DAYTIME CREATIVE WRITING with Susan Millar DuMars @ Galway Arts Centre in NEW YEAR

In the New Year, 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 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 two collection of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008) and Dreams For Breakfast both with Salmon Poetry. Her next collection of poetry, The God Thing, will be published by Salmon Poetry in early 2013. She is also co-organiser of the Over The Edge reading series which specifically promotes new writers.

The class is suitable for both beginning and continuing creative writing students, working in either poetry or fiction. Students will spend their week 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, 2-3.30pm, commencing on Monday, January 21st.

The cost to participants is 110 Euro with a 100 Euro concession price. Booking is essential as places are limited. For booking please contact Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886 or email info@galwayartscentre.ie

STARTING IN JANUARY Writers at Work: A Course with Susan Millar DuMars

Have you got pages in a drawer you’ve been wanting to show someone?

This course is for writers who are at work on a project.

This could be a novel, short story, collection of stories, sequence of poems,or even a play or film script.

Participants’ only homework each week will be to read two fifteen page extracts from other students’ manuscripts and be prepared for a 20-30 minute discussion on same. Providing generous and specific feedback on others’ work helps us to be inspired risk takers in our own writing. Each participant will experience at least one such session of feedback on their own work. An in-class writing exercise at the start of each class will serve to further shake off mental cobwebs, and perhaps lead us into new writing.

This is an ideal course for the hardworking but isolated writer.

The course is takes place on Tuesdays (2-4pm) starting on Tuesday, January 22nd and runs for ten weeks. Places must be booked in advance. The cost to participants is €120 with a concession rate. To register contact Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, Galway. Telephone 091-565886. Email: info@galwayartscentre.ie   

Facilitator Susan Millar DuMars’ debut poetry collection, Big Pink Umbrella, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2008. Her next collection, Dreams for Breakfast, appeared in 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, Lights In The Distance, with Doire Press in 2010. She has been the recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary for her stories. Susan teaches creative writing to adults and to groups with special needs. She lives in Galway, where she and her husband have run the Over the Edge readings series since 2003. Susan is currently at work on her third poetry collection, The God Thing, to be published early in 2013 by Salmon.

New Year Poetry Workshops with Kevin Higgins at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in January, 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 and his work also appears in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). A collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published by Salmon Poetry earlier this year. His next collection of poetry, The Ghost in The Lobby, will be published in March 2014, also by Salmon.

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. 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 January 21st. They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class January 22nd); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class January 24th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class January 25th).

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 an €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 or email info@galwayartscentre.ie 

Launch of INFUSIONS anthology by Java Writers

Launch of 'Abandoned Darlings'

LAUNCH of ‘Cinderella Backwards’ poetry CD by Elaine Feeney & Sarah Clancy ALL PROCEEDS TO SUPPORT GALWAY PRO-CHOICE GROUP'S WORK

LAUNCH

of

Cinderella Backwards poetry CD by Elaine Feeney & Sarah Clancy

Saturday, December 1st, 7pm at The Kitchen Café @ Galway City Museum

All proceeds to support Galway Pro-Choice Group's work

Cinderella Backwards is a CD packed full of poetry by Elaine Feeney and Sarah Clancy. It features some of their well known performance pieces alongside newer work by both writers. The lively CD is packed with poems full of the two writers (un?)usual mix of satire, politics, humour and sharp observation. James Harold, Galway's well loved City Arts Officer will launch the CD in the Kitchen Cafe @ Galway City Museum. The evening will also see the launch of the Bare Hand's Print Anthology edited by Kerrie O' Brien and Sarah Maria Griffin. All proceeds from the Cinderella Backwards CD will go to support Galway Pro- Choice Group's work.

Launch of 'Wayword Tuesdays' Poetry Anthology

The Tuesday Knights

Breege Wardein, Ruth Quinlan, Stephen Byrne, Dave Donovan,
Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin, Bernie Ashe, Anne Irwin

Are Delighted to Invite You

to the launch of their Poetry Anthology

Wayword Tuesdays

in Charlie Byrnes Bookshop

at 6pm 30th November 2012.

Galway Rape Crisis Centre in association with Over The Edge presents the DEAD GOOD POETRY & MUSIC SOCIETY

Following the success of Galway Rape Crisis Centre’s Culture Night event, their DEAD GOOD POETRY & MUSIC SOCIETY will return in association with Over the Edge at Galway Rape Crisis Centre on Friday 23 November, 7-10pm. This is a free event and the GRCC is proud to present poets Marie Cadden and Susan Lindsay, music from My Fellow Sponges and some other very special musical guests.

Venue: Galway Rape Crisis Centre,

‘The Lodge', Forster Court, Galway City.

For further details: 091-564800

Marie Cadden

Marie Cadden was winner of the 2011 Cuirt New Writing Prize for Poetry, Runner-Up 2012 Westport Arts Festival Poetry Prize, 3rd Prize Francis Ledwidge Poetry Competition 2012, shortlisted for Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition 2012, Bradshaw Books/Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition 2011, Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award 2010.

Susan Lindsay was a founding Director of the Creative Counselling Centre and Connect Assocs. Dublin. Having previously had her book, The Love Crucible (self-help genre) published by Marino in 1995, in 2011 she was selected by Poetry Ireland to read for the Introductions Series & her debut collection of poems, Whispering the Secrets (http://www.doirepress.ie/) was published.

Take an obsession with words; add a splash of weirdness, some theatrical training and you'd have something like what My Fellow Sponges get up to on and off stage. They are a five-piece Galway-based band with very diverse musical and non-musical interests who sing in three part harmonyand are influenced by a wide range of genres and musical styles.

For more about the work of Galway Rape Crisis Centre http://www.galwayrcc.org/

Over The Edge to receive Arts Council funding in 2013

We were delighted to be informed this morning that Over The Edge will continue to receive Arts Council funding in 2013. We will retain the same level of funding as we received this year, which was an increase on the amount received last year. Given the general funding outlook at this time, this is a great result for Over The Edge and will enable us to continue giving Galway City a year round programme of literary events which is the envy of the rest of the country.

North Beach Nights 2012 Grand Slam

Hannah Kiely, Gabriel Lacey & Judith Mok for Final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2012

Judith Mok

The December Over The Edge: Open Reading takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, December 13th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Judith Mok, Gabriel Lacey & Hannah Kiely. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are especially welcome. The Over The Edge Christmas celebration will take place afterwards.

Hannah Kiely was born in Waterford and has been living in Galway for several years. She attended both NUIG and GMIT in Galway. Hannah is a well known business woman, member of many boards and a regular contributor to Money Matters in the Galway Independent and also a commentator in many other business publications. Hannah has been writing since she was very young and has been attending classes with Susan Millar DuMars at GTI over the past number of years. Hannah writes from the heart and her poetry is a wonderful insight into people and the events happening around us all. She writes of the moment, with an immediacy of observation. In between working and volunteering with many charities, Hannah somehow finds time to cycle and write.

Gabriel Lacey is a retired civil servant who was born in Co. Tipperary and lived in Dublin for many years before moving to Galway 23 years ago. He has travelled extensively in Europe and America. As a result, he doesn’t know where he is most of the time and this is what inspires him as a writer. He was a member of Tallaght Theatre Group in Dublin from 1979-89 and played several leading roles in various plays; he also directed The Factory Girls, by Frank McGuinness. He has been an enthusiastic student of Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar Du Mars. Both of them, to their credit, resisted the urge to kick him out of writing classes. He is a member of Javawriters and is thrilled to be included in their first anthology, Infusions, released this Christmas.

Judith Mok was born in Bergen in the Netherlands. She has published three novels and four books of poetry as well as short stories. She has written for Radio and Newspapers. Her short stories have been short listed twice for the Francis Mc Manus award and her first novel The innocents at the Circus for the Prix de l’Academie Francaise. Her work has appeared nationally and internationally in literary magazines and Anthologies. She travels the world working as a classical singer. Judith’s most recent poetry collection, Gods of Babel, was published in 2011 by Salmon Poetry. http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=236&a=207

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most 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 & The Arts Council. We were delighted to be informed recently that our Arts Council funding for 2013 will remain at the same level as it was for this year, which was itself an increase on what we received in 2011. A great result in the circumstances.

November 'Over The Edge: Open Reading' with Mary Noonan, Fiona Scoble & Dave Donovan PLUS The Abandoned Darlings

Mary Noonan whose debut collection of poems The Fado House

was published by Dedalus Press earlier this year.

http://www.dedaluspress.com/auth/6

Fiona Scoble, Dave Donovan & Mary Noonan for November Over The Edge: Open Reading PLUS a sneak preview reading from by the MA in Writing Class of 2011/12 from their forthcoming anthology The Abandoned Darlings.

The November‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, November 15th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Mary Noonan, Dave Donovan & Fiona Scoble. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are especially welcome.

Fiona Scoble was born in Kent and now lives in Galway, working as an artist and illustrator. She studied English at Cambridge University and went on to be a documentary researcher for Maximum Exposure Productions, driving from England to India in a London taxi. She has also worked as a journalist. In 2011 her short non-fiction children’s book, Bright Minds in the “Dark Ages”, was published by CE4CE as a teaching resource. She recently attended creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute and as a result joined the “Java Writers” in publishing a collection of short stories, entitled Infusions, to be launched this December. Fiona was longlisted in the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Competition.

Dave Donovan was born in Dublin. His family moved between Ireland the USA and Zambia before settling in Galway in the early seventies. Apart from a few brief sojourns in other jurisdictions he has lived here since then. He has worked in the fields of residential care, intellectual disability and community arts. Currently he is undertaking graduate studies in Applied Social Studies in NUI Maynooth. He has been attending poetry workshops in the Arts Centre with Kevin Higgins since early 2011. More latterly he has been associated with the Tuesday Nights and their upcoming publication Wayword Tuesdays. He has read at the open mic space at Over the Edge readings. Poems he finds either while cycling, walking or sometimes sleeping.

Mary Noonan lives in Cork, where she works as a lecturer in French literature at University College Cork.. Her poems have appeared in The Dark Horse, The Stinging Fly, Southword, The SHOp, Cyphers, Blackbox Manifold, BigCityLit, Wasafiri, Tears in the Fence, The Moth, The Echo Room, The Same, The Cork Literary Review, The Alhambra Poetry Calendar 2010, Best of Irish Poetry 2010, and The Threepenny Review (Summer 2012). She won the Listowel Poetry Collection Prize in 2010. Her first collection – The Fado House – was published by Dedalus Press, Dublin in 2012.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished THIS WILL INCLUDE a sneak preview reading by the MA in Writing Class of 2011/12 from their forthcoming anthology The Abandoned Darlings http://abandoneddarlings.tumblr.com/ . New readers are always most welcome at the open-mic. 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 & The Arts Council.

Donate to Over The Edge

North Beach Poetry Nights: Galway Launch of '30 under 30' anthology

North Beach Poetry Nights

Monday 12th November in The Crane Bar, Sea Road, Galway at the very NEW TIME of 6.30 pm with the Galway Launch by John Corless of the wordlegs/Doire Press

30 under 30 fiction anthology.

Special guests reading from the anthology:

Elizabeth Reapy (editor),

Joe Jennings,

Cal Doyle

and Kerrie O'Brien

(winner of the 2012 Arena flash fiction prize.)

Kerrie will  read her winning story, That Night.

30 under 30 anthology available @ http://www.doirepress.com 

Poets wishing to enter the Slam on the night need 2 max. three minutes poems.

The prize for the winner is a bottle of wine and entry to the North Beach Grand Slam in December.

This is the last slam before the December Grand Slam

- last chance to enter.

Door: Free Admission

Info: John @091/593290

Shore Writers' Festival at the Ocean Sands Hotel, Enniscrone, County Sligo

The first Shore Writers' Festival takes place on the first weekend of November at the Ocean Sands Hotel, Enniscrone, County Sligo. This most innovative festival is particulary aimed at young writers and is the brainchild of Elizabeth Reapy.

Galway writers Kevin Higgins and John Walsh will be in conversation with each other on the Saturday afternoon of the festival (2.30pm, November 3rd).

Later that evening there will be a reading by Doire Press writers and Susan Millar DuMars will launch the anthology 30 under 30, published by Doire Press, which showcases the work of thirty fiction writers all of whom are under thirty years of age.

You can see the festival's Facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/ShoreWritersFestival 

and the full programme of events for the weekend here  http://www.wordlegs.com/shore-schedule-web.pdf

October Over The Edge: Open Reading with Aoibheann McCann, Patrick Chapman & Cormac Culkeen

Patrick Chapman

The October ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, October 25th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Patrick Chapman, Aoibheann McCann & Cormac Culkeen. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are especially welcome.

Cormac Culkeen is a writer of poetry, fiction and short stories from Dunmore, Co. Galway. He discovered the power of the written word in National School when he wrote a poem and his teacher stopped threatening him because of it. He has two dogs who obey nobody else when he's at home and a family who keep at him to better himself. Some years ago his work was published in The Burning Bush literary magazine. He lives and works in Galway and has recently been attending creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute.

Aoibheann McCann is a native of County Donegal. She moved to Galway in 1992 where she attended NUI Galway. She published her first poem in 1995 in The Edge and went on to write the ‘Blow-In’s Guide to Galway’ column in Galway Xposed, followed by the ‘Let’s Talk About…’ column in The Galway Independent. She has been working on her first novel, ‘Hippocampus’, for the past eight years.

Patrick Chapman was born in 1968. He lives in Dublin. His poetry collections are Jazztown (Raven Arts Press, Dublin, 1991), The New Pornography (Salmon Poetry), Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights (Salmon Poetry, 2007), A Shopping Mall on Mars (BlazeVOX [Books], Buffalo, 2008) and The Darwin Vampires (Salmon Poetry, 2010). His collection of short stories is The Wow Signal (Bluechrome, UK, 2007). Also a scriptwriter, he adapted his own published story for Burning the Bed (2003). Directed by Denis McArdle, this award-winning film starred Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen. He has written episodes of the children’s animated television series Garth & Bev (Kavaleer, 2009); and a Doctor Who audio play, Fear of the Daleks (Big Finish, 2007). His story ‘A Ghost’ won first prize in the Cinescape Genre Literary Competition. In 2010 his work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Patrick’s latest collection of poetry A Promiscuity of Spines: New & Selected Poems is just published by Salmon Poetry. http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=275&a=93

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most 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 & The Arts Council.

Doire Press presents THE LAUNCH of The Art of Non-Fishing by Kevin O'Shea

Free Slam Poetry Workshops with Dave Lordan for TY/Senior English students

 Calling all performers, poets, writers and lyricists!

To tie in with IFI Educations schools screening of We are Poets (http://wearepoets.co.uk ), Poetry Ireland in collaboration with the IFI are offering a number of FREE WORKSHOPS to 12 lucky participants, between the ages of 15 and 18, who are interested in learning the art of slam poetry.

These high-energy slam poetry workshops will be led by award-winning poet and spoken word performer, Dave Lordan. The participants will learn about performance, writing and the art of slam poetry, and work towards a live performance which will take place on Dec 12th after the screening We are Poets.

If you would like to take part, please email and tell us why or send in an example of your work.

E: schools@irishfilm.ie or contact Dee or Elaine on 01 6795744 for more information.

Open to individual students. Places limited.

Closing date Nov 12th.

Special Over The Edge: Open Reading as part of festival of creative writing for people with intellectual disabilities

 A special Over The Edge: Open Reading as part of the Away with Words festival of creative writing for people with intellectual disabilities will take place on Thursday, October 18^th, 6.30-8pm in Galway City Library. All are welcome to attend.

Away with Words is an innovative arts project which enables people with intellectual disabilities to explore and develop their creativity through writing. At this year’s Cúirt International Festival, Salmon Poetry launched Jessica Casey and Other Works, a rich collection of stories and poems full of heart, humor and fun - by Away with Words writers. For more about Jessica Casey and Other Works see http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=257&a=217   

The evening will see readings of their work by the Away with Words writers. They will be assisted in presenting their work by their creative writing tutors Mary Madec, Kevin Higgins & Susan Millar DuMars.

VENUE: GALWAY CITY LIBRARY 6.30 – 8pm, Thursday, October 18^th FOR FURTHER DETAILS PHONE 087-6431748 or 091-721436.

Away with Words warmly acknowledges the support of the Brothers of Charity, Galway City VEC, Galway City Council & The Arts Council.

Lisbrook House RESIDENTS TO BE MOVED THIS WEEKEND

BREAKING NEWS Wednesday October 17th

The residents of Lisbrook House have received faxes informing them that they are to be moved within days, many to hostels outside of Galway. Supporters of the residents will be holding continuous protests now. The first will begin on THURSDAY (October 18th) AT 9AM, again on Friday at 9AM, to culminate with a large rally on Monday morning. All will be held outside Lisbrook House, moving back and forth to

the Kirwan Roundabout.

For more about the Lisbrook House support group

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/456136227758340/  

Ade Adekeye, who was a Featured Reader at the Over The Edge: Open Reading on August 30th in Galway City Library, is one of the people effected by the decision to close Lisbrook House which houses several hundred asylum-seeking residents.
Over The Edge considers it only reasonable that, if residents of Lisbrook House are to be relocated, they should be relocated within the Galway area. Many of the residents have lived in Galway for a number of years and, like Ade, have significant ties to the local community which would be lost were they to be relocated to, for example, Sligo or Limerick or Athlone.

For more about Ade’s Featured Reading at the August Over The Edge: Open Reading, at which he brilliantly read his poetry, see here http://www.overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.ie/2012/08/august-over-edge-open-reading-with.html

For more information about the campaign in support of the Lisbrook House residents, contact Joseph Loughnane on 087-2729021 .

2012 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Seán Kenny

Our competition judge John Corless has chosen Seán Kenny as the winner in the fiction section. Seán is also the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year. He will received €700 prize money, be a Featured Reader at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library next Spring and Doire Press will read a collection of his short stories.

Seán Kenny is 33 and from Dublin. As a journalist, he has written for The Irish Times and The Irish Examiner. He was shortlisted for the 2011 Swift Satire Award and his short fiction has been published in Crannóg, The Irish Times, Southword and Wordlegs. One of his stories can be read here http://www.wordlegs.com/magazine/viewitem.php?id=153

Sean's winning entry was his short story Ending It.

Fiona Smith

Our competition judge John Corless has chosen Fiona Smith as the winner in the poetry section. Fiona will receive €300 prize money and Salmon poetry will read a manuscript of her poems.

Fiona Smith is a freelance journalist and translator. She has published a wide range of journalistic work in both Irish and international publications. She currently writes on Irish topics for the German Press Agency dpa and translates from Scandinavian languages into English. 'Being Young', her first published poem was published in Southwords earlier this year and can be read here http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword/Issues/22/smith_fiona.html Fiona is working on a first collection of poems and lives in Kinsale, County Cork.

Fiona's winning entry was her poem At Letterfrack.

Over The Edge warmly congratulates Seán and Fiona as well as all those writers who made the shortlist and the longlist in what was another recording breaking year for the competition, in terms of the number of entries received: 457.

THE SHORTLIST CAN BE READ HERE http://www.overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.ie/2012/08/2012-over-edge-new-writer-of-year-short.html  


THE LONGLIST CAN BE READ HERE
http://www.overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.ie/2012/08/2012-over-edge-new-writer-of-year-long.html

We thank our sponsors for this year's competition:

Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop,

ISupply Quay Street,

Ward’s Hotel,

Senator Lorraine Higgins,

Derek Nolan T.D.,

Trevor Sherlock

& The Creole Restaurant, Dominick Street