New Year POETRY WORKSHOPS via GALWAY ARTS CENTRE

 New Year POETRY WORKSHOPS via GALWAY ARTS CENTRE

 

Starting in January, 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 this year. Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic, will be published by Salmon in March.

 

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 January 24^th. They will be conducted via Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that have made Kevin's regular 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, January 25th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, January 27th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, January 28th).

 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.

 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/355-355-poetry-with-kevin-higgins-evening-online-remote-course

Denise Commins, Odhrán Reidy, & Sue Pace for Final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2021

The December ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, December 16th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Sue Pace, Odhrán Reidy, & Denise Commins. 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 message 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.  The Over The Edge end of year celebration will take place in the House Hotel, Galway afterwards.

Denise Commins is Galway born and bred. She is a retired National school teacher . She has enjoyed attending Susan Millar DuMars creative writing classes at Galway Arts Centre and, recently, via Galway Technical Institute. Denise mostly writes poems based on memoir. She has previously read her work at the Over The Edge open-mic in Galway City Library. An active participant in a number of book groups over the years, writing is a hobby for Denise. 

Odhrán Reidy lives in Co. Galway where he works with medical devices during the day and plot devices in his spare time. He is a recovering cynic who finds himself occasionally prone to debilitating fits of optimism. He writes fiction and takes creative writing classes in Galway Technical Institute.

 

Sue Pace is a fiction writer living in Washington State, USA. Her stories have been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies, including The Raven Chronicles, Skive, Stringtown, Other Voices, & More Raw Material – an anthology inspired by Alan Sillitoe (Lucifer Press, 2015). Brett Evans, editor of Prole Magazine (UK), said of Sue’s 2017 short story collection Driving Sharon Crazy: “The characters here...are so flawed that they are perfect. Humanity is what pumps blood through these stories, and these stories are what make Sue Pace one of the most human and exciting writers today.”

Over The Edge is inviting you to the December Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, December 16^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.

 

November Over The Edge: Open Reading with Gioconda Belli, Estelle Birdy, & Sacha Hutchinson

The November ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, November 18^th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Sacha Hutchinson, Estelle Birdy, & Gioconda Belli. 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 on 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.

Sacha Hutchinson is an eye doctor working in Galway. She was born in Dublin. She attends a weekly poetry workshop with Kevin Higgins and many Over The Edge events. Her poetry has appeared in Ropes 2018, in the 2018 and 2021 spring editions of Skylight 47, the 2019 autumn edition of The Curlew, Inspired volume 3, Live Encounters June 2020, Pendemic May 2021, Drawn to the Light Press Febuary 2021, Poetry in Lockdown Archive UCD 2021 and Lothlorien Poetry Journal 2021.She was shortlisted for Poetry for Patience  2018 and 2019. She was longlisted for Over the Edge New Writer of the Year 2018 and shortlisted in 2019. She received a Bachelor of Arts in art and design in 2010. She has an interest in exploring the environmental message through paint and poetry. 

 

Estelle Birdy describes herself as “Louth and proud” but is a long-time resident of Dublin’s Liberties. She is a graduate of UCD’s Masters in Creative Writing, with teachers Anne Enright and Sebastian Barry. Her reviews and nonfiction have appeared in the Sunday Independent, the Irish Times and others. She has won or been shortlisted in Dalkey Creates, Penfro Book Festival, Verve Poetry Festival and IWC Novel Fair competitions. Her debut novel Ravelling, which has been described as “Fast-paced, funny and eye-popping, descending from Trainspotting, White Teeth and Milkman in its portrayal of urban life in the twenty-first century” is forthcoming from Lilliput Press. Estelle received literature bursaries from the Arts Council in both 2020 & 2021 for the short-story collection she is currently working on.

Gioconda Belli is a Nicaraguan poet and novelist. She’s had an active political life in her country as a feminist and defender of human rights. Although she was part of the struggle to topple Somoza’s regime and the Sandinista Revolution (1979), she split from the new sandinismo of Daniel Ortega in 1993. She writes both poetry and novels. Her poetry has received many prizes: Mariano Fiallos Gil prize, the Casa de las Americas Prize, Generacion del 27 Prize, Ciudad de Melilla and in 2020, the Jaime Gil de Biedma prize in Spain. Her first novel The Inhabited Woman (1988) became a literary and commercial success and was awarded the Best Political Novel of the Year and the Anna Seghers award in Germany in 1989. For her novel Infinity in the Palm of her Hand (2008) she won Seix Barral’s Biblioteca Breve and the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz prizes. In 2010 she was awarded the Latin American prize, “La Otra Orilla” for her novel El País de las Mujeres,  (Womenland). In 2019, she was a finalist for the III Mario Vargas Llosa Prize for her 2018 novel Las Fiebres de la Memoria (“Fevers of Memory”). She’s written four children’s books and a memoir of her guerrilla years: The Country under my skin. PEN Germany awarded her the Hermann Kesten Prize in 2018 for her defense of freedom of the press and her role as a women’s advocate. She’s a member of the Nicaraguan Royal Academy of Letters and Chevalier des les Arts et Letres of France. Her works have been translated in 20 languages. Web page:  www.giocondabelli.org Twitter: @GiocondaBelliP Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GiocondaBelliP/

Over The Edge is inviting you to the November Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, November 18^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.

 

October Over The Edge: Open Reading with Billy Hutchinson, Fiona Sampson, Rosita Sweetman & John Cunningham

The October ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on on Zoom on Thursday, October 28th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time).

 

This is Over The Edge’s annual non-fiction special, at which all of the Featured Readers are writers of non-fiction; however poets and fiction writers are still very welcome at the open-mic. The Featured Readers are John Cunningham, Rosita Sweetman, Fiona Sampson, & Billy Hutchinson. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or register their interest on 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. 

 

John Cunningham lectures in history at NUI Galway and is co-director of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class. Published extensively on Irish social history and global labour history, he is editor with Ciaran McDonough of a forthcoming volume commissioned by ASP/Arden to mark the bicentenary of James Hardiman’s classic history of Galway. Galway Arts and Culture, 1820-2020 will be in the shops in November. 

 

Born into a big political/legal family in Dublin Rosita Sweetman began writing when she was 10. She’s worked as a journalist with the Irish Press, the Irish Times, the Sunday Independent, as a ‘runner’ and secretary at BBC TV in London, and as a research assistant on RTE TV in Dublin. She has published three best selling books, On Our Knees (1972), On Our Backs, Sexual Attitudes in a Changing Ireland (1979) and a novel Fathers Come First (1974) recently re-published by the Lilliput Press (2015). In 2004 she co-produced an allergy cookbook with her children Chupi and Luke, What To Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything. She is acritic for the Irish Times, the Sunday Independent, and the Dublin Review of Books. Having a survived a marriage break up Rosita re-found her feminism sadly buried, along with her chutzpah. She passionately believes feminism is not about blaming men, or pushing a few women to the top so they can be ‘she-men’ for the patriarchy. It's about creating a world fit for everyone. Of everything she has created her two adult children Chupi and Luke are way and above the most precious. Her most recent book, Feminism Backwards – part memoir, part documentary – was published last year by Mercier Press. 

 

 photo by Ekaterina Voskresenskaya

Fiona Sampson is a leading British poet and writer, published in thirty-eight languages, who has received a number of awards in the US, India and Europe. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, of the English Association and of the Wordsworth Trust, she’s published twenty-seven books and received an MBE for Services to Literature.Emeritus Professor of the University of Roehampton, she has served on the Council of the Royal Society of Literature and is a Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund. Other honours include the Newdigate Prize, Cholmondeley Prize, Hawthornden Fellowship, and numerous awards from the Arts Councils of England and of Wales, Society of Authors, Poetry Book Society and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as well as variousnational Book of the Year selections.She recently received the 2019 Naim Frashëri Laureateship of Albania and Macedonia, and the 2020 European Lyric Atlas Prize, Bosnia.She’s also a broadcaster and newspaper critic, librettist and literary translator, and was editor of Poetry Review 2005-12. Her internationally acclaimed In Search of Mary Shelley was shortlisted for the Biographers’ Club Slightly Foxed Prize, and Two-Way Mirror: The life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (UK - Profile; US – W.W. Norton) appeared to critical acclaim this spring.

 

 Billy Hutchinson is the current leader of the Progressive Unionist Party and a Belfast City Councillor for the Court Ward. In the early 1970s Billy was involved in the formation of the Young Citizen Volunteers and was later influential in brokering the loyalist ceasefire of 1994. He was involved in the negotiations which led to the Belfast Agreement on Good Friday 1998 and was nominated by the UVF as their interlocutor with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning chaired by General John de Chastelain. Billy’s memoir, My Life In Loyalism, was published by Irish Academic Press last November. https://irishacademicpress.ie/product/my-life-in-loyalism/

 

Over The Edge is inviting you to the October Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, October 28th, 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 especially welcome. For further details phone 087-6431748.

 

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