How do you begin the process of selecting pieces for an anthology? What motivates editors to pick and choose from an embarrassment of contemporary writing styles each as good as the next? Join us as founding editor of The Stinging Fly, Declan Meade, gives us a deeper insight into the anthology, discussing the pieces in it with literary editor Madeleine Keane.

Declan Meade is founding editor and publisher of The Stinging Fly literary magazine, which he established in Dublin in 1997. He has edited several other anthologies, including These Are Our Lives (2006), Let’s Be Alone Together (2008), Beyond The Centre (2016), Stinging Fly Stories (with Sarah Gilmartin, 2018), and The Writer’s Torch (with Phyllis Boumans and Elke D’hoker, 2023).

Madeleine Keane is the Literary Editor of the Sunday Independent. She lectures on writing at UCD and the Irish Writers’ Centre. She is the Chair of Children’s Books Ireland.