Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2018 with Daniel McBrearty, Evan Costigan, Declan Varley PLUS open-mic

The December ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, December 13^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Declan Varley, Evan Costigan, & Daniel McBrearty. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished which this month will feature, among others, poets studying on the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. New readers are especially welcome. The Over The Edge Christmas celebration will take place afterwards. 

Daniel McBrearty, or Danny to his friends, is a writer of both poetry and prose. The Donegal native's poetry has been published in A New Ulster, and his fiction was chosen as the winner in the Ulster Male category in Hot Press' Write Here Write Now Competition last May. A student of creative writing at NUI Galway, Danny’s writing deals with being young in an irrational world. He has no idea what his writing style is. That’s for other people to decide.

                                                     

Evan Costigan’s poems have been published in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, The Moth, The Stony Thursday Book, Abridged, Cyphers and elsewhere. Selected for the 216 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series, he is a past winner of the Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition and the Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Award. In 2017 he won the Red Line Book Festival Poetry Competition and the Oliver Goldsmith Literary Festival Poetry Competition. His work has been shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award and selected for the Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology 2018 from Eyewear Publishing. The recipient of several bursaries and residencies, Evan has been a featured reader at festivals and events, including: Electric Picnic; International Literature Festival Dublin; the Art Bar Series, Toronto. Born in Dublin and raised in county Kildare, he has lived abroad most of his adult life. He now divides his time between the west coast of Ireland and Dublin where he works as a creative writing facilitator. His website is www.evancostigan.com.

Declan Varley is a striking new voice in the great tradition of Irish literary fiction. Born in 1965, he grew up in the small town of Ballinrobe in County Mayo, Ireland. In his teens, Declan began his career in writing when he established a weekly magazine with a group of friends. That publication gave Declan the motivation he needed to use words as his trade, writing the college subculture novel Kittyland in 1992, followed by Sure It Could Happen (1993) The Elephant’s Graveyard, (1994) and Nightmusic (2001). A successful career in journalism followed, writing award winning stories for regional, national, and international newspapers. He is currently Group Editor of Galway Advertiser Newspapers. Declan lives in Galway with his wife, Galway Bay fm Head of News Bernadette Prendergast and their daughter, Giselle. His latest novel, The Confession of Peadar Gibbons, was published earlier this year.

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.