August Over The Edge: Open Reading with Hazel Naughton, beam, & Donald Gardner PLUS open-mic

The August ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 25^th, 6pm-7.30pm. The Featured Readers are Donald Gardner, beam, & Hazel Naughton. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. People outside Galway can join the reading via Zoom. We hope that those who wish to will be able to read remotely at the open-mic via Zoom. The technology is a work in progress, so we ask that potential open-mic readers bear with us. Note the new slightly earlier 6pm start time.

For those of you attending via Zoom:  Over The Edge is inviting you to the August Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, August 25^th, 6pm-7.30pm

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

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

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

The reading will also be broadcast live via Over The Edge’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070193895521

Hazel Naughton is a Galway native. She has taken Kevin Higgins's poetry workshop twice over the years and has read at several open mics in the past. She has had her writing published by Yasodhara Ashram and Berlin Art Parasites. She will be attending Queen's University Belfast in September to begin her post grad in creative writing. Her writing deals with themes of love, loss, home, and spirituality. 

 

beam is a poet from Galway. She has participated in workshops led by Kevin Higgins and read as a featured reader for Lime Square Poets. Her work has been published in Broadsheet.ie, ThePlatform.uk, Cabinet Of Heed, Poetry With Pride (Belfast Pride 22’), Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amos, WordCityLit, Ink Sweat & Tears, Lothlorien Journal, impspired, Open Skies and has been included in Corks Quare festival as an interactive audio piece. Upcoming work will appear in Stoney Thursday (edited by Annemarie Ní Churreáin) and Skylight 47 (16th issue). You can find more of her poetry @personalbeam on instagram.

Donald Gardner is described as ‘one of the most entertaining and perceptive poets of his generation’. He has been giving readings of his work since the mid-60s when he lived in New York. Recently Grey Suit editions brought out his New and Selected Poems (1966-2020).One reviewer has said: ‘Every section of this book is a time capsule containing poems that are as fresh and meaningful today as the day they were written’. London-born, Gardner currently divides his time between Co. Kildare and Amsterdam.

 

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. Those interested in reading at the open-mic should give their names to Kevin Higgins at Galway City Library before the reading starts at 6pm. Those who wish to read remotely should text 087-6431748 in the half hour before the reading starts; if you are texting from outside the Republic of Ireland please add the international code and knock off the first zero on the number.

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

Over The Edge Returns To Galway City Library After Covid!

Caoimhe May, Sinead Mears, & Morag Anderson for May Over The Edge: Open Reading

The May ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, May 26^th, 6pm-7.30pm. This is a big occasion as it is the first Over The Edge: Open Reading to take place in Galway City Library since February 2020. The Featured Readers are Morag Anderson, Sinead Mears, & Caoimhe May. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. People outside Galway can still join the reading via Zoom. We hope that those who wish to will be able to read remotely at the open-mic via Zoom. The technology is a work in progress, so we ask that potential open-mic readers bear with us for what is our first post-Covid Over The Edge: Open Reading! Note the new slightly earlier 6pm start time.

For those of you attending via Zoom:  Over The Edge is inviting you to the May Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, May 26^th, 6pm-7.30pm.

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

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

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

Caoimhe May is a teenage writer, spoken word artist and performer in Galway. She is an avid activist who focuses on issues such as eating disorder recovery, sex positivity, and self love. Caoimhe’s writing has been published in Vox Galvia, Skylight 47 and elsewhere and she is a published children's author. 

Sinead Mears has always had a love for language. She won a National writing competition at 12 years old. She stumbled upon a Spoken Word group in Debarra’s pub in Clonakilty, Co Cork at aged 17 and partook in their Open Mics from then on. She learned a lot about life and writing from everyone I listened to. They gave her the confidence to pursue writing. Sinead then moved to Galway and studied Creative Writing at NUIG for two years. She recently took part in Susan DuMars’ writing course via GTI. Sinead has read here work at poetry readings held in Galway City and had a poem published in the Galway Advertiser’s Vox Galvia creative writing page.

Morag Anderson

Morag Anderson is a Scottish poet based in Highland Perthshire, Scotland. Her debut chapbook, Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s (Fly on the Wall Press, 2021), explores human connections—concealed violence, love, and everything in between. It was a Winter 2021 Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her poetry appears in Finished Creatures, Gutter, Popshot Quarterly, Skylight 47, The Broken Spine Arts Collective, and The Scotsman as well as several anthologies, including Best Scottish Poems 2021. She collaborated on a chapbook, How Bright the Wings Drive Us, which won the Dreich Alliance Competition 2021. She was placed in the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021, the Edwin Morgan Trust Competition 2021, shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2021, and won Over the Edge New Poet 2018.She is currently working on a series of commissions by the Scottish Poetry Library.

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. Those interested in reading at the open-mic should give their names to Kevin Higgins at Galway City Library before the reading starts at 6pm. Those who wish to read remotely should text 087-6431748 in the half hour before the reading starts; if you are texting from outside the Republic of Ireland please add the international code and knock off the first zero on the number.

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

Advanced Fiction Class DAYTIME CLASS on Zoom with Susan Millar DuMars

 STARTING EARLY JUNE Over The Edge announces DAYTIME CLASS in Advanced Fiction Writing with Susan Millar DuMars on Zoom STARTS THURSDAY June 2nd

THE CLASS TAKES PLACE on THURSDAY AFTERNOONS, 2-4pm for 6 weeks STARTING Thursday, June 2nd on Zoom. Finishes July 7^th. Maximum Number students: 5. Each student will receive close individual attention. 

Price: €150 for 6 weeks payable in advance. There are no refunds. To guarantee a place you must pay in advance. If you have been struggling with a short story or a novel, this is the class for you. 

CLASS DESCRIPTION: this class is for those serious about writing short or long fiction; those who are working on a fiction project independently and feel they need feedback and support. From week one, each student will be responsible to email an extract from their story or novel to Susan Millar DuMars and their classmates by Monday noon.  Students will also bring hard copies of the piece into class. Students can submit up to 5 double spaced pages each week. In each session we will provide feedback to each student. Susan’s feedback will be detailed as it will be based on her earlier reading of the work. Thus, each student will receive detailed feedback on a total of 30 pages of work.

The class is organised by Over The Edge literary events and will take place via Zoom at at

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

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 

ABOUT THE TUTOR: Susan Millar DuMars’ debut poetry collection, Big Pink Umbrella, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2008. Her next collection, Dreams for Breakfast, appeared in April 2010. Her work features in Landing Places, Dedalus’ 2010 anthology of immigrant poetry written in Ireland; and also in The Best Of Irish Poetry 2010. A fiction writer as well, she published a collection of short stories, American Girls, with Lapwing in 2007. She published a book of short stories in 2010: Lights in the Distance, published by Doire Press, and was the Featured Fiction writer in the American online magazine The Atticus Review. She has been the recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary. Susan's third collection of poetry, The God Thing, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013; her fourth collection, Bone Fire, was launched at the 2015 Cúirt Festival of International Literature. She lives in Galway, where she and her husband have run the Over the Edge readings series since 2003. Susan edited the anthology Over the Edge – The First Ten years, published by Salmon, which includes work by forty seven writers who have published a first book since they did a reading at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library. Susan’s New & Selected Poems was published in Spring 2019 by Salmon Poetry. In March 2020 she received a literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland to work on her hotly anticipated forthcoming collection of short stories.

YOU CAN REGISTER ONLINE NOW FOR THE CLASS WHICH STARTS THURSDAY June 2^nd SEE HERE

Summer 2022 Online Poetry Workshops with Kevin Higgins via Galway Arts Centre

Starting in May, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three online poetry workshops, all facilitated by poet Kevin Higgins, whose best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face, published by Salmon Poetry, was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet. Kevin’s second collection of poems, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in 2008 by Salmon Poetry and his poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry. His third collection Frightening New Furniture was published in 2010 by Salmon. His work also appears in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe April 2014).  A collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2012. Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, Serbian, Russian, & Portuguese. In 2014 Kevin's poetry was the subject of a paper 'The Case of Kevin Higgins, or, 'The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire' presented by David Wheatley at a Symposium on Satire at the University of Aberdeen.  He was Satirist-in-Residence at the Bogman’s Cannon (2015-16). '2016 - The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins' was published by NuaScéalta in 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published, also in 2016, by the Culture Matters imprint of the UK based Manifesto Press. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, Hot Press, Phoenix magazine and on Tonight With Vincent Browne; and read aloud by the film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. In 2016 The Stinging Fly magazine described Kevin as "likely the most read living poet in Ireland." He has published six collections of poetry with Salmon, including Song of  Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems (2017).  Kevin has read his work at Arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013),  Amherst, Massachusetts, USA (2013), & New Mexico, USA (2018). Kevin’s most recent poetry collection, Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital, was published by Salmon Poetry (June 2019); one of the poems from which feature in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels. His poems have been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published last year by Nuascealta. His essay Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21^st Century Ireland was published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press last year. In December 2021 Kevin was both expelled from the British Labour Party, of which he was an overseas member, for publishing his poem ‘Tribute Acts’ in Socialist Appeal magazine and, on the very same day, awarded ‘Poet of The Year’ at the Labour Heroes Awards event at Conway Hall in London. Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic, is published by Salmon in May. 

Each week Kevin will give participants a poetry writing exercise for the following week and will offer each participant constructive suggestions as to how her or his poem can become the best possible poem it can be.

Kevin is an experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. One of his workshop participants at Galway Arts Centre won the prestigious Hennessy Award for New Irish Poetry, two have won the Cúirt New Writing Prize, and yet another the Cúirt Poetry Grand Slam, while several have published collections of their poems; two being shortlisted for the Shine-Strong Award for Best First Collection of poems. In 2013 a group of his students set up the poetry newspaper Skylight 47, which publishes new poems, reviews of poetry books and opinion pieces about poetry related matters. Kevin teaches poetry on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme and is Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway Summer School. Kevin is also co-organiser of the successful Over The Edge reading series which specialises in promoting new writers.

The workshops will all commence the week of Monday May 9^th. They will be conducted via Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that made Kevin's in-person poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre so popular. Participants shouldn't worry about the technology! Full details of precisely how the workshop will function online will be explained to participants during the first session.

They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, May 10th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, May 12th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, May 13th).

The Tuesday evening and Friday afternoon workshops are open to both complete beginners as well as those who’ve been writing for some time. The Thursday afternoon workshop is an Advanced Poetry Workshop, suitable for those who’ve participated in poetry workshops before or had poems published in magazines. The cost to participants is €110. As a bonus, Kevin is offering five optional in person workshop sessions which will take place in The House Hotel, Galway on Wednesday, May 18^th, June 8^th. June 15^th, July 13^th, & July 20^th, all starting at 2pm and running until 4pm. These sessions are open to ALL enrolled participants in this term’s poetry workshops.

Places must be paid for in advance. To reserve a place contact reception at Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886, email info@galwayartscentre.ie, or go to

https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/courses/363-363-poetry-with-kevin-higgins-evening-online-remote-course

March Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Anne Tannam, John Transier, & Aoife Cunningham

 The March ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, March 24^th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Aoife Cunningham, John Transier, & Anne Tannam. 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 or register their interest by messaging the Over The Edge Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/Over-The-Edge-Literary-Events-712507866206899 between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. 

Aoife Cunningham grew up in a small village on the suburbs of Galway City. A twin in a family of 6 children, Aoife grew up as a middle child. She was raised single handily by her mother Sylvia. Aoife began writing when she was 7, beginning with short stories before progressing on to writing and publishing her poetry. Aoife began her poetry career in 2018 after taking a poetry workshop with Kevin Higgins. From there, Aoife has been published in the Galway Advertiser, Broadsheet.ie, The Crow of Minerva and Spilling Cocoa On Martin Amis. As someone who struggled with their mental health, Aoife found solace through her poetry. From jumping off a bridge in 2018 to ending up on life support in 2020 due to Anorexia, Aoife’s poetry documents the battle of mental illness and her subsequent recovery. Aoife aspires to write a book and become an advocate for mental health.  Her dream is to become an renowned author and to help improve the mental wellness support in Ireland, ensuring that all young people have access to treatment.    

John Transier is a fiction writer based in Portland, Oregon who has been shortlisted in many literary competitions. John is currently working on his first novel. He loves reading history, cooking, writing, long walks and the novels of John Steinbeck, George MacDonald Fraser and Patrick O’Brian. He does not understand why anyone drinks anything other than Aviation gin, which is distilled about ten miles from his house in Portland. On winter evenings he likes to lay on the couch, listen to his wife play guitar and his daughter play piano and reflect on the fact that he has no musical ability whatsoever. 

Anne Tannam is from Dublin and is the author of three poetry collections, ‘Take This Life (Wordonthestreet 2011), ‘Tides Shifting Across My Sitting Room Floor’ (Salmon Poetry 2017) and the latest ‘Twenty-six Letters of a new Alphabet’ published with Salmon in 2021. Anne’s work has been featured on national radio and press and forms part of UCD’s Irish Poetry Reading Archive. Also a spoken word poet, Anne has performed at home and abroad at events such as Electric Picnic, Kosovo International Poetry Festival and Berlin’s Craw Festival. For more on Anne’s poetry visit www.annetannampoetry.ie

Over The Edge is inviting you to the March Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, March 24^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.