2015 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2015 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Louis de Paor, Sarah Clancy, Gerry Hanberry, Edward O’Dwyer, Edward O’Dwyer, Celeste Augé, Mary Madec, the Amach! LGBT anthology of poetry and creative writing anthology, Quincy Lehr, Kevin Higgins, The Hundred Years’ War: Modern War Poems (Bloodaxe, edited by Neil Astley), Jean Kavanagh, and Tom Duddy will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 13^th  at 6.30pm.

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets, who published a new collection of poems during 2014, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be a reading from Tom Duddy’s posthumously published poetry collection The Years (HappenStance Press); short readings from the anthologies Amach! LGBT anthology of poetry and creative writing, & The Hundred Years’ War: Modern War Poems; and a special guest appearance from the fiction anthology Noir by Noir West (published by Arlen House, edited by James Martyn Joyce).

All welcome. There is no cover charge. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of The Arts Council, Poetry Ireland and Galway City Council.

February Over The Edge: Open Reading with Christine Valters Paintner, Erin Fornoff & Julian Gough

The February ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, February 26^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Julian Gough, Erin Fornoff & Christine Valters Paintner. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are especially welcome. 

Christine Valters Paintner is the online Abbess of a virtual monastery called Abbey of the Arts leading retreats and pilgrimages with her husband John of twenty years. She is the author of eight nonfiction books on spirituality and creativity including The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom. Christine is an American living in Galway, where she actually adores winter and the rain, never tires of finding more monastic ruins, and has found Ireland to be a wondrous poetic muse.

Appalachian born, Dublin-based poet Erin Fornoff has performed her poetry at Glastonbury, Electric Picnic, and dozens of other festivals and events across the UK and Ireland. In 2013 she was featured at Farmleigh House' "New Voices' alongside Hozier, came in third at the Strokestown Poetry Awards, and won the StAnza Slam. She has been published in The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, New Planet Cabaret, Cyphers, and many others. In 2014 she was selected for the 2014 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series and became Artistic Director for Lingo, Ireland's first ever spoken word festival. In the coming months she will open for Hollie McNish on her Ireland tour. She is working on a novel. 

Julian Gough is an award winning author who first shot to fame in the 1980s when, as a student at University College Galway, he was leader singer and lyricist with alternative rockband Toasted Heretic. He won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2007 and his The iHole was shortlisted for the one-off BBC International Short Story Award in 2012. He has also been shortlisted, twice, for the Everyman Bollinger Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. He represented Ireland in Best European Fiction 2010; won a Pushcart Prize in the US in 2011; and represented Britain in Best British Short Stories 2012. He is the author of three novels, Juno & Juliet, Jude in Ireland, and Jude in London; two radio plays, The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble, and The Great Squanderland Roof; and a poetry collection, Free Sex Chocolate. In 2011, he wrote the ending to Time Magazine’s computer game of the year, Minecraft. In July 2013 his Kindle Single CRASH! went to number one in the UK Kindle Single chart in the week of its release. London born and Irish raised, Julian now lives in Berlin. 

Julian Gough

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome at the open-mic. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland & The Arts Council.

January Over The Edge: Open Reading with Paula Cunningham, Michelle Coyne, & Liz Quirke

The January ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, January 22^nd, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Liz Quirke, Michelle Coyne, & Paula Cunningham. This reading marks the twelfth anniversary of the first Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library. 

Paula Cunningham was born in Omagh and lives in Belfast where she works as a dentist. Her chapbook A Dog called Chance was a winner in The Poetry Business Competition in 1999.   She has also written drama and short fiction.  Her first full-length poetry collection Heimlich's Manoeuvre, Smith/Doorstop 2013, was shortlisted for the Fenton-Aldeburgh, Seamus Heaney Centre, and Strong Shine First Collection Prizes.

Michelle Coyne has been writing intermittently since she learned to pick up a pencil, but began in earnest in January 2012. She lives in Galway with her husband and two small boys, and works with computer software for pay during the week, the commute providing ample time for working out sticky plot points. Last year, after the birth of her second son, Michelle enrolled in Susan’s intermediate writing class, and is currently taking the advanced class to help hammer her debut novel into shape.  Michelle has had short stories published in Ropes, Crannóg, wordlegs and Silver Apples, and was Long listed for the 2014 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award.

Liz Quirke lives in Spiddal, Co Galway with her partner and daughter. Her poems have been published in Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, The Galway Review, Boyne Berries, Revival Literary Journal, Skylight 47 and The Poetry Bus. She has been both shortlisted and longlisted in the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Competition in 2012 and 2014 respectively. She won the 2012 Edmund Spenser Poetry Competition at the Doneraile Literary and Arts Festival. One of her poems was nominated for consideration for the 2014 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland, & The Arts Council.