May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents Poems for Patience winners & launch of poetry collection by Aoife Reilly

The May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry, including the launch of Aoife Reilly’s debut poetry collection.  There will also be readings by the winners of this year’s Poems for Patience competition, Lorna Shaughnessy and Marie Cadden, and American poets Ron Houchin and Art Stringer. The event will take place at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, May 12^th, 8pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Aoife Reilly

Aoife Reilly is originally from Laois, but has been living in Galway since 2012. She works as a psychotherapist and teacher and has been attending Kevin Higgins’s poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre since Autumn 2013. Aoife’s poetry has been published in Crannóg, Skylight 47, on the Poethead website, and in a wide variety of other poetry magazines recently. Aoife was a Featured Reader at the August 2015 Over The Edge: Open Reading and was also selected to read at the 2016 Cúirt Festival / Over The Edge New Writers’ Showcase. Her debut poetry collection Lilac and Gooseberries is just published by Lapwing Press.

Art Stringer is the author of the poetry collections Channel Markers (Wesleyan University Press), Human Costume (Salmon Poetry) and Late Breaking, also published by Salmon. His work has appeared in such journals as The Nation, Antaeus, The Ohio Review, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, and in Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia.  He also edited and introduced an edition of Louise McNeill’s Paradox Hill (West Virginia University Press). For twenty-five years, he taught writing and literature at Marshall University. Art will be reading from his new poetry collection which is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Lorna Shaughnessy was born in Belfast and lives in Co. Galway, Ireland. She has published three poetry collections, Torching the Brown River, Witness Trees, & Anchored (Salmon, 2008, 2011, & 2015), and her work was selected for the Forward Book of Poetry, 2009. She is also a translator of Spanish and South American Poetry. Her most recent translation was of poetry by Galician writer Manuel Rivas, The Disappearance of Snow (Shearsman Press, 2012), which was shortlisted for the UK Poetry Society’s 2013 Popescu Prize for translation. She lectures in Spanish and Creative Writing in NUI, Galway. Lorna is the joint winner of this year’s Poems for Patience competition for her poem ‘The Dual Citizen’ which is now framed and displayed in University Hospital Galway.

Ron Houchin was born in San Diego, California, and raised from the age of three in Huntington, West Virginia.  He comes from a family of factory workers, coal miners, and farmers who have always lived in Appalachia. For thirty years he taught in an Ohio public school in the southernmost tip of Ohio. The Quiet Jars, a new and selected poetry collection, was published in 2013 by Salmon Publishing and a short story collection, Tales Out Of School, was published, also in 2013, from Wind Publications of Kentucky. Ron lives in a haunted house, built by the grandson of an ex-slave, on the banks of the Ohio River. He will be reading from his latest poetry collection which is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Marie Cadden lives in Spiddal, Co. Galway. Her acclaimed debut poetry collection Gynaecologist in The Jacuzzi was published last year by Salmon Poetry. Winner of the Cuirt 2011 New Writing Prize for Poetry,  Runner-Up 2012 Westport Arts Festival Poetry Prize,  Third Prize 2012 Francis Ledwidge Poetry Competition.   Shortlisted for Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition 2012, Bradshaw Books/Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition 2011, Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award 2010. Her poems have been published in The Recorder (USA), THE SHOp, ROPES, Revival, Boyne Berries, and the anthologies Mosaic (2011), and Lady Gregory's Townhouse (2009). A co-editor of “Ireland’s most interesting poetry magazine” Skylight 47, Marie is the joint winner of this year’s Poems for Patience competition for her poem ‘In Praise of Denial’ which is now framed and displayed in University Hospital Galway.                       

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

Over The Edge in association with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature presents the twelfth annual New Writing Showcase

Since its inception in 2006 the New Writing Showcase has grown to become one of the most important platforms for emerging writers in Ireland. This year’s Cúirt Over The Edge New Writing Showcase features three participants from the Over the Edge literary series in Galway – Rena Garrett, Eileen P Keane, & Una Mannion – and Paul Bregazzi, the winner of the Cúirt NewWriting Poetry Prize 2017. The MC for the event will be regular Over The Edge host Susan Millar DuMars. It takes place on Wednesday, April 26^th, 3pm, at The Town Hall Theatre. Entry is free of charge. All welcome.

 

Rena Garrett

Rena Garrett is a graduate MA in Writing student in NUIG. She has also participated in poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre. Her poetry has been published in The Moth Magazine, and Spontaneity.org and was shortlisted for the Galway Rape Crisis Centre Short Story Competition 2016. Rena was a Featured Reader at the August 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Eileen P Keane

Eileen P Keane is from North Connemara, Co. Galway. She last year completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway.  Eileen has written and performed for theatre and stage and her CD Spaces was released in 2014. She writes Poetry, Memoir and non-fiction. She is also a Singer/Songwriter and has performed at the: Electric Picnic, Lunasa Festival Sligo, and at the Clifden Arts Festival. Her songs have featured on RTE Radio and Television. Her poems appear in the latest edition of the Galway Review and her Flash Fiction was shortlisted for Allingham Festival 2015. Eileen was a Featured Reader at the March 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading. 

Una Mannion

Una Mannion teaches Performing Arts in IT Sligo. In March 2016, her poetry was published in the New Irish Writing page in The Irish Times and her fiction was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize. She won the Yeats' Society's Seamus Heaney Prize and came second place in Dromineer Flash Fiction 2015. She has been shortlisted in the Listowel, Bridport, Fish Memoir and other competitions. She recently completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway. She lives in Sligo with her husband and three children.  Una was a Featured Reader at the May 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading. Una won the Emerging Poetry Award at this year’s Hennessy Literary Awards and is also the winner of the Fiction section in this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize.

Paul Bregazzi

Paul Bregazzi is a Special Needs Teacher in West Dublin. His poetry has appeared widely and been anthologised on both sides of the Atlantic in Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, Skylight 47, Southword, The Stinging Fly, Magma (U.K),  Fields Magazine (Univ of Texas at Austin), The French Literary Review (Fr),  Thema (U.S.), The Ofi Press (Mexico). He has been shortlisted for the Bridport prize, the RSPB/Rialto Nature Poetry Competition and The Haiku Foundation U.S. Touchstone Awards. He won 2nd place in Magma (U.K.) Editors’ Short Poetry Prize and the Oliver Goldsmith International Poetry Competition. He is co-founder of the Dublin poetry group Listeners and was selected for Poetry Ireland’s Introduction Series 2015. Paul is the winner of the poetry section in this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of The Arts Council, Galway City Council, and Poetry Ireland, and our ongoing partnership with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature.