Luke Cassidy: In Conversation with Jan Carson

We are delighted to welcome writer Luke Cassidy who will be in conversation with Jan Carson in conversation talking about Luke’s highly anticipated debut novel Iron Annie. 

This novel is a breakneck journey that crackles with energy, warmth and heart, and marks the arrival of a fresh and vibrant new voice in literary fiction. Luke will also talk about his adaptation of the novel for the stage, which he will tour this Autumn.

Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart and From a Low and Quiet Sea says about Iron Annie: "What an exquisite novel Iron Annie is. The narrative voice fair crackles: it’s full of wonder, grit, insight, sadness and joy, and is quite beautiful. And Aoife is one of those fictional characters that arrives only once or twice in an age, sublimely rendered and completely unforgettable." 

About the author

Luke Cassidy is a writer from Dundalk. Iron Annie, will be published by Bloomsbury Books in the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth in September 2021, and by Vintage Books in the USA and Canada in January 2022. 

This Autumn, the Iron Annie Literary Cabaret, a spectacle of spoken word, music and art will visit some twenty theatres across Ireland. He is currently working on a follow-up to Iron Annie, a second novel set in the same fictitious underworld of Dundalk. 

Luke has also contributed a short story, A Good Turn, to the New Island Books anthology of writing from the Irish border region, the New Frontier, which will be published in September 2021. 

Prior to writing Iron Annie, Luke worked in various domains that have nothing to do with writing, including construction, research and hospitality. 

Jan Carson is a writer whose books include Malcolm Orange Disappears (2014), Children's Children (2016), Postcard Stories (2017), and The Fire Starters, which won the EU Prize for Literature in 2019 along with her latest collection of short stories, The Last Resort. Born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, she lives in Belfast, where she runs arts events for the elderly.