DBF After Dark Festival Club: Greatest Story Ever Told Jess Raymon, Emily Cooper with Brendan MacEvilly and Peter McNamara
What story would you tell people if asked to deliver your best? What yarn or anecdote from your own life are you certain would captivate an audience? Join Holy Show’s Brendan MacEvilly and Peter McNamara as they invite four writers – Jess Raymon, Emily Cooper, John Patrick McHugh and Declan Toohey – to tell their greatest true story in roughly 5 minutes (one they’d probably never commit to print), with time for conversations about the stories we tell on and off the page, and breaks for chats and drinks.
This is an 18+ event.
© Samantha Andrades
Jess Raymon moved to Dublin in 2015 from Montreal. She was awarded Arts Council bursaries in 2019 and 2020 and is finishing a collection of fluid-themed short stories, as well as a novel. Her short story ‘The Understudy’ is published in Winter Papers volume 7.
Emily Cooper is a poet and writer based in Donegal. Her poetry and prose has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, Winter Papers and London Magazine, among others. A 2019 recipient of the Arts Council Next Generation Award, Emily’s poetry debut, Glass, was published by Makina Books in 2021. She is also editor for The Pig’s Back literary journal.
© Birgit Jung
Brendan Mac Evilly is co-editor of Holy Show. He is the author of At Swim: A Book About the Sea, and his debut novel, Deep Burn, is forthcoming with Marrowbone Books in 2025. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, the Honest Ulsterman, the Guardian, the Irish Times, and Sunday Times. He is the 2024 selection for the ‘Emerging Curator Development Programme’ at Kilkenny Arts Office, and also coordinates the IWC’s National Mentoring Programme.
Peter McNamara is a writer from Dublin. He won 2nd prize in the 2018 RTÉ Short Story competition in memory of Francis MacManus, and has won numerous bursaries from the Arts Councils of Ireland and Northern Ireland. His work has appeared in the Stinging Fly and has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. He co-edits Holy Show magazine.
The DBF After Dark strand is supported by The Night-Time Economy Advisor: Dublin City Council.
