GALWAY STORIES: 2020 / EDITED BY ALAN MCMONAGLE & LISA FRANK
This anthology is a joy to read — stories that are tender, moving, disturbing. Surreal and elemental, too. Men and women traversing landscapes, inner and outer. Characters criss-crossing the city at night — accidental psycho-geographers mapping the soul of the city. Everyone, always, on the perpetual quest for home.
— Mary Costello, author of The River Capture
2020 / 288 pages / €15
ISBN: 978-1-907682-73-5
Cover art: Róisín Flaherty
(click to view cover)
Galway Stories: 2020
Edited by Alan McMonagle & Lisa Frank


LISA FRANK was born and raised in Los Angeles but lived in the Pacific Northwest for several years before moving to Ireland in 2007. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University and has published fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and screenplays. She has taught Creative Writing in a variety of settings and worked as a freelance editor for many years. In both 2015 and 2020 she was joint winner of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair and in 2016 she won second place in the Francis McManus Competition. She is also co-director of Doire Press.
About Galway Stories: 2020
Galway Stories: 2020, co-funded by the Arts Council and Galway 2020, is a collection of short fiction set throughout the neighbourhoods of the city and county, by writers who live, have lived, or who have a strong connection to Galway. In reading these stories you will be taken on a tour of the neighbourhoods, getting to know them through the words of the writers and the eyes of their characters. From the perfume counter at a chemist’s shop in Ballinasloe to the silver line separating the sea from the sky at Silver Strand Beach in Barna; from a barstool at Mick Taylor’s Pub in the city centre to the steps leading away from the pier where the ferryboats dock on Inisbofin. Some of the stories present vivid portraits of the neighbourhoods using specific landmarks and detail; others capture the spirit of the neighbourhoods and its people. Together the stories celebrate Galway and the people who live there.
Writers featured in Galway Stories: 2020 include: Celeste Augé, Niamh Boyce, Alan Caden, Aoife Casby, June Caldwell, Danny Denton, Elaine Feeney, Órla Foyle, Caoilinn Hughes, James Martyn Joyce, Hugo Kelly, Siobhán Mannion, Una Mannion, Aoibheann McCann, Patrick McCabe, Geraldine Mills, Nuala O’Connor, Micheál Ó Conghaile, Elizabeth Reapy and Moya Roddy.
The anthology also features photos and background information on each neighbourhood, as well as local listings and a map displaying where each of the stories takes place.
Photos and cover art by Róisín Flaherty; neighbourhood background information by Tom Kenny; and icons and map by Tríona Walsh.
LINKS TO ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
Alan McMonagle (co-editor) website
Lisa Frank (co-editor) website
Article in The Connacht Tribune
Trailer on youtube
Aoibheann McCann reading 'The Blow-In's Guide to Galway'
Celeste Augé reading 'DeeDee and the Sorrows'
Caoilinn Hughes reading 'I Ate it All and I Really Thought I Wouldn't'
Review in The Irish Times
Review in The Irish Examiner
Interview with June Caldwell and Patrick McCabe on RTE's Arena
Review in The Sunday Business Post
Review in The Independent
Review in the Dublin Review of Books
Review by Anne Cunningham
Reading at the Red Line Book Festival