The Stinging Fly Podcast

On this month’s episode of The Stinging Fly Podcast our poetry editor Annemarie Ní Churreáin is joined by Róisín Leggett Bohan, featured poet of ⁠Issue 54 Volume Two of The Stinging Fly magazine, to read from and discuss her work.

In their conversation, Annemarie and Róisín talk about the promise they find in poetry, growing up in large families and learning how to translate silences within them, how gratitude informs their life and writing, the benefits of being vulnerable and open, as well as the pleasure of dancing, its discipline on the body, and how 'body-popping' relates to the poetic line.

Róisín Leggett Bohan is a writer from Cork. She was the winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Award and Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Prize 2025. We Fall We Carry, Róisín’s award-winning chapbook, was published by Southword Editions in 2026. She is working on her first collection.

Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet from northwest Donegal. Her books include Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017), The Poison Glen (The Gallery Press, 2021) and Ghostgirl (Donegal County Archives, 2023). Her work has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (IRE) and for the Ledbury Hellens Best Second Collection (UK). She is a recipient of the Arts Council’s Next Generation Artist Award, The Markievicz Award, and a forthcoming 2025 Hawthornden Foundation Residency (NYC). Ní Churreáin is a former fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellowship (GR). Her writing for stage has appeared at the Abbey National Theatre of Ireland.  Her poetry has been toured widely through Ireland, Europe and America. She is the poetry editor at The Stinging Fly Magazine. www.studiotwentyfive.com
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Each month on The Stinging Fly Podcast,  we invite writers from the latest issue of the magazine to read and discuss their work. Previous episodes of the podcast ⁠⁠⁠can be found here⁠⁠⁠. The podcast’s theme music is ⁠⁠⁠‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan⁠⁠⁠. All of ⁠⁠⁠The Stinging Fly’s archive⁠⁠⁠ is available to ⁠⁠⁠subscribers.⁠
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On this month’s episode Nicole is joined by Tom Morris to read from and discuss his story ‘Notes on Contributors’ published in Issue 54 Volume Two of The Stinging Fly magazine.

In their conversation, Nicole and Tom talk about how writers discuss their writing routine and about the benefit of maintaining mystery and ambiguity in writing. They also discuss writing in the realm of the body rather than the realm of the intellect, trying to bring readers toward a feeling, and the importance of learning to develop and trust your own sense of taste as a writer.

Thomas Morris is the author of We Don’t Know What We’re Doing, and Open Up. His work has been rejected by The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, and The New Yorker. Originally from Caerphilly, South Wales, he lives in Dublin, where he worked for over a decade with The Stinging Fly.

Nicole Flattery⁠⁠ is a writer and critic. Her story collection ⁠⁠Show Them A Good Time⁠⁠, was published by The Stinging Fly and Bloomsbury in 2019. Her first novel, Nothing Special, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023.
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Each month on The Stinging Fly Podcast,  we invite writers from the latest issue of the magazine to read and discuss their work. Previous episodes of the podcast ⁠⁠can be found here⁠⁠. The podcast’s theme music is ⁠⁠‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan⁠⁠. All of ⁠⁠The Stinging Fly’s archive⁠⁠ is available to ⁠⁠subscribers.⁠

On this month’s episode, contributing editor Mia Gallagher is joined by June Caldwell to read from and discuss her story ‘Night of the Big Wind’ from Issue 53 Volume Two, the climate issue.
June Caldwell is twice a prize-winner of The Moth Short Story Prize (2024 & 2014) and a 2026 recipient of Writing Place, Writing Planet, with The UCD Mary Lavin Centre for Creative Writing and iCRAG Research Ireland Centre for Applied Geosciences. Her short story collection Room Little Darker was published in 2017 by New Island Books to critical acclaim and in 2018 by Head of Zeus, UK. Her debut novel is forthcoming.
Mia Gallagher was born in Dublin, where she still lives. She writes novels, short stories and essays and has also devised and written for theatre. Her books include the novels HellFire (Penguin, 2006) and Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (New Island, 2016) translated into Bulgarian in March 2026, and the short story collection Shift (New Island, 2018). Recent work includes Two Wheel Better? An essay for the Stinging Fly Climate Issue, and Great Beasts of Myth, a short story broadcast on RTÉ Radio. Mia is a contributing editor with The Stinging Fly and a member of Aosdána.
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Each month on The Stinging Fly Podcast,  we invite writers from the latest issue of the magazine to read and discuss their work. Previous episodes of the podcast ⁠⁠can be found here⁠⁠. The podcast’s theme music is ⁠⁠‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan⁠⁠. All of ⁠⁠The Stinging Fly’s archive⁠⁠ is available to ⁠⁠subscribers.⁠

On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by Ella Gaynor to read from and discuss her essay 'What About Rain?', published in the Winter 2025 issue of The Stinging Fly ⁠⁠Issue 53 Volume Two, the climate issue.
Nicole and Ella discuss the presence of weather in writing, how we think about and combat climate catastrophe, as well as pushing through doubt, writing about work, and occasionally finding characters in restaurants.
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Ella Gaynor is a writer & waiter. Her short stories, poetry & essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, The Pig’s Back & The Dublin Review. She has served tables in Dublin, Galway, Vienna, Amsterdam & New Zealand. She writes about work weekly her Substack ‘Tray Chic’.
Nicole Flattery⁠⁠ is a writer and critic. Her story collection ⁠⁠Show Them A Good Time⁠⁠, was published by The Stinging Fly and Bloomsbury in 2019. Her first novel, Nothing Special, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023.
– — –
Each month on The Stinging Fly Podcast,  we invite writers from the latest issue of the magazine to read and discuss their work. Previous episodes of the podcast ⁠⁠can be found here⁠⁠. The podcast’s theme music is ⁠⁠‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan⁠⁠. All of ⁠⁠The Stinging Fly’s archive⁠⁠ is available to ⁠⁠subscribers.⁠⁠

On this month’s episode, The Stinging Fly poetry editor Annemarie Ní Churreáin is joined by poets Simon Costello and Jane Robinson to read from and discuss their poems that appear in The Stinging Fly Issue 53 Volume Two, the climate issue.
Simon Costello is from Tullamore, Co. Offaly. His poetry has been published in The Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, bath magg, New England Review, The London Magazine, The North, The Moth, Magma, The Rialto, The Irish Times and RTÉ. He has been awarded first prize in The Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry (2024), Southword Editor’s Poetry Award (2023), The Rialto Nature Competition; Place Poetry Prize (2021). In 2021, he was highly commended in The Moth Poetry Prize. In 2024, his poetry chapbook Saturn Devouring was published by The Lifeboat Press. He is currently a Government of Ireland IRC Scholar and PhD candidate. He teaches at the Mary Lavin Centre/School of English in University College Dublin and also works for Granta magazine. He lives in Dublin.
Jane Robinson’s collections, Journey to the Sleeping Whale (Salmon, 2018) and Island and Atoll (Salmon, 2023), as well as other poems and essays, reflect her deep ecological awareness. With a doctorate in Biology from Caltech, Jane is also a recipient of the Shine-Strong and Strokestown Poetry awards. She lives in Dublin.
Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet from northwest Donegal. Her books include Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017), The Poison Glen (The Gallery Press, 2021) and Ghostgirl (Donegal County Archives, 2023). Her work has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (IRE) and for the Ledbury Hellens Best Second Collection (UK). She is a recipient of the Arts Council’s Next Generation Artist Award, The Markievicz Award, and a forthcoming 2025 Hawthornden Foundation Residency (NYC). Ní Churreáin is a former fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellowship (GR). Her writing for stage has appeared at the Abbey National Theatre of Ireland.  Her poetry has been toured widely through Ireland, Europe and America. She is the poetry editor at The Stinging Fly Magazine. www.studiotwentyfive.com
The Stinging Fly Podcast invites writers from the latest issue of The Stinging Fly to read and discuss their work. Previous episodes of the podcast ⁠⁠can be found here⁠⁠. The podcast’s theme music is ⁠⁠‘Sale of Lakes’, by Divan⁠⁠. All of the ⁠⁠Stinging Fly archive⁠⁠ is available to ⁠⁠subscribers.⁠⁠