Autumn Poetry Workshops at Galway Arts Centre

Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three 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, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese & Portuguese. His fourth collection of poetry, The Ghost in the Lobby, was published in 2014 by Salmon. 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. Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16 and is Writer-in-Residence at University Hospitals Galway. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta earlier this year; a pamphlet of Kevin’s recent political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed is published in December by the new Culture Matters imprint of U.K. based Manifesto Press. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems is published by Salmon (Spring 2017) and launched at this year’s Cúirt Festival. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. 

Kevin Higgins

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.

Each workshop will run for ten weeks, commencing the week of Monday September 25^th.  They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class September 26th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class September 28^th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class September 29^th).

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, with a €100 concession rate.

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 GalwayArtsCentre.ie

July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Siobhan Campbell, Frankie Gaffney, Catherine Hunter, David E. Butler, Teresa Sweeney, & Lisa Frank

The July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry, fiction, and drama by Siobhan Campbell, Frankie Gaffney, Catherine Hunter, David E. Butler, Teresa Sweeney, & Lisa Frank. The event will take place on Thursday, July 13th, 6.30pm at Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Siobhán Campbell was born in Dublin, she is a graduate of University College, Dublin. She spent a number of years in New York and San Francisco and worked as Managing Editor of Wolfhound Press before joining Faculty at Kingston University in London. Widely published in the USA and UK, she has won awards in the National, Troubadour and Wigtown International competitions. Her most recent poetry collection Heat Signature was published by Seren earlier this year. 

Frankie Gaffney grew up in the Dublin's North Inner-City. His first novel, Dublin Seven, published by Liberties Press to critical acclaim, charts a young man's descent into the criminal underworld of the city. The Irish Times described it as “Ulysses meets Love/Hate”.

Catherine Hunter is a Canadian poet, novelist, editor and professor. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Necessary Crimes and Latent Heat, which received the McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year in 1997. She is also the author of three literary mysteries: Queen of Diamonds, The Dead of Midnight and Where Shadows Burn. She is a professor of English at the University of Winnipeg. 

David E Butler is a widely performed playwright, author, and retired congregational minister from Maine who is currently resident in County Clare. 

Teresa Sweeney is from county Galway. She was short listed in the 2014 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition. Her fiction has been published in Roadside Fiction, Number Eleven Magazine, Wordlegs, Boyne Berries and she was a runner up in the WOW! Awards 2011. She was a Featured Reader at the November 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading and was selected to read at the 2015 Cúirt Over The Edge New Writers’ Showcase reading. 

Lisa Frank was born and raised in Los Angeles but lived in the Pacific Northwest for several years before moving to Ireland in 2007. She won second place in the 2016 Francis MacManus Award and was a joint-winner of the 2015 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair competition. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University (where Paula Meehan also received her MFA) and is the editor of Galway Stories, featuring many of Ireland’s best fiction writers, including Kevin Barry, Mary Costello and Mike McCormack. Having taught creative writing in a variety of settings, including a mens’ prison, she now lives in Connemara with her partner and is co-director of Doire Press.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council,

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.

Westside Arts Festival/Over The Edge Summer Open-mic

PROBABLY THE BIGGEST LITERARY OPEN-MIC OF THE YEAR

Over The Edge in association with Westside Arts Festival presents the 2017 Over The Edge Summer Open-mic at Westside Library, Seamus Quirke Road on Wednesday, July 12^th, 6-8pm

Everyone who has a poem or story to share is most welcome to take part. So, if you have some writing you’d like to read to an audience, this is your opportunity to do so.  

Those taking part will include visiting students studying creative writing on this year’s NUI Galway International Summer School.

The MC for the evening will be Kevin Higgins. 

All are welcome to attend.

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

June Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Karen McDonnell, Eamonn Lynskey, Anne Tannam, & Maeve Mulrennan & Galway launch of short story collection by June Caldwell

June Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Karen McDonnell, Eamonn Lynskey, Anne Tannam, & Maeve Mulrennan & the Galway launch of June Caldwell’s debut short story collection. The event will take place on Thursday, June 29th, 8pm at the Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

June Caldwell worked for many years as a freelance journalist and now writes fiction. Room Little Darker, a short story collection, was published by New Island Books in May 2017. Her short story ‘SOMAT’ was published in the award-winning anthology The Long Gaze Back, edited by Sinéad Gleeson and was chosen as a ‘favourite’ by The Sunday Times. She’s a prizewinner of the Moth International Short Story Prize and has been shortlisted for many others, including the Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, the Colm Toíbín International Short Story Award, the Lorian Hemingway Prize, and the Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story Prize. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Queen’s University Belfast, and lives in Dublin.

June Caldwell

Bred, buttered and living in Dublin, Anne Tannam's first book of poetry Take This Life, was published by WordsOnTheStreet in 2011. Her second collection Tides ShiftingAcross My Sitting Room Floor is just published by Salmon Poetry. A spoken word artist, Anne has performed her work at Lingo, Electric Picnic, Cuirt and other festivals around Ireland and is co-founder of the renowned Dublin Writers' Forum.

Eamonn Lynskey’s poetry first appeared in the New Irish Writing pages of the Irish Press in the 1980s, edited by David Marcus, and since then widely in magazines and journals such Poetry Ireland Review, Cyphers, The SHOp, Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, The Stinging Fly, Boyne Berries, Orbis, Riposte Broadsheet and the Irish Times. He was a finalist in the Strokestown International Poetry Competition and in the Hennessy Awards. He has been involved in the organization of poetry events in Dublin for many years and has presented poetry programmes on local radio. He obtained an M. Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin in 2012 and participated in the 2013 Stanza Poetry Festival in St. Andrews in Scotland. Before retirement he worked as a teacher and Adult Education organizer.  Eamonn’s third collection of poetry, It’s Time, is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Maeve Mulrennan is a curator and writer based in Galway. She is the Head of Visual Art + Education in Galway Arts Centre, where she has worked since 2006. This role includes exhibitions, critical writing, residencies and education programming. In 2008 she founded Red Bird Youth Collective, which is now a youth led art collective working in visual art, architecture, animation and film. Maeve has been on the Board of Directors of Tulca Festival of Visual Art since 2006. Maeve lectures on the MA Arts Policy & Practice in Huston School of Digital Media, NUI Galway and is an online-Lecturer with NODE Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin. Maeve is a short story writer, with fiction published in several online journals, The Doire Press 2013 Anthology and The Galway Review. She read at the 2012 Cúirt Festival / Over The Edge showcase reading.

Karen J. McDonnell grew up in Ennis. She spent many years in Dublin working in international banking and as an actress before returning to live in the Burren in north Clare. As a mature student at NUI Galway, she focused increasingly on writing, including Notes from the Margins, a poetic song cycle about women on the edges of history, and literary non-fiction: Unsettled — a West Bank Journal. She won the 2014 WOW Poetry Award and was runner up in the 2015 Wild Atlantic Words and the 2015 Baffle poetry competitions. She was shortlisted for the 2017 Poems for Patience Award. Karen’s debut collection of poems This Little World is just published by Doire Press.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council,

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.