ONE OF the most exciting new voices in Irish fiction is Galway based writer Nicole Flattery, whose debut short story collection, Show Them A Good Time, was recently acquired as part of a six figure UK deal.
Show Them A Good Time explores the assigned roles and work to which modern society expects men and women to conform. It also includes the story, 'Track' which won the 2018 White Review Short Story Prize. It has also been published in The Stinging Fly, Dublin Review, The Irish Times, and Winter Papers, and was featured on BBC Radio 4.
The collection is published in Ireland by The Stinging Fly Press, who first published Kevin Barry, Mary Costello, Danielle McLaughlin, and Guardian First Book award winner Colin Barrett. It will be officially launched by acclaimed writer Lisa McInerney, in Dubray Books, Shop Street, on Thursday March 7 at 6.30pm.
'Her short stories are urgent, disorientating, and full of a kind of humour that opens up emotions and experiences normally at odds with anything funny'
Bloomsbury's publishing director Alexis Kirschbaum, and fiction director Liese Mayer, bought the world English rights for Show Them A Good Time - which it will publish in Britain in March - and also for her novel, Nothing Special, in a six-figure pre-empt. Nothing Special, due for publication in 2021, follows two 18-year-old girls in New York who transcribe tapes at Andy Warhol’s Factory. It will explore voyeurism, language, addiction, naivety and the divide between our public and private selves.
“Nicole Flattery is an author I’ve followed for some time now," said Kirschbaum. "Her short stories are urgent, disorientating, and full of a kind of humour that opens up emotions and experiences normally at odds with anything funny. She is a thrilling talent, and Bloomsbury is proud to be launching what we believe will be a long and impressive literary career.”
