2011 Cúirt Over The Edge Showcase reading with Sarah Clancy, Nicola Griffin, Paul Casey PLUS Cúirt New Writing Prize Winners

2011 Cúirt Over The Edge Showcase Reading

Wednesday, April 13th, 3.30pm

Druid Lane Theatre
All welcome

The 2011 Cúirt Over The Edge showcase reading takes place as part of this year's Cúirt International Festival of Literature at the Druid Lane Theatre, Galway on Wednesday, April 13th, 3.30pm. The writers showcased this year are Sarah Clancy, Nicola Griffin &  Paul Casey. The reading will be introduced by regular Over The Edge host, Susan Millar DuMars.

This event has grown since its inception in 2006 to become one of Ireland's premier platforms for showcasing new poets and fiction writers. Participating writers have previously been Featured Readers at Ireland's most successful reading series, the Over The Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library. This year the three winners of the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2011 (to be announced) will read with the Over The Edge writers. The Cúirt New Writing Prize is kindly sponsored by Tígh Neactain in memory of Lena Maguire. http://www.galwayartscentre.ie/cuirt/literature/118.html

Sarah Clancy is from Salthill. She is a participant in the Galway Arts Centre Poetry Workshops facilitated by Kevin Higgins. This year, in a display of what she describes as beginners luck, Sarah was shortlisted in the poetry section of the WOW awards, the Listowel Writers Week Collection of Poetry Competition and the Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition. Her poems feature in Behind The Masks, a publication of work by participants in the advanced poetry workshop at Galway Arts Centre. A collection of her poems, Stacy and The Mechanical Bull, was published recently by Lapwing Press. Sarah was a Featured Reader at the August 2010 Over The Edge: Open Reading. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/2010/08/august-over-edge-open-reading-with.html

Nicola Griffin grew up in Cheshire in the North West of England and studied Psychology and Sociology at the University of Keele in Staffordshire. She has lived in East Clare since 1997. She writes poetry, non-fiction and fiction, is a graduate of the MA in Writing at NUIG and a participant in the Advanced Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre. She has a regular column in Inland Waterways News and her poetry has recently been published in Ropes Unravelled, The Sunday Tribune, The Stinging Fly, Behind The Masks, Crannóg and Nthposition.com. Nicola won the poetry section in the 2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition. She was a Featured Reader at the September 2010 Over The Edge: Open Reading. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-over-edge-open-reading-with.html

Paul Casey was born in Cork in 1968. He has lived in a number of countries in Europe and Africa working mostly in film, multimedia and teaching. Paul taught scriptwriting at the Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. He now organises the weekly Ó Bhéal poetry event in Cork city. His poetry and reviews have appeared in a number of Irish journals including THE SHOp, Revival, Cork Literary Review, Southword and Census. A chapbook of Paul’s longer poems, It’s Not All Bad, was published by Heaventree Press in May 2009. In June 2010 he completed a poetry-film, The Lammas Hireling, which has been accepted for Berlin’s biennial Zebra International Poetry-Film festival. Paul is working towards his first full collection. He was a Featured Reader at the March 2010 Over The Edge: Open Reading. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/2010/03/poet-and-fiction-writer-mary-odonnell.html

The winners of this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize are Celeste Augé (fiction), Marie Cadden (poetry) and Hedy Gibbons (memoir).

Celeste Augé was born in Canada but came to live in Galway when she was twelve years old. She writes both fiction and poetry, and is currently working on a manuscript of short stories as well as her second poetry collection. In 2009, she was short-listed for a Hennessy Literary Award for poetry. She lives in County Galway with her husband and young son. Celeste was a Featured Reader at the February 2004 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Marie Cadden lives in Spiddal, Co. Galway. Until 2007, she was a teacher of the deaf and children with autism. Her poems have been published in The Recorder (USA), THE SHOp, ROPES, Revival, Boyne Berries, Galway Arts Centre Advanced Poetry Workshop anthology Lady Gregory’s Townhouse, 2009, and Behind the Masks, 2010 (co-editor). She was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year 2010 and in the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award 2009, and also shortlisted for Cuirt /Over the Edge Showcase Readings in 2010 and 2011. Marie was a Featured Reader at the February Over The Edge: Open Reading. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/2009/02/patrick-kavanagh-award-winner-for.html

A native of Cork, Hedy Gibbons has lived in Galway for thirty years. Formerly a mid-wife, latterly a counselling psychologist, now an aspiring writer, for the past twelve years she has been writing short prose and poetry. Much of her work has been broadcast on RTE’s Sunday Miscellany and Lyric FM’s Quiet Quarter, and published in their subsequent anthologies. A chapter from her memoir has been published in County Lines (New Island, 2006). Her poetry has been published in Divas! A Sense of Place (Arlen House, 2005) and Ropes – In Knots (NUIG, 2007), and has been short-listed for a number of awards. She was shortlisted for the 2009 Cúirt Over The Edge Showcase reading. Hedy was a Featured Reader at the March 2008 Over The Edge: Open Reading. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/2008/03/american-novelist-michael-strelow-at.html

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing support of Galway City Library, Galway City Council, The Arts Council and The Cúírt Festival of International Literature.

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