In conversation with Emma Kane, James Simpson discusses his new book 'What Peter Knew.'

The odds are stacked against young Peter Curry and his stunningly-beautiful mother Vivienne in nineteen-fifties Belfast. The city rises from the Blitz, but they continue to live off grid in a disused railway carriage. Increasingly concerned about their precarious situation and Vivienne’s deteriorating mental health, Peter steps up to be her protector. But it’s a complex adult world of bigotry and fundamentalism he enters. When crisis looms, his hormones are racing as he’s called upon to meet the biggest challenge of his life.

Brought up in East Belfast and Banbridge James Simpson was highly commended in The Moth Short Story Competition 2026 for his story Different Walls. What Peter Knew (Colmcille Press) follows his short story collection Smokes and Birds, and Derry novel True Colours. He has been runner up in the Francis McManus Short Story Competition and a winning Irish Novel Fair Finalist. His Irish Civil War story Lambs in the Fields received special mention in the Michael McLaverty Short Story Competition. In 2025 his Ulster Covenant Play The Spider and the Fly was read in Derry’s Wee Theatre. He has been shortlisted twice for the Carousel Aware Prize for anthology and novel respectively and has been published in The Honest Ulsterman His work has been supported by Derry City and Strabane District Council and by the Arts Council of N Ireland. A founder member of Derry’s This Writing Thing, he is currently tutor to the Five Road Ends Creative Writing Group in Kilcronaghan, County Derry. He holds an M A Creative Writing with distinction from the Heaney Centre, Queen's.

Emma Kane is a freelance writer and story consultant currently under contract as a script reader with NI Screen. Obtaining a distinction in the MA Creative Writing at QUB in 2023, she was selected as a Script Editor for the highly competitive Greenlight Screenwriting Lab Ireland in 2024. An alumni of John Yorke’s Story for Script Development, she has worked as a Script Editor for Deadpan Pictures, Fibin Films and Danu Media. Her credits include Fibin Film’s Mourning Glory, and an independent short entitled Calling Gloria. She was a mentor for the BFI Screenwriting Lab 2025 at Magee University. Commissioned to write for Big Telly Theatre in 2025, Judy’s House is a short interactive film made in support of the EVAWG campaign. Petty Sessions is an audio visual experience which will soon be available for purchase at Bushmills Courthouse. Emma’s work has been published in print, broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of the Shortwork’s series.

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