The writers selected to take part this year, chosen via anonymous submission by the Cúirt Festival committee, are fiction writters Rory Duffy and Aisling Keogh, and poet Sarah Padden.
Rory Duffy |
Rory Duffy lives in
Athlone. His fiction has been published in several journals including Crannóg,
The Stony Thursday Book, Southword, and Penduline Press. He was
highly commended in the Over the Edge New Writer of The Year competition in
2015 and won the 2016 Over The Edge Annual Fiction Slam. Also in 2016 Rory was
placed 3rd in the PJ O'Connor Awards and was also short listed for the Frances
MacManus Award. In 2017 he was nominated for a ZeBBie Award by the Irish
Writers Guild for his radio play Paulo in the Underworld. Rory was
also highly commended in the Seán Ó'Faoláin Award in 2017. Currently his
favourite bird is the common swift (Apus Apus) but this may change. Rory was a
Featured Reader at the May 2019 Over The Edge: Open Reading.
Aisling Keogh |
Aisling
Keogh is a psychotherapist and
a stay at home mother to three young children. Her short stories have been
published with The Irish Independent, Crannog Magazine, Wordlegs,
Ropes, Bangor Literary Journal and A New Ulster. Her first
published short story, "How to Save a Life," was shortlisted for the
Hennessy Irish Literary Awards in 2011. She finished writing her first novel in
2018, was recently shortlisted for the Doolin Writers’ Weekend short story
prize, and is currently submitting her novel to agents and publishers. In her
free time Aisling likes to sing and play the
guitar badly. Aisling was a Featured Reader at the February 2019 Over The Edge:
Open Reading.
Sarah Padden |
Sarah Padden
is of Irish descent and was raised in West Yorkshire. She returned to live in
her dad’s county of Mayo over a decade ago and moved to Galway, to attend NUIG.
Since living in Galway, she has attended Kevin Higgins’s poetry workshop and
many Over The Edge events. Her poetry has been published in the 2017 anthology Washing Windows? Irish Women Write Poetry
(Arlen House). She has also had poems published in Skylight 47, ROPES, A New Ulster, & Freehand. She won the June 2017 Galway Poetry Slam and was
shortlisted for both the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year 2017 competition
and the Poems for Patience Competition 2018. Sarah was a Featured Reader at the
January 2019 Over The Edge: Open Reading.
As this year's showcase could not take place physically, due to the Covid - 19 crisis, Susan Millar DuMars came up with the idea of asking each of this year's Showcase participants to make a video of their reading which would then be produced by Dave Lordan. The resulting videos are below.