13th Annual Over The Edge Fiction Slam at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop - Nina Oram, Coirle Mooney and David Green Featured Readers & Judges

Over The Edge presents its thirteenth annual fiction slam with Featured Readers, David Green, Coirle Mooney, and Nina Oram at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Middle Street, Galway on Friday, July 15^th, 6pm. 

 

David Green is an international best-selling writer of the epic and the urban, the fantastical and the mysterious. With his character-driven dark fantasy series Empire Of Ruin, or urban fantasy noir Hell In Haven starring Haven's only supernatural PI Nick Holleran, David takes readers on emotional, character-driven, action-packed thrill rides that leaves a reader needing their next fix.Hailing from the north-west of England, David now lives in County Galway on the west coast of Ireland with his wife and train-obsessed son. When not writing, David can be found wondering why he chooses to live in, and write about, places where it constantly rains.

 

Coirle Mooney is a novelist who 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 Medieval novels.Her debut novel, The Lady’s Keeper,set in Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court, was published by Sapere Books. Her next book,The Cloistered Lady,was published in June, 2022.Her third novel, My Lady’s Shadow, is due for publication this September. She is currently working on another novel set in Elizabethan London. She has always read widely and wrote her first murder mystery, Donald Duck is Dead, aged ten. She read Donald in instalments to her captivated (or captured) classmates. She has worked as a Shakespeare and verse-speaking tutor and as an old and middle English tutor in UCC. Her focus in on storytelling and creating characters with emotional depth.

 

Originally from the UK, Nina Oram lives in County Roscommon. Having fallen in love with County Sligo, she writes Folk Horror and Dark Fantasy inspired by mythology and ancient history, and her passion for the environment.  Nina’s YA Dark Fantasy, “The Carrowkeel Series”, set in the west of Ireland, is published with Luna Press Publishing.  Her first adult book, a Folk Horror novella, “A Face in The Leaves” wasreleased in February this year,based on the legend of the Green Man. She is currently awaiting a publication date for adark and ghostly collection of short stories. She was shortlisted in the British Fantasy Awards 2019, Best Newcomer, for the first book in the trilogy, “The Joining”. Nina won the Luna Press Publishing (UK) short story competition 2016, and was subsequently published in “Beyond Realities II”.She also won the Metamorphose short story competition 2016 in the US, and was published in “Metamorphose Volume II” and has had stories published in “The Ogham Stone”, and “Horla”, online horror magazine. 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 th Over The Edge New Writer of the Year award. Nina is currently finishing her first adult novel, Folk Horror, “The Crooked God”. https://ninaoram.wixsite.com/website  

The first twelve fiction writers to make it to Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on the evening of Friday, July 15^th and register will be guaranteed a place in the slam. If you want to be sure of a place, get there early! All participating writers should bring two pieces of their own fiction, as there are two rounds. The time limit in both rounds is FIVE MINUTES. Extracts from longer stories are admissible. Stories do not have to be memorised. The Fiction Slam will be judged by a three person jury made up of Nina Oram, Coirle Mooney, David Green and an audience member. Three writers will go through to the second round and the prize for the winner is a bottle of excellent red wine.

There is no entrance fee. All welcome. For further information contact 087-6431748.

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

2022 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase takes place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop!

The 2022 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase, featuring Art O’Suilleabháin, Chandrika Narayan-Mohan, Kate Ennals, Kenneth Hickey, Jo Slade, Agnieszka Filipek, Bernie Crawford, Ger Duffy, Mary Lee, Jenny Horgan, Jenny Farrell, Liz Quirke, Ben Keatinge, Lorna Shaughnessy, Denis Mockler, Rachel Coventry, Danielle Holian, Anne Walsh Donnelly, Denise Nagle, Eileen Sheehan, Phil Lynch, Ruth Quinlan, Winifred McNulty, Jessie Lendennie, John W. Sexton, Loretta Stanley, Mary Madec, Kerri Sonnenberg, Kieran Murphy, Kevin Higgins, Mairead O’Sullivan, Trish Bennett, Susan Millar DuMars, Jamie O’Halloran, Noel Monahan, Joe Woods, & Aoife Lynch, and the anthologies Local Wonders (Dedalus Press), Land of the Ever Young (Culture Matters), & Days of Clear Light - A Festschrift in Honour of Jessie Lendennie & in Celebration of Salmon Poetry at 40 (Salmon Poetry) will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Middle Street, Galway on Friday, February, 11^th starting at 6pm. The event will be jointly MCed by Kate Ennals and Kevin Higgins. 

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, poets based in the West of Ireland, who published a new collection of poems during 2021, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be readings from the anthologies Local Wonders (Edited by Pat Boran, Dedalus Press), Land of the Ever Young (Edited by Jenny Farrell, Culture Matters), & Days of Clear Light - A Festschrift in Honour of Jessie Lendennie & in Celebration of Salmon Poetry at 40  (Edited by Nessa O’Mahony & Alan Hayes, Salmon Poetry), to which several Galway-based poets contributed.

  

This is Over The Edge’s first in person event for two years. It will be broadcast on Facebook live. 

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.

Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop launch of Kevin Higgins’s Extended Essay on Being a Marxist Poet

You are invited to the launch of Kevin Higgins’s extended essay, Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21^st Century Ireland, which is published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press, on Wednesday, September 8^th at 6.30pm. The book will be launched by poet Ciaran O'Rourke.  The launch will adhere to all Covid 19 social distancing protocols. You can buy an advance copy of Thrills & Difficulties here.  

As part of the launch Patrick Chapman, Ruth Quinlan, Rachel Coventry, Dave Lordan, & Ciaran O’Rourke will read poems of theirs which Kevin has quoted in Thrills & Difficulties...

Praise for Thrills & Difficulties:  

“I would never accuse Kevin Higgins of writing anything so diminishing as a rallying cry or manifesto. And yet, nobody is safe from his sharpened wit (least of all his Granny's fading crockery) as he eviscerates any notions we might have about what poetry should be. It would be wise to read this with a strong dose of self-awareness and, at the very least, a muted understanding of the genuine need for change in a world cracking under the weight of capitalism.” Alvy Carragher, poet & author of The Men I Keep Under My Bed (Salmon Poetry, 2021)   

"those who habitually occupy 'the best room' will hear its walls rattling in this detailed, rollicking, humorous, full-on piece of polemic. It's personal. What makes it even more forceful is that Higgins comes to praise as well as to bury, generously listing and quoting from a phalanx of poets. Poets who, while sometimes outside 'the best room', are making the best noises. In an age where poets are being routinely enlisted to make banks and building societies look 'street' [and themselves vacuous] ----this type of corrective slap is ever more necessary. Long may he [purposefully] rave." Matthew Caley, poet & author of Trawlerman’s Turquoise (Bloodaxe Books, 2019)  

 

For further details contact Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on (091) 561 766 or Kevin on 087-6431748. 

 

2020 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2020 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase, featuring Emily Cullen, Michael Gorman, Mary Madec, Geraldine Mills, Jenny Farrell, Anne Walsh Donnelly, Katherine Noone, Patrick Stack, Aoife Reilly, Nicola Geddes, Christine Valters Paintner, Knute Skinner, Susan Millar DuMars, Ruth Quinlan, Lorraine Carey, Kevin Higgins, Rachel Coventry, Liam O’Neill, Art Ó Suilleabháin, Danielle Holian, Mary Melvin Geoghegan, and the anthologies The Children of the Nation: An Anthology of Working People’s Poetry from Contemporary Ireland (Culture Matters, edited by Jenny Farrell & Mike Quille) & Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus Press, edited by Pat Boran & Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi) will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 7^th starting at 6pm. The event will be jointly MCed by Kate Ennals and Kevin Higgins. 

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, poets based in the West of Ireland, who published a new collection of poems during 2019, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be readings from the anthologies The Children of the Nation & Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets, to which several Galway-based poets contributed.

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.

Readings from Noir by Noir West @ Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

Readings from Noir by Noir West

@ Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

On this Friday, 29^th, August @ 6pm.

Featured readers:

Elizabeth Power,

Conor Montague,

Hedy Gibbons-Lynott,

Alan Caden.

All welcome.