June Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Quincy Lehr, Maeve Galvin, & Matthew Caley

A special June ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, June 11th  at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Matthew Caley, Maeve Galvin, & Quincy Lehr. 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 email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Quincy Lehr

Quincy R. Lehr says that he “is a butt-scratching imbecile with bad personal hygiene” but Kevin & Susan assure us that he exaggerates. Quincy’s most recent book is The Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar (2015). He lives in Los Angeles where he pisses off Bozos with his mild mannered comments on social media and teaches in a high school. Kevin Higgins’ Galway Advertiser review of The Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar can be read here https://www.advertiser.ie/Galway/article/83380/poet-who-uses-swear-words-immaculately

Originally from Bray, Co. Wicklow, Maeve Galvin has worked as an international development worker across the United Nations and non-profit organisations for a decade and has lived and worked in Ireland, Cambodia, Nigeria, Myanmar and the United States. The Saviours is her first novel.  Copies can be purchased here https://merdogbooks.com/product/the-saviours-a-novel/

Matthew Caley

Since his debut Thirst [Slow Dancer, 1999] was nominated for The Forward Prize for Best 1st collection, Matthew Caley has published five more, the last three from Bloodaxe. He's recently taught poetry/creative writing at The University of Winchester, The School of English, St Andrews University, Scotland, and The Poetry School, London. He gave the StAnza 2020 lecture this March. He has read everywhere from Novi Sad, Serbia to The Globe Theatre, London; from Prague’s Alchemy to Wayne-Holloway Smith's living room. His latest and 6th collection is Trawlerman’s Turquoise [Bloodaxe, 2019].

Over The Edge is inviting you to the June Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, June 11^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.

2020 Over The Edge / Cúirt New Writers Showcase videos

The 2020 Cúirt Festival New Writers Showcase reading was to have taken place this year at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on Wednesday, April 22nd. 

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.

 

Rory Duffy reading.

Aisling Keogh reading.

Sarah Padden reading. 

 

 

Over The Edge announces Spring DAYTIME course in Advanced Fiction Writing with Susan Millar DuMars STARTS May 15th

Susan Millar DuMars with Over The Edge co-organiser Kevin Higgins

THE CLASS TAKES PLACE on FRIDAYS, 2-4pm for 8 weeks.
STARTING FRIDAY MAY 15th.

Maximum Number students: 5 

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 Wednesday 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 40 pages of work.

Price: €140 for 8 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. 

The class is organised by Over The Edge literary events and will take place at 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway. Five minutes from NUI Galway. Parking available.

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. 

YOU CAN REGISTER ONLINE NOW FOR THE CLASS STARTING FRIDAY MAY 15th.

ADVANCED FICTION DAYTIME CLASS