We are pleased to present Jan Carson in conversation with Anne Flaherty.

About Jan Carson: born in Ballymena, Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator now based in Belfast. Her writing includes Malcolm Orange Disappears (2014), Children’s Children, (2016), and two micro-fiction collections, Postcard Stories 1 and 2 (2017 & 2020).  

Jan won the Harper’s Bazaar short story competition in 2016 and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Story Prize and Sean O’Faolain Short Story Prize. Her most recent novel The Fire Starters (2020) won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland, the Kitschies Prize for Speculative Fiction and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Book Prize. Jan’s most recent 10 part short story series, The Last Resortwas transmitted on BBC Radio 4 in early 2021. In January this year she hosted an online symposium showcasing contemporary Northern Irish writers: Prophets, Makers and Risk Takers.

She is currently writer in residence on an AHRC-funded research project at Queen’s University Belfast exploring the depiction of Dementia in contemporary fiction. 

Jan’s third novel, No Promised Land will be published in Summer 2021.

About Anne Flaherty: A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from Africa and Asia. She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey.