She won Irish Short Story of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards and is editor at flash e-journal Splonk.

And a correction: Jennifer mentioned the Francis O’Connor Award - she of course meant the Francis MacManus Award.

SEABORNE, from which Nuala read, has just been shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. It is available to order from New Island, and from all the usual places.

Also mentioned: Nuala’s award-winning novel NORA, about Nora Barnacle and James Joyce. It was a Top 10 historical novel in the New York Times.

Dave Butler (Dara Kavanagh) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet and actor. He is the author of five novels, two volumes of collected prose, four volumes of poetry and two works of non-fiction. JABBERWOCK, his latest novel, published under pen-name Dara Kavanagh, is available from Dedalus Books, and Amazon UK.

The courses Dave spoke about are:

A Novel Approach

In this ten-week online course, facilitator Dave Butler will help you to workshop your novel-in-progress by examining areas such as point-of-view, structure, effective openings, dialogue, humour, irony, etc., in order to help you create a page-turning work of fiction. By the end of the ten weeks your novel will be, as Alfred Hitchcock phrased it, ‘life with the dull bits cut out’.

The Classic Short Story

In this in-person course, held over 12 Tuesday afternoons, Dave will discuss two stories each by ten influential masters of the short story form, along with an introductory and concluding session. 

Authors to be considered might include:

• Guy de Maupassant;

• Anton Chekhov; 

• Katherine Mansfield;

• James Joyce; 

• Elizabeth Bowen; 

• Ernest Hemingway;

• Frank O’Connor; 

• Sherwood Anderson,

• Mary Lavin; 

• Raymond Carver

Tommy Dean is the Editor-in-Chief of Fractured Lit, and cofounder of Uncharted Magazine, a premier publisher of genre fiction. He is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks, and a full flash collection entitled Hollows, published in 2022 by Alternating Current Press. Tommy’s writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2022, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere.

Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on Twitter at https://x.com/TommyDeanWriter

He is also on Substack at

Hollows, from which Tommy read, is available to order at:

https://altcurrentpress.com/2022/07/12/hollows/

Also mentioned in this discussion were Kathy Fish’s flash fiction story Bear Walks Into A Bar, published in Copper Nickel, Jennifer’s story In All The Loveless Places, published in Fractured Lit, and Sticks and Stones by Elizabeth Smith, third-place winning story in the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, Winter 2021, and published in the Sticks And Stones anthology.

You can read them at the following links:

Bear Walks Into A Bar - Kathy Fish

In All The Loveless Places - Jennifer McMahon

Sticks and Stones - Elizabeth Smith

In this session of Writer to Writer, Matt Kendrick answers questions from our co-EIC Laura Cooney about writing, inspiration, and the importance of meaning.

Matt is a writer, editor and teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His work has been featured in various journals and anthologies including Craft Literary, Best Microfiction, The Best Small Fictions, and the Wigleaf Top 50. You can find him on Twitter at @MkenWrites, and discover the many courses, services and resources he offers writers at https://www.mattkendrick.co.uk/

Matt is also on Substack:

Prattlefog & Gravelrap

A monthly article series about the elements of short fiction: ideas for rocket-boosting your writing craft, reading recommendations, and other writing-related ramblings.

By Matt Kendrick

Laura: When or why did you start writing?

Matt: I think I’ve always written stories, ever since I was very little, but I first started taking writing seriously when I developed a long-term health condition and wanted something creative to help distract me from everything that was going on with my body. It wasn’t long before I discovered flash fiction and became fascinated by the idea of telling a complete story in a tiny space.

How often do you write?

Writing, for me, is something that fits into the cracks between my work and illness. Sometimes, I manage to write every day, but there can also be times when I don’t write words on the page for weeks at a time. But for me, the act of writing encompasses so much that doesn’t involve putting words on the page. Writing is also thinking about writing, it is coming up with ideas, observing the world, squirreling away an interesting body language trait or turn of phrase. So, in that regard, I’m always writing. I find that’s a comforting way of framing it that means I’m always achieving something with my writing even if it’s not necessarily adding to the word count.

What’s the best advice you would give to new writers?

Hannah Grieco recently posted a tweet about treating any piece of writing advice as an opinion rather than a fact, and I’m going to pinch that and build on it slightly. New writers can be like sponges. We hear “write what you know” and “the road to hell is paved with adverbs” and we take these as hard and fast rules. But “write what you know” can be limiting (I always prefer flipping it around to “know what you write”); sometimes an adverb is exactly (!) what we need. It’s great to gather up advice from other writers or writing teachers, but at the end of the day, each of us needs to find the rules that work for us. Writing is subjective. Even things that feel like they should be incontrovertible are often not. Maybe the best advice I could give is to extend my “know what you write” into “know what you want to write”; and once you have that, maybe extend it again to include the need to “put it on the page in a way that meets your intent.”

What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned about being a writer?

One key thing I’ve learned about being a writer, and one thing I notice in all the writers I work with as a teacher and an editor, is that the act of writing makes us much more versatile in how we view the world. As writers, we inhabit different viewpoints and spend a lot of time thinking about character motivations and why a certain person might act the way they do. So, I think that makes us more empathetic and hopefully means we understand that most things in life aren’t black or white; most things exist in those shades of grey.

Who is your favourite author?

Picking one author always feels like an impossible task, especially when, like me, you’re drawn to different forms and genres. Novellists who I come back to time and time again are Margaret Atwood, Maggie O’Farrell, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Mitchell, and Kamila Shamsie. I’m also a big fan of both Madeline Miller and Susanna Clarke. As far as flash fiction is concerned, we could be here all day. The wonderful thing about flash is its brevity and that gives so many different writers a moment in the spotlight. Each and every day, I’m blown away by what is getting written and published—I’m sure the pieces you’ve included in the first edition of Frazzled Lit are no exception.

If you could spend a day with another writer, who would you choose?

This is a pipe dream for me as someone who is pretty much housebound most of the time, but writers are good at living inside their dreams, so I’ll pick an event rather than a person. I would love to be well enough to attend the Flash Fiction Festival which is held annually in Bath or Bristol. There are so many writers who go there each year who I would love to spend the day with.

Given that you’re a fan of so many different writers, styles and genres, how do you go about deciding what to read?

I tend to always have a novel on the go, alternating between writers I’ve read before and new-to-me writers, and I try to read a book-in-translation once a month. This gives me the rich variety I enjoy and also informs my work as an editor. With flash fiction, I again like to read a smattering of writers I already know alongside new-to-me writers. Therefore, I tend to dip into different journals rather than necessarily watching out for what gains traction on social media. One day I might sit and read the whole issue of SmokeLong Quarterly, the next I might read through the latest pieces in the Wigleaf archive. If you read in that way rather than sticking to writers you already admire, you’re exposed to a greater variety of forms and approaches.

Do you draw inspiration from what you read?

Definitely. I often find myself with a new story idea directly prompted by something I’ve read. This might be a narrative framework, a technique, a character, or a voice. The piece you’ve kindly published in this first edition of Frazzled Lit came about after I read “Room” by Emma Donoghue and wanted to explore writing a story from a child’s point of view. I’ve since written three other pieces that continue on the narrator’s story at later moments in his life each told with the same distinct tone of voice.

What else do you draw inspiration from?

Currently, I’m drawing inspiration from proverbs and sayings. Every story I write has an adage at its heart, whether that’s “there’s no point crying over spilt milk” or “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” (which is the one that inspired my Frazzled Lit story, beyond. This can be challenging and risks perhaps always leading toward stories that have a similar arc or tonal feel, but it also means there’s an in-built sense of message. When thinking about literary fiction, I think that can often be an element to the story that writers overlook. We have the surface layer of what actually happens in the narrative, and we have the emotional layers underneath, but I always feel as though a literary story is at its strongest when there’s a sense of message in there as well. What is the story telling us about the world? What is that nugget of truth?

Is there a reason you’re currently so focused on proverbs and sayings?

It’s all to do with a project I’m working on. The project is perhaps slightly barmy, but I’m writing a novel in which the central character writes short fiction, and to get fully inside that character’s head, I’m writing all the stories that he writes. When everything is finished, I’m hoping I’ll end up with two books—a novel and a collection of flash fiction—that mirror each other and connect together in interesting ways. There’s also a third element to the project which I’m envisaging as a sort of online museum that will showcase artistic interpretations of the stories and sayings. Sometimes, this might be a piece of visual art, sometimes it might be a piece of music I’ve written, and sometimes it might be something else entirely. It’s a lot of fun working from these different angles, but it’s also a big undertaking which at my current pace will probably take me several hundred years!

Speaking of finishing a project, how do you celebrate when you do finish a project?

I don’t have a particular thing I do (I can’t eat cake or drink alcohol, so I sometimes feel slightly limited on the celebration front!) but I think it’s important to celebrate the act of writing (and not just the success of publication or awards etc.) This is something we have full control over rather than something we don’t. Sometimes, we can be in too much of a rush to take the next step up the metaphorical mountain of our writing journey, but I always say to writers that it’s a good idea to pause after our successes, to turn around and admire the view.