The Pig's Back
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thepigsback.bsky.social
The Pig's Back
@thepigsback.bsky.social
The Pig's Back is a literary journal based in Donegal. Edited by Dean Fee + Emily Cooper. Produced by the Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny.
Issue Seven of The Pig's Back is now available for pre-order. Featuring new writing from Sophie Corser, Wendy Erskine, Rosa Mäkelä, Dara McWade, Laura Morris, Nicole Morris and Odrán Waldron.
October 21, 2025 at 5:08 PM
"I was seventeen years old, pale as pasta water and about to carry out what would become the most elaborate sting operation ever seen in the history of Xtra-Vision video rental, main street, Tipperary Town, Ireland."
— Dove Sta Memoria: My Brain on Video Games, Paul Whyte
July 9, 2025 at 1:57 PM
"Peter had told me they couldn’t get you off the mountain—something about money, and you being too heavy. I didn’t get it. I remembered how he used to pick you up like you were a sack of potatoes."
— Snow White, Kathy Stevens
June 30, 2025 at 4:47 PM
"The woman at reception smiles like nothing bad has ever happened to her. She leads us around the retreat centre with such pride that you would think she built it with her bare hands."
— Saturn Return, Kerry Mahony
June 10, 2025 at 11:47 AM
"Though Martin often watches home improvement shows and Netflix documentaries about bludgeoned women in bed on his laptop, he doesn’t believe there is any place for a television in an adult’s apartment."
— 'I could not have written this without you' by Sam Furlong.
May 28, 2025 at 1:07 PM
'My father had said a lot of quotable things over his lifetime: 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑑, or 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑝𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑑. “None of these are head stone appropriate,” I said to him.'
— from Land Eats You by Laura Fitzgerald
May 19, 2025 at 2:08 PM
"He thought Susan was a good girl, but foolish and in need of protection. He remembered her appearance on the day he arrested her: sweating, pale and aching in the septic ward of the Sparkhill Women’s Hospital."
— 'I am not going to punish you', Máiréad Enright.
April 28, 2025 at 1:42 PM
"I know that it's safer for children to walk to and from school in daylight; that there might be tear gas and harassment, but there are also witnesses. In the dark, it is more difficult to see, the soldiers and settlers are less watched and children can go missing."
April 14, 2025 at 2:39 PM
🐷 Issue Six 🐷 is back from the printers and will be dropping in through letterboxes and into the best bookshops in the next few days.

Featuring new work from Emily Iseult Duggan, Máiréad Enright, Laura Fitzgerald, Sam Furlong, Kerry Mahony, Kathy Stevens and Paul Whyte.
April 1, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Issue Six of The Pig's Back is now available for pre-order. Featuring essays and fiction from Emily Iseult Duggan, Máiréad Enright (@maireadenright.bsky.social), Laura Fitzgerald, Sam Furlong (@samfurlong.bsky.social), Kerry Mahony, Kathy Stevens (@kathystevens91.bsky.social) and Paul Whyte.🐷 Link 👇
March 4, 2025 at 2:13 PM
"We look comical together, Kenny and I. He looks like Father Karras, the priest in The Exorcist, only better looking. Smiling but serious. I look like a reject from Good Charlotte."
— The Woman in the Water, Gary Grace (@gary-grace.bsky.social)
December 2, 2024 at 1:50 PM
"For the pop star, happiness was not a philosophical state of being, but rather a kind of fleeting physical sensation, something like the lack of worry, or more accurately, maybe, the absence of irritation."
—The Pop Star, Alexandra Ye
November 26, 2024 at 1:26 PM
We're pleased to announce Issue Four of The Pig's Back. Featuring writing from Lucy Holme, Ella Gaynor, Eamon McGuinness, Shane Murphy, Nathan O'Donnell, Sarah Pazur and Kathryn Scanlan. Now available for pre-order. Link below! 🐷
November 4, 2023 at 11:13 AM