New from award-winning novelist Jan Carson, Few and Far Between tells the story of an island sanctuary on Lough Neagh, a utopia where people can be free of the prejudices and history of Troubles era Northern Ireland. But sometimes utopia is not all that it seems… 

Join Jan to discuss her magically surreal novel in conversation with Heather Parry, author of the contemporary Gothic novel Carrion Crow.

“Jan Carson's understanding of, and love for, complicated human people is unmatched in contemporary literature” – Heather Parry

Meet the writers

Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024 and Scribner (US) in July 2024. Her writing has been aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE. She is the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast 2025 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit has been produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between is forthcoming in April 2026.

Heather Parry is a Glasgow-based writer and editor. Her debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. Her first nonfiction book, Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism, was longlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing, and in 2025 The Skinny named her as one of the Next Generation of Scottish Writers. She is the commissioning editor of the literary magazine Extra Teeth, and writes the Substack general observations on eggs.