May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering launches Christine Valters Paintner’s debut poetry collection

The May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry including the Galway launch of Christine Valters Paintner’s debut poetry collection, Dreaming of Stones (Paraclete Poetry) with guest speaker Dara Molloy. There will also be readings by Patrick Chapman, Raine Geoghegan, Colm Keegan, and Anita Ouellette. The event will take place at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, May 10th, 8pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Christine Valters Paintner is the online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery and global, ecumenical community integrating contemplative practice and creative expression. She is a Benedictine oblate living on the west coast of Ireland with her husband John. Together they lead pilgrimages and retreats in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Austria. Christine is the author of twelve books on spirituality, monastic wisdom, creativity, and the arts including The Artist’s Rule and The Soul’s Slow Ripening.  Her poems have been published in journals in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and the UK. She has participated in poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and online. Dreaming of Stones is Christine’s debut poetry collection. 

Patrick Chapman was born in 1968 and lives in Dublin. He has published eight poetry collections since 1991, as well as a novel and three volumes of stories. His other works include a short film, television for children, and audio dramas for Doctor Who and Dan Dare. He produced B7’s dramatisation of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles for BBC Radio 4. His most recent poetry collection Open Season on the Moon is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Anita Ouellette is a poet living in Massachusetts. She was runner-up in the 2013 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition and is a regular participant in Kevin Higgins’ online poetry workshop. Anita is currently on holiday in Ireland and will share a couple of her poems.

Colm Keegan is from Dublin. Elaine Feeney said this of his most recent poetry collection, Randomer (Salmon, 2018): “Delving into themes of mid-life, fatherhood, love, belonging and family, with solid observations and self-surrendering language, here is a poet now ready to watch and listen. Keegan is loyal to his trade, never hiding truth, or shirking responsibility. Randomer catapults Keegan into the anti-hero role of his own tales. The Dublin that created him, he bravely recreates, through lines that are gritty yet gorgeous. Keegan continues to write politically, honouring the list poem, watching Ireland with a satirical eye and sharp wit, while questioning the poet’s place in everything: the home, the city, even his place in poetry and its lure, for better or worse.  Randomer is a fascinating read. It finds edgy beauty in the banality of human struggle, in a world that’s off-kilter. These poems are gut-wrenchingly raw and beautiful.  You will return to this book again and again. Keegan is a romantic with nerve and bravery.  We find solace in his path.”  

Raine Geoghegan, MA is a poet and prose writer of Romany, Irish and Welsh descent living in the UK. Recent publications include Poetry Ireland Review; The Curlew; Travellers' Times; Ofi Press and Under the Radar. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net 2018 nominee. Her pamphlet, Apple Water: Povel Panni was launched in December 2018.

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

Over The Edge in association with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature presents the fourteenth annual New Writing Showcase

Since its inception in 2006 the New Writing Showcase has grown to become one of the most important platforms for emerging writers in Ireland. This year’s Cúirt / Over The Edge New Writing Showcase features three participants from the Over the Edge literary series in Galway – Daniel McBrearty, Jessamine O’Connor, & John D. Kelly – and Shannon Savvas and Jeremy Haworth,  the winners of the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2019. The MC for the event will be regular Over The Edge host Susan Millar DuMars. It takes place on Wednesday, April 10^th, 11 am, at The Town Hall Theatre. Entry is free of charge. All welcome.

John D. Kelly lives in Co. Fermanagh. Since he began writing creatively in 2011, his work has been commended in many competitions and published in various literary publications. He was Highly Commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2016, awarded joint ‘Silver’ in the International Dermot Healy Poetry Competition in both 2015 and 2014, and won first prize in Hungry Hill ‘Poets Meet Painters’ 2014, amongst other awards. John was a Featured Reader at the February 2018 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Jessamine O'Connor

Jessamine O Connor facilitates The Hermit Collective arts troupe, The Wrong Side Of The Tracks Writers, and the Ballaghaderreen branch of Failte Isteach conversational English classes. She won the iYeats, the Francis Ledwidge, and the Poetry Ireland Butlers Café poetry competitions, and was short-listed for the Hennessy, Over The Edge, Cuirt New Writing, Galway Hospital Poems For Patience, Bradshaw Books, Leaf Books and Red Line Book Festival competitions. She is currently promoting her fifth chapbook Pact, and her first full collection of poems is coming out with Salmon in early 2020. Jessamine was a Featured Reader at the May 2018 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Daniel McBrearty

Daniel McBrearty, or Danny to his friends, is a writer of both poetry and prose. The Donegal native's poetry has been published in A New Ulster, and his fiction was chosen as the winner in the Ulster Male category in Hot Press' Write Here Write Now Competition last May. A student of creative writing at NUI Galway, Danny’s writing deals with being young in an irrational world. He has no idea what his writing style is. That’s for other people to decide. Danny was a Featured Reader at the December 2018 Over The Edge: Open Reading and he was a runner-up in this year’s Poems for Patience competition.

Shannon Savvas is a New Zealand writer who divides her life and heart between New Zealand, England and Cyprus. Her flash fiction and short stories have been published online in journals in New Zealand and the United States and in a number of anthologies. Shannon describes herself as a “chronic long and short lister in [writing] competitions.” She won the 2017 Reflex Fiction Winter competition and is the winner of the fiction category in the Cuirt New Writing Prize 2019.

Jeremy Haworth is a novelist and poet. Originally from Bray, Co. Wicklow, he now resides in rural Co. Laois with his wife, Claire, and two children. He divides his time between writing and developing an organic market garden. He is currently working towards the publication of his first book of poetry. Jeremy is the winner of the poetry category in this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of The Arts Council, Galway City Council, and Poetry Ireland, and our ongoing partnership with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature.

Spring Poetry Workshops at Galway Arts Centre

Kevin Higgins

Starting in May, 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, 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 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 five collections of poetry with Salmon, most recently 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 next poetry collection, Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital, is published by Salmon Poetry (June 2019).

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 eight weeks, commencing the week of Monday May 13^th.  They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, May 14^th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, May 16th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, May 17th).

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 €90, with a €80 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 https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/courses