On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Roisin Kiberd to read and discuss John Patrick McHugh’s essay, ‘Name Your Character’, originally published in Issue 44/Volume 2: Summer 2021 of The Stinging Fly.

Róisín Kiberd has written essays and features for the The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Winter Papers, The White Review, The Guardian and Vice, among other places. Her first book, The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2021. Roisin is the non-fiction editor of The Stinging Fly and lectures in creative writing at the University of Galway.

John Patrick McHugh is from Galway. His work has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Winter Papers, Banshee, The Tangerine and Granta and been broadcast on BBC Radio3. He is the fiction editor for Banshee magazine. His debut collection of short stories, Pure Gold, was published in 2021 and his novel, Fun and Games, will be published in 2025.

Nicole Flattery is a writer and critic. Her story collection Show Them A Good Time, was published by The Stinging Fly and Bloomsbury in 2019. Her first novel, Nothing Special, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023.

The Stinging Fly Podcast invites writers to choose a story from the Stinging Fly archive to read and discuss. Previous episodes of the podcast can be found here. The podcast’s theme music is ‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan. All of the Stinging Fly archive is available to subscribers.