2018 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2018 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Liz McSkeane,

Paddy Mhaemie Ó'Shuilleabháin, 

Karen McDonnell, Hugh Doyle, Aoife Reilly, Katherine Noone, Kevin Higgins, Nicki Griffin, Lorna Shaughnessy, Mary Madec, Ross Hattaway, Marion Cox, Bernie Crawford, Mari Maxwell, & Susan Lindsay and the  anthology Bosom Pals (Doire Press, Ed. Marie Cadden) will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 9^th at 6.30pm.

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets, who published a new collection of poems during 2017, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be readings from the anthology Bosom Pals (Doire Press, Ed. Marie Cadden), & a showcasing of 2017 publications by the new Irish poetry publisher Turas Press. 

All welcome. There is no cover charge. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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

January Over The Edge: Open Reading as Over The Edge Celebrates Fifteenth Birthday with reading by Martina Evans, Edna Faye Kiel, & Nicola Geddes

The January ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, January 18^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Nicola Geddes, Edna Faye Kiel, & Martina Evans. This reading marks the fifteenth anniversary of the first Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library. 

Originally from Scotland, Nicola Geddes studied Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art, and Cello Performance at the London College of Music. She has been based in County Galway for the past twenty five years, where she works as a cellist and music tutor. To date her poetry has been published in Crannog, the Galway Review, and Skylight 47. In 2017 Nicola’s poems received a Special Commendation from the Patrick Kavanagh Award. 

Edna Faye Kiel has lived in Killaspuglonane, County Clare for many years but is originally from the United States. She writes fiction and has been a participant in both the North Clare Writers’ Workshop and Susan Millar DuMars’ advanced fiction writing classes. Edna’s work has been published in The Stoney Thursday Book, Stinging Fly, Books Ireland, The Cuirt Journal, and inCognito in Ireland; in Rosebud  and Ellipsis in the U.S.; London Magazine and Staple:New Writing in the U.K.; Jaam Tracks and Takahe in New Zealand; and imago and Famous Reporter in Australia. Edna is married to the poet Knute Skinner. In 2017 she was shortlisted for 2017 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year.

Martina Evans

Martina Evans was born in 1961, the youngest of ten children, and grew up in County Cork in a country pub, shop and petrol station. After training as a radiographer in Dublin she moved to London in 1988. Her first collection of poems, The Inniscarra Bar and Cycle Rest, appeared in 1995 and was followed by three further collections, All Alcoholics are Charmers (1998), Can Dentists Be Trusted? (2004) and Facing the Public (2009). She teaches Creative Writing at the City Literary Institute and Birkbeck College. She is also the author of three novels: Midnight Feast (1996), The Glass Mountain (1997), No Drinking No Dancing No Doctors (2000) and the prose-poem/novella Petrol (2012). The Windows of Graceland: New& Selected Poems was published by Carcanet, to wide critical and popular acclaim, in 2016; Martina’s next collection of poems Now We Can Talk Openly About Men will be out from Carcanet in May. She lives in London with her daughter.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially 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. 

N.B. we were delighted to learn just before Christmas that Over The Edge is to receive a more than 20% increase in its Arts Council funding for 2018, our highest level of funding ever. Happy New Year!  

NEW YEAR POETRY WORKSHOPS 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. 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 recently 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, and on Tonight With Vincent Browne.

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 January 22^nd.  They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class January 23^rd); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class January 25^th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class January 26^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

New Year Daytime Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in January, 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 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 recent issue of 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, January 22^nd. It runs for 10 weeks.

The cost to participants is 110 Euro with a 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