Jan Carson in conversation with Elaine Canning - Swansea

Jan Carson, author of the new collection, Quickly, While they Still Have Horses, will be in conversation with Elaine Canning, author of The Sandstone City and editor of Maggie O'Farrell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (Bloomsbury).
The dazzling new collection from the multi-award-winning author of The Raptures, Quickly, While they Still Have Horses; bold, tender, surprising stories of youth and innocence, age and experience – and all the spaces in between.

In sixteen sparkling stories, Jan Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real enough to touch. All of life is here: the thrill of growing up, the grief when youth is over; first love, mature love, parenthood and loss - all shot through with profound compassion, warm wit, and boundless imagination.
JAN CARSON is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, was published in 2014 to critical acclaim, followed by a short-story collection, Children's Children (2016), and two flash fiction anthologies, Postcard Stories (2017) and Postcard Stories 2 (2020). Her second novel, The Fire Starters (2019), won the EU Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Novel of the Year Award and her third novel, The Raptures (2022) was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She has won the Harper's Bazaar short-story competition and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, the An Post Irish Short Story of the Year, and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. She specializes in running arts projects and events with older people, especially those living with dementia.
Praise for Jan Carson

‘Absolutely MAGNIFICENT: dark, witty, charming. I LOVED IT’ – Marian Keyes

‘Original and exciting, terrifying and hilarious’ – Sunday Times

‘Heart-rending, hilarious…it’s a belter’ – Louise Kennedy

‘Jan Carson is a born storyteller: her work is so imaginative, whimsical, mischievous and brave, but tender and curious too…reading her is always an adventure’ – Lisa McInerney

‘Blistering…glorious…written from the guts and from the heart’ – Lucy Caldwell

‘Pure magic, funny, sharp, heartbreaking, the short form at its absolute best’ – Donal Ryan

‘Compassionate and meticulously observed’ – Guardian

‘A fascinating tale of trauma, fury and panic’ – Independent

Host or Publisher Waterstones