August Over The Edge: Open Reading with Lisa Harding, Jude Flynn, Una O'Farrell PLUS open-mic AND long list for 2018 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year

The first ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ after the summer break takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 30^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Lisa Harding, Jude Flynn, & Una O’Farrell. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the long list for the 2018 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year for which the competition judge this year is poet Rachel Coventry.

Lisa Harding

Una O’Farrell was born in Galway. Una has worked in Health Care throughout her career which ended prematurely due to ill health. Her career was spread across hospitals in Dublin Limerick and Galway along with a number of breaks to rear her family. Throughout her life Una has moved around the country and settled in Galway twenty years ago where she lives with her husband. Una has a BSc in Clinical Physiology from Dublin Institute of Technology. Una attended several creative writing classes with Kevin Higgins and has recently completed advanced classes with Susan Du Mars. She has read her poetry at the open mike at Over the Edge events at the Galway City Library. She has completed her first novel of fiction titled “That’s It” and is in the process of submitting it to be published.

Jude Flynn is a graphic designer and an emerging writer of predominantly short fiction originally from Athlone. He has attended a series of writers’ workshops at GTI and GMIT during his time living in Galway. Major influences on his writing have been the works of David Foster Wallace, Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, Lionel Shriver and many others. Thematically, Jude's short stories tend to centre around childhood and adolescence and how the world is interpreted and misinterpreted through a youthful gaze.

Lisa Harding is a playwright, short story writer, actress and novelist. She played Connie in RTÉ’s Fair City and has performed at the Abbey, the Gate, and the Lyric, among others. Her prize-winning novel Harvesting was published by New Island to critical acclaim and has just been optioned by an IFTA and BAFTA winning director. Her second novel is shortly to go on submission with Aitken Alexander, and she is about to embark on the process of adapting Harvesting for screen.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome. The evening will also see the announcement of the long list for this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which has again received a very healthy number of entries this year.  The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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

Autumn Beginners & Intermediate Creative Writing Classes at Galway Technical Institute BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW

Susan Millar DuMars & Kevin Higgins

Creative Writing for Beginners with Kevin Higgins takes place one evening per week (Monday) from 7-9pm (10 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Monday, September 24^th, 2018. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. Kevin Higgins will provide writing exercises for, and give gentle critical feedback to, those interested in trying their hand at writing stories, poems, or memoir.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/course/detail/t/80/c/201805-005565

 

Intermediate Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars takes place one evening per week (Tuesday) from 7-9pm (10 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Tuesday, September 25^th, 2018. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. This class is suitable for those who’ve participated in creative writing classes before or begun to have work published in magazines. Flexible exercises and work-shopping of assignments, together with the study of the works of published writers, will help each class member to find their own writing voice.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/course/detail/t/80/c/201805-005601

YOU CAN ALSO BOOK in person at Galway Technical Institute, Monday-Friday, (10am-4.30pm) when GTI re-opens after the Summer break in late August.

For further information contact Galway Technical Institute, Father Griffin Road, Galway, phone 091-581342 or email gtiadulted@gretb.ie or see http://www.gti.ie  

Autumn Poetry Workshops at 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 in early 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s recent political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published in 2016 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 the 2017 Cúirt Festival. The Stinging Fly magazine described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. His poems have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, on Tonight With Vincent Browne; and read aloud by film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London.

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 24^th.  They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, September 25^th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, September 27^th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, September 28^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 Galway Arts Centre.ie

 

Autumn Daytime Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre presents a daytime class for all those beginner and continuing creative writing students out there, facilitated by Susan Millar DuMars.  

Susan Millar DuMars

Susan Millar DuMars writes both poetry and fiction. A collection of her stories, Lights In The Distance, was published in December 2010 by Doire Press; she has published four collections of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008), Dreams For Breakfast (2010), The God Thing (2013), & Bone Fire (2016) all with Salmon Poetry. Susan was the Featured Fiction writer in a the American online magazine The Atticus Review. She is also co-organiser of the Over The Edge reading series which specifically promotes new writers. 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.  

The class is suitable for both beginning and continuing creative writing students, working in either poetry or fiction. Students will spend their weeks responding to writing exercises designed to inspire, rather than inhibit. In class, they will receive gentle feedback on their work from their classmates and from the teacher. 

The class takes place on Monday afternoons, 2.30-4pm, commencing on Monday, September 24^th. It runs for 10 weeks.

The cost to participants is 110 Euro with an 100 Euro concession price. Booking is essential as places are limited. There are no refunds once the class has started. For booking please contact Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886, email info@galwayartscentre.ie, or go to Galway Arts Centre.ie

July Over The Edge Writers' Gathering with Mary O'Donoghue, Eamonn Wall, Elizabeth Reapy, & James Finnegan

July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Mary O’Donoghue, Eamonn Wall, Elizabeth Reapy, & James Finnegan.

The July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry and fiction. The event will take place on Thursday, July 12th, 6.30pm at Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Mary O’Donoghue’s stories have most recently appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Irish Times, Stinging Fly, Dublin Review, and elsewhere. Her novel Before the House Burns was published by The Lilliput Press in 2010. Awards and recognition for her fiction include the Irish Times prize for short fiction responding to economic crisis; two Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowships; and longlisting for the Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. She is Fiction Editor at the journal AGNI, and Professor of English in the Arts and Humanities division of Babson College, Massachusetts. She lives with her husband and step-daughter in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Eamonn Wall is the author of Junction City: New and Selected Poems 1990-2015 (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2015), among other poetry publications. His prose books include Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions (Notre Dame, 2011) and From the Sin-é Café to the Black Hills: Notes on the New Irish (Wisconsin, 2000). He recently co-edited Coleridge and Contemplation, published by POETICA (Tokyo). Articles, essays, and poems have been published in The Irish Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Irish Literary Supplement, New Hibernia Review and other publications. An Enniscorthy native, Eamonn Wall lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he is the Smurfit-Stone Corporation Professor of Irish Studies/International Studies & Programs at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a past-president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and is currently a vice-president of Irish American Writers & Artists Inc.

Dublin-born James Finnegan has been highly commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Competition, short-listed in Over The Edge New Writer of the Year, short-listed in The Canterbury Anthology for Poet of the Year, and published in The Irish Times – Hennessy New Irish Writing, Poetry Ireland Review, CYPHERS, Skylight47, North West Words, and the anthology The Best New British & Irish Poets 2018. Finnegan, who holds a doctor of philosophy in living educational theory, is married to Livinia and lives outside Letterkenny in the countryside. His first full collection of poems, Half-Open Door, is published by Eyewear Publishing and was launched in Listowel on June 1^st 2018.

Elizabeth (EM) Reapy is originally from Claremorris County Mayo. She currently a Dublin UNESCO City of Literature Writer-In-Residence. Her debut novel Red Dirt is published by Head of Zeus and was awarded Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, September 2017. Elizabeth gave her first major reading at the February 2010 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

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

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.