Final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2020 with Nina Oram, Coirle Mooney, & Paul Jeffcutt PLUS open-mic

 The December ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, December 17th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Paul Jeffcutt, Coirle Mooney, & Nina Oram. There will, as always at Over The Edge: Open Readings, be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.  As this is our Christmas reading, we invite everyone to enjoy a mince pie, chocolates and/or a holiday beverage at home while watching.  We will begin and end the evening with a festive toast.  

Nina Oram

Originally from the UK, Nina Oram llives in County Roscommon with her partner. Having fallen in love with County Sligo, she writes Dark Fantasy inspired by mythology, ancient history, and the natural world. Her YA Fantasy Trilogy, “The Carrowkeel Series” is published by Luna Press Publishing, Edinburgh, with the third book released on the 8^th December. She is currently shortlisted to the last five in the British Fantasy Awards 2019, Best Newcomer, for the first book in the trilogy, “The Joining”, awaiting the judges’ decision. Having won the Luna Press Publishing (UK) short story competition in 2016, her story was included in the resulting anthology, “Beyond Realities II”.She has also had stories published in “The Ogham Stone”, Metamorphose in the US, and “Horla”, an online horror magazine in the UK. She was longlisted in the Novella Award in the US, with special mention, and twice shortlisted in the Aeon Award, Ireland’s main fantasy competition, as well as for the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year award. Having finished a short story collection and novella, Nina is currently working on an adult fantasy novel. https://ninaoram.wixsite.com/website

Coirle Mooney

Coirle Mooney grew up in the Burren Perfumery in a house full of fragrant books and now lives in Kinvara, Co. Galway. After completing her MA and PhD in Medieval and Early Modern literature, she began working on a series of historical novels set in Medieval France. Her debut novel, Keepers of the Dead, is soon to be published by Sapere Books, followed by The Secret Language of Birds. She wrote her first murder mystery, Donald Duck is Dead, at ten years old, which she read in instalments to her captivated (or captured) classmates. She has worked as a Shakespeare and verse-speaking tutor in Malta and Limerick and as an old and middle English tutor in UCC. Her focus in on storytelling and creating characters with emotional depth. 

Paul Jeffcutt

Paul Jeffcutt lives in the Brontë Country of County Down. His new collection, The Skylark’s Call, is just published by Dempsey & Windle (2020); his first collection, Latch, was with Lagan Press (2010). Recently his poems have appeared in Agenda, The Honest Ulsterman, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Interpreter’s House, Magma, Orbis, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Vallum. He lives in Northern Ireland. www.pauljeffcutt.net

 

Over The Edge is inviting you to the December Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, December 17^th, 6.30-8pm

 

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 

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

November Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Liam Boyle, Audrey Molloy, Laurence McKeown PLUS open-mic

 The November ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, November 19th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Liam Boyle, Audrey Molloy, & Laurence McKeown. There will, as always at Over The Edge: Open Readings, be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Liam Boyle was born in Drogheda and moved to Galway in the 1970s. He wrote poetry in his teens and twenties but then didn’t write any for several decades. In the past year he has rediscovered the joys and challenges of poetry and has read his work in various settings. His poems deal mainly with memoir and reckonings. 

                            

Audrey Molloy is an Irish poet based in Sydney. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Magma, The Moth and The Irish Times. She was selected for the 2019 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series by Martina Evans. In 2019 she received the Hennessy Award for Emerging Poetry, the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and the APIBA (An Post Irish Book Award) for Irish Poem of the Year. Her debut pamphlet, Satyress (Southword Editions), was published in 2020.  Her debut collection, The Important Things, will be published by The Gallery Press in 2021. www.audreymolloy.com

Laurence McKeown is an author, playwright, filmmaker, and academic though sees those roles within the broader context of political activism and the role that the arts can play in that. His involvement in creative works, political education, and academia began during his period of incarceration as a political prisoner in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh (1976-1992). Following his release from prison Laurence completed a doctoral thesis at Queen’s University, Belfast. His thesis was published in 2001 entitled Out of Time. 

Whilst pursuing his PhD studies, Laurence co-wrote (with Brian Campbell) a feature film, H3 (2001, Metropolitan Films), based on the 1981 hunger strike within the prison, which Laurence participated in (for 70 days) and during which 10 prisoners died.  Laurence has written twelve plays, three books, one TV series, a radio drama, and three documentary films. His most recent play, Green and Blue (produced by Kabosh Theatre) was premiered at the Belfast International Arts Festival in 2016. It has toured Ireland extensively and been performed in Paris, Dresden, and London. Laurence was short-listed for the Irish Writers Guild of Ireland Zebbie Award (2017) for Green and Blue. His debut collection of poems, Threads, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2018.

Over The Edge is inviting you to the November Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, November 19^th, 6.30-8pm

 

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 

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

October Over The Edge: Open Reading with Tariq Ali, Ruairí McKiernan, & Niamh Flynn

The October ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on on Zoom on Thursday, October 29th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time).

This is Over The Edge’s annual non-fiction special, at which all of the Featured Readers are writers of non-fiction; however poets and fiction writers are still very welcome at the open-mic. The Featured Readers are Niamh Flynn, Ruairí McKiernan, & Tariq Ali. 

There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

 

Niamh Flynn is a native of Galway and works as a sports psychologist at The Galway Clinic. Over the years she has written for The Irish Examiner, Mature Living Magazine, Gaelic World, High Ball, Ireland's Dental Magazine, The Waiting Room and many more publications. Her book End Migraine Fast was taken up earlier this year by a French Publisher and is due to be published in France in 2021. She is currently in talks with agents regarding the publication of her most recent work ‘She Kept Walking’. It is based on a true story which documents the life of a young man, Seánie Ó Lionsaigh, growing up in abject poverty in the West of Ireland in the 1970s. 

Ruairí McKiernan is originally from Cootehill in County Cavan; he now lives in Lahinch. His debut book Hitching for Hope – a Journey into the Heart and Soul of Ireland was recently published by US publisher Chelsea Green and went straight to number 1 in the Nielsen paperback non-fiction bestseller charts. Described as a “powerful manifesto for hope and healing in troubled times”, Hitching for Hope is part personal pilgrimage, part political quest. The book is a reflection of a hitchhiking listening tour McKiernan undertook around Ireland during the last recession while contemplating the prospect of emigration. The book is also a memoir reflecting on his 20 years’ work as a campaigner and social innovator, which includes 7 years as one of President Higgins’ appointees to the Council of State. Of Hitching for Hope, Christy Moore has said: “Ruairí McKiernan takes time to look behind the stone walls of Ireland. He takes note of what many of us sometimes fail to see.” Colum McCann has described the book as “a paean to nuance, decency and possibility”; while Peggy Seeger said Hitching for Hope is “Irish to its core and international in its search for optimism and communal involvement, it’s an easy and uplifting read.”

Tariq Ali was born in 1943 in what is now Pakistan while it was still under British rule. He has lived in London since he was a student and has been a leading figure of the international left since the 60s. He has been writing for the Guardian since the 70s. He is a long-standing editor of the New Left Review and a political commentator published on every continent. He has published dozens of books, including The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity  (Verso, 2003), The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power (Scribner, 2009), and The Obama Syndrome (Verso Books, 2010). He has also published a number of novels, including Redemption (Chatto & Windus, 1990), a bawdy satire on late 20^th century Trotskyist groups set in Paris, New York, Mexico City and London, and Fear of Mirrors (Arcadia Books, 1998),  set in post-Stalinist eastern Germany. Mick Jagger allegedly wrote the Rolling Stones’ song ‘Street Fighting Man’ about Tariq Ali after he attended a 1968 anti-war rally at London's US embassy in Grosvenor Square, during which mounted police battled with tens of thousands of demonstrators.

 

Over The Edge is inviting you to the October Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, October 29^th, 6.30-8pm

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 

 

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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