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Monday, September 18, 2017

Over The Edge Culture Night Open-Mic at Kenny’s Bookshop & Gallery



Over The Edge is holding two special Culture Night open-mics - one for fiction writers, the other for poets - with prizes for the best readers, at Kennys Bookshop and Gallery in Liosbán Retail Park on Friday, September 22nd.
The open-mic for fiction writers starts at 3.30pm. Participants should bring along two pages of a story to read. The reading will include a guest appearance from Kevin Doyle who will be reading from his recently published short story collection Do You Like Oranges?
Kevin Doyle
The open-mic for poets starts at 5.45pm. Participants should bring along two poems to read. The reading will include guest appearances from Australian poets Catherine Bateson and Jane Williams
Catherine Bateson
The evening will be MC’d by Kevin Higgins and both open-mics will feature readings from their long-listed stories and poems by some of the writers on the long list for the 2017 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, for which Kenny’s is one of the sponsors.

This reading is open to all. If you have a poem or story you want to share, come along.
About our special guests: 

Kevin Doyle won the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award in 2016, in the same year his eBook collection Do You Like Oranges? won top prize in Ireland’s inaugural ‘indie’ book awards, The Carousel Book Awards. The Worms That Saved The World, an illustrated kids book about a community of earthworm who fight to save their home from a luxury golf course was published in May; Noam Chomsky has described the book as ‘charming’.  His short stories have been published in Cork Literary Review, Stinging Fly, Southwords, Burning BushCúirt Journal, Duality, Liblit and Sunday Tribune.  His work has also been included in anthologies such as Irish Writers Against War (Dublin, 2003), Pulse Fiction (London, 1998) and Snapshots (London, 1999) as well as Cork millennium collection, An Gob Saor.  He has been shortlisted for many prizes (including Over The Edge, 2010) and has won top placings in the Ian St James Short Story Award, Kilkenny Prize, Tipperary Short Story Weekend Prize and the Highlands and Islands Short Story Award.  His work was described by the late Patrick Galvin as ‘terse and original’.  He blogs regularly on Irish and radical politics at http://www.kfdoyle.wordpress.com  . He has read on a number of occasions at the Frank O’Connor International Festival of the Short Story.

Catherine Bateson is an award-winning poet and writer for children and young adults. She has three poetry collections published, including, Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009. She has also had three verse novels for young adults published with University of Queensland Press. Her poetry has been widely anthologised. She has also published over a dozen books for children and young adults and twice won the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year, Younger Readers. Her latest book for young adults, Lisette’s Paris Notebook was published early in 2017 by Allen & Unwin.  She is currently working on both a new poetry collection and a new book for younger readers. Catherine has taught creative writing for the past thirteen years, and has been a guest writer at many schools. Her work has been read on radio and featured on television. She has also appeared at various poetry and writers festivals throughout Australia.
Jane Williams
Jane Williams was born in England in 1964 to an Irish father and Australian mother. She lives in Tasmania, Australia. Since the early 1990s her poems have been published in most major Australian literary journals and newspapers, in anthologies, and online in countries including Ireland, USA, Canada, England, Japan, Sweden and India. She has been a featured reader at reading venues and festivals around Australia and in Ireland, England, Canada, USA, Malaysia, Czech Republic and Slovakia where she held a three month residency at the Bridge Guard Residency in Sturovo in 2016. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from Canberra University. Jane has published six collections of poetry, most recently 2013 Days Like These - selected and new poems, published by Interactive Press.

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