Truth Be Told: Sue Divin in Conversation with Mícheál McCann

We are delighted to welcome to the Festival award-winning Young Adult novelist Sue Divin who will be in conversation with Irish poet Mícheál McCann on Sue’s latest novel Truth Be Told, published April 2022 (Macmillan).  The compelling narrative, in this latest novel from the author of Guard Your Heart, centres on two teens from very different backgrounds who come face-to-face at a residential; Tara, the Catholic daughter of a two-generation single-parent family, and Faith, the daughter of strict Evangelical Protestants from Armagh.  

Set in both Derry and rural Armagh, with juxtapositions ranging from class divides, religious divides and complex family relations affected by the legacy of the Troubles, Sue introduces the very real internal conflicts of identity and faith in two young women as they navigate the tricky path of growing up. 

Sue Divin is a Derry-based writer, with Armagh roots. With a Master's in Peace and Conflict Studies and a career in Community Relations, her writing often touches on diversity, reconciliation, borders and the legacy of the Troubles today. Her début novel, Guard Your Heart (Macmillan 2021), won the Great Reads Award (Ireland) in 2022 and is Carnegie listed. Her short stories and flash fiction have been published in The Caterpillar, The Cormorant, The Honest Ulsterman, The Bangor Literary Journal and Splonk. Sue’s novels are widely read by both teenagers and adults.

Mícheál McCann is a poet from Derry. His poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review and bath magg. Kei Miller named him as one of ten unmissable emerging writers in the U.K. for the International Literature Showcase 2021. A pamphlet of poems, Keeper, is forthcoming from 14publishing in August 2022.