Marketplace Theatre, Armagh

Tickets £10 - Book here

A unique opportunity to hear two new local writers discuss their debut books with the Belfast writer, Jan Carson, author of the novels, The Fire Starters and The Raptures.

Michael Magee’s visceral debut novel, Close to Home, is an extraordinary work of fiction about deciding what kind of a man you want to be and finding your place in the scarred city of Belfast you call home. It is a luminous and devastating portrait of modern masculinity, as shaped by class, trauma, and silence, but also by the courage to love and to survive.According to Martin Doyle in The Irish Times, Close to Home is “an exceptional debut destined for novel of the year shortlists”.

Priscilla Morris is the daughter of a Yugoslav mother and a Cornish father and she grew up in London, spending summers in Sarajevo. Her timely and moving debut novel, Black Butterflies, shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RLS Ondaatje Prize and the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, captures life inside the Siege of Sarajevo through the eyes of Zora, an artist and teacher who is floundering at the midpoint of her life.