Dazzling Debuts: GARRETT CARR and ROISÍN O’DONNELL in conversation with Jan Carson

Garrett Carr was born and brought up in the harbour town of Killybegs, Co Donegal. He now lives in Belfast and teaches Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. He is a frequent contributor to The Guardian and The Irish Times. His non-fiction book, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and described by Colm Toibín as “great writing about landscape and history”. The Boy from the Sea is his debut novel.

“Compulsive reading … Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment” Louise Kennedy

Roisín O’Donnell won the prize for Short Story of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards in 2018, and was shortlisted for the same prize in 2022. She is the author of the story collection Wild Quiet, which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award. Her short fiction has been selected for major anthologies such as The Long Gaze Back. Nesting, her first novel, has been longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

‘Here is a novelist who has powerful news to tell, and an impressive range of narrative gifts with which to tell it’ Irish Times.

Jan Carson is the author of best-sellingm novels The Fire Starters (2020) and The Raptures (2023), and the short story collection
Quickly, While They Still Have Horses (2024).

You may also like the following events from The John Hewitt Society:

• This month, 28th July, 02:45 pm, Workshop: Poetry and Responding to the Image with Anne Caldwell in Armagh
• This month, 28th July, 02:45 pm, Workshop: Writing Young Adult Fiction with Sue Divin in Armagh
• This month, 28th July, 02:45 pm, Workshop: Short Story Writing with Bernie McGill in Armagh

Also check out other Arts events in Armagh, Literary Art events in Armagh.