2018 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2018 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Liz McSkeane,

Paddy Mhaemie Ó'Shuilleabháin, 

Karen McDonnell, Hugh Doyle, Aoife Reilly, Katherine Noone, Kevin Higgins, Nicki Griffin, Lorna Shaughnessy, Mary Madec, Ross Hattaway, Marion Cox, Bernie Crawford, Mari Maxwell, & Susan Lindsay and the  anthology Bosom Pals (Doire Press, Ed. Marie Cadden) will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 9^th at 6.30pm.

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets, who published a new collection of poems during 2017, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be readings from the anthology Bosom Pals (Doire Press, Ed. Marie Cadden), & a showcasing of 2017 publications by the new Irish poetry publisher Turas Press. 

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.

January Over The Edge: Open Reading as Over The Edge Celebrates Fifteenth Birthday with reading by Martina Evans, Edna Faye Kiel, & Nicola Geddes

The January ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, January 18^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Nicola Geddes, Edna Faye Kiel, & Martina Evans. This reading marks the fifteenth anniversary of the first Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library. 

Originally from Scotland, Nicola Geddes studied Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art, and Cello Performance at the London College of Music. She has been based in County Galway for the past twenty five years, where she works as a cellist and music tutor. To date her poetry has been published in Crannog, the Galway Review, and Skylight 47. In 2017 Nicola’s poems received a Special Commendation from the Patrick Kavanagh Award. 

Edna Faye Kiel has lived in Killaspuglonane, County Clare for many years but is originally from the United States. She writes fiction and has been a participant in both the North Clare Writers’ Workshop and Susan Millar DuMars’ advanced fiction writing classes. Edna’s work has been published in The Stoney Thursday Book, Stinging Fly, Books Ireland, The Cuirt Journal, and inCognito in Ireland; in Rosebud  and Ellipsis in the U.S.; London Magazine and Staple:New Writing in the U.K.; Jaam Tracks and Takahe in New Zealand; and imago and Famous Reporter in Australia. Edna is married to the poet Knute Skinner. In 2017 she was shortlisted for 2017 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year.

Martina Evans

Martina Evans was born in 1961, the youngest of ten children, and grew up in County Cork in a country pub, shop and petrol station. After training as a radiographer in Dublin she moved to London in 1988. Her first collection of poems, The Inniscarra Bar and Cycle Rest, appeared in 1995 and was followed by three further collections, All Alcoholics are Charmers (1998), Can Dentists Be Trusted? (2004) and Facing the Public (2009). She teaches Creative Writing at the City Literary Institute and Birkbeck College. She is also the author of three novels: Midnight Feast (1996), The Glass Mountain (1997), No Drinking No Dancing No Doctors (2000) and the prose-poem/novella Petrol (2012). The Windows of Graceland: New& Selected Poems was published by Carcanet, to wide critical and popular acclaim, in 2016; Martina’s next collection of poems Now We Can Talk Openly About Men will be out from Carcanet in May. She lives in London with her daughter.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially 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. 

N.B. we were delighted to learn just before Christmas that Over The Edge is to receive a more than 20% increase in its Arts Council funding for 2018, our highest level of funding ever. Happy New Year!