23 April,
Non-Fiction / Panel /
Tolka Presents: The Writer’s Voice
Thursday, 23 April 2026, 1:00pm
The Mick Lally Theatre / Free
Book NowTolka, a literary journal that publishes ‘formally promiscuous’ non-fiction, talks to three writers about voice: John Patrick McHugh, Maija Makela and Declan Toohey. In pieces written for Tolka, John Patrick McHugh considers the voices in his head when writing and when playing football, Maija Makela searches for ghostly voices while on a haunted writer’s residency, and Declan Toohey spends an afternoon housesitting and wonders if the voice in his head is really him at all.
John Patrick is from Galway. His work has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Tolka, Winter Papers, Banshee and The Tangerine and been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He is the author of the short story collection Pure Gold and the novel Fun and Games.
Maija is from Galway. She writes poetry, fiction and criticism, which has been published in Tolka, The Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Irish Times, Berlin Lit and numerous other places. She spent most of her twenties working as a widely acclaimed musician. Now she co-edits the experimental literary journal, fallow, and is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin.
Declan Toohey is from County Kildare. He is the author of Perpetual Comedown, a novel.
