Billy O'Callaghan

Billy O'Callaghan
Billy O'Callaghan (August 2016)
Born (1974-12-09) 9 December 1974
Cork, Ireland
Occupation Writer
Nationality Ireland
Period 1999–present
Literary movement Irish Short Story
Notable works The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind
Website
www.billyocallaghan.ie/en/bibliography/

Billy O'Callaghan (born 9 December 1974) is an Irish short fiction writer and novelist. His short-story collection The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind was awarded the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award for the short story in 2013.[1][2][3]

Early life

Billy O'Callaghan was born in Cork in 1974, and grew up in Douglas village, where he still lives. His first collection of short stories, In Exile, was published by Mercier Press in 2008.[4] This was followed a year later by a second collection, In Too Deep (also published by Mercier Press).[5][6] Then, in 2013, his third collection, The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind, was published by New Island Books.[7][8] It earned him a 2013 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award.

Literary career

O'Callaghan's short stories have been published in: Absinthe: New European Writing, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, the Bellevue Literary Review, Bliza, Confrontation, The Fiddlehead, Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Kenyon Review, the Kyoto Journal, the London Magazine, the Los Angeles Review, Narrative Magazine, the Southeast Review, Southword, Underground Voices, Versal, and Yuan Yang: a Journal of Hong Kong and International Writing, and many other literary journals and magazines around the world. His stories have also been translated into Polish and Turkish, and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1's The Book On One,[9] Sunday Miscellany and the Francis McManus Award series.

O'Callaghan compiled a non-fiction book, Learning from the Greats: Lessons on Writing, from the Great Writers, which was published in 2014 by Cork City Libraries as part of their Occasional Series.[10][11] He also regularly reviews books for the Irish Examiner.

In March 2016, it was announced that O'Callaghan's first novel, The Dead House, would be released by Brandon Books in Spring 2017.[12]

A novella, A Death In The Family, has been announced as a Ploughshares Solo, forthcoming in 2017.[13]

Awards and honors

In November 2013, the title story of O'Callaghan's most recent collection, The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind won the inaugural Short Story of the Year Award at the 2013 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award. In January 2017, he was awarded second place for the Costa Short Story Award 2016 for his story The Boatman.[14]

Listed among his other honours are The Molly Keane Creative Writing Award, the George A. Birmingham Award, and Bursaries for Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and the Cork County Council. He has also been shortlisted for many other awards both in Ireland and abroad, including the Seán Ó Faoláin Award, the Glimmer Train Prize, the Faulkner-Wisdom Prize and – on four occasions – the RTÉ/P.J. O'Connor Radio Drama Award. In addition, one of his stories was selected, in 2014, as Ireland's representative in the ongoing UNESCO Cities of Literature project.[15]

“I know of no writer on either side of the Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy O’Callaghan. The stories in The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind are at once harrowing and uplifting, achingly sad and surpassingly beautiful. O’Callaghan is a treasure of the English language.”

— Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, [16]

“The elegant force of Billy O’Callaghan’s prose is immediate and impossible to recover from. He is one of Ireland’s finest short story writers.”

— Simon Van Booy, Frank O’Connor Award-winning author of Love Begins in Winter, [17]

Bibliography

Short story collections

  • In Exile (2008)
  • In Too Deep (2009)
  • The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind (2013)

Non-fiction

  • Learning from the Greats: Lessons on Writing, from the Great Writers (2014)

Novel

  • The Dead House (2017)

References

  1. ↑ "Writing.ie Short Story of the Year".
  2. ↑ "Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award Winners". The Sunday Independent. 2 December 2013.
  3. ↑ "Irish Book Award Winners".
  4. ↑ McClements, Freya (24 January 2009). "PAPERBACKS". The Irish Times.
  5. ↑ "Billy O'Callaghan, Mercier Press".
  6. ↑ Van Booy, Simon. "In Too Deep Review". The Stinging Fly, Issue 15, Vol. 2.
  7. ↑ "No escape from reality in atmospheric fictions". The Irish Examiner. 23 November 2013.
  8. ↑ McLaughlin, Danielle. "The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind". Southword.
  9. ↑ "RTÉ Radio 1: The Book On One".
  10. ↑ "Learning From The Greats" (PDF).
  11. ↑ "Cork City Library publications".
  12. ↑ "Billy O'Callaghan | Author Rights Agency".
  13. ↑ Announcement of Ploughshares Solo | Twitter
  14. ↑ Costa Short Story Award
  15. ↑ "Down by the River eftir Billy O'Callaghan". Archived from the original on 24 March 2015.
  16. ↑ "The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind".
  17. ↑ "The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind".
  • "Billy O'Callaghan". Retrieved 21 May 2016. Official website
  • Learning From The Greats
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