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.

September Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Hannah Lowe, D’or Seifer, & Liz O’Riordan

The September ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, September 30th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Liz O’Riordan, D’or Seifer, & Hannah Lowe. 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.                                

Liz O’Riordan lives in Galway City. She has participated in creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute and read her work at the Over The Edge open-mic. Her writing has been published in the Vox Galvia page in The Galway Advertiser.

D'or Seifer lives in Limerick. She contributes to poetry gatherings, such as Filí an Tí Bháin, and On the Nail. D’or co-runs the online poetry series Lime Square Poets. Previous to this, she co-ran the Not the Time to be Silent series. Her work has appeared in Skylight 47, The Galway Advertiser's Vox Galvia page, Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Pendemic.

 

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. She has lived in London, Brighton and Santa Cruz, California. She studied American Literature at the University of Sussex and has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies, and a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University. She has worked as a teacher of literature, and is now a lecturer in Creative Writing at Brunel University. Her pamphlet The Hitcher (The Rialto, 2011) was widely praised. Her first book-length collection Chick (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. This was followed by two pamphlets, R x (sine wave peak, 2013) and Ormonde (Hercules Editions, 2014), and her family memoir Long Time No See (Periscope, 2015). She also read from Long Time, No See on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in 2015. Her second full-length collection, Chan, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, followed by a pamphlet, The Neighbourhood (Out-Spoken Press) in 2019. Her third full collection, The Kids (Bloodaxe Books, 2021), is the Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021. She has been poet in residence at Keats House, and in 2020 she received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors.

Over The Edge is inviting you to the September Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, September 30^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.

Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop launch of Kevin Higgins’s Extended Essay on Being a Marxist Poet

You are invited to the launch of Kevin Higgins’s extended essay, Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21^st Century Ireland, which is published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press, on Wednesday, September 8^th at 6.30pm. The book will be launched by poet Ciaran O'Rourke.  The launch will adhere to all Covid 19 social distancing protocols. You can buy an advance copy of Thrills & Difficulties here.  

As part of the launch Patrick Chapman, Ruth Quinlan, Rachel Coventry, Dave Lordan, & Ciaran O’Rourke will read poems of theirs which Kevin has quoted in Thrills & Difficulties...

Praise for Thrills & Difficulties:  

“I would never accuse Kevin Higgins of writing anything so diminishing as a rallying cry or manifesto. And yet, nobody is safe from his sharpened wit (least of all his Granny's fading crockery) as he eviscerates any notions we might have about what poetry should be. It would be wise to read this with a strong dose of self-awareness and, at the very least, a muted understanding of the genuine need for change in a world cracking under the weight of capitalism.” Alvy Carragher, poet & author of The Men I Keep Under My Bed (Salmon Poetry, 2021)   

"those who habitually occupy 'the best room' will hear its walls rattling in this detailed, rollicking, humorous, full-on piece of polemic. It's personal. What makes it even more forceful is that Higgins comes to praise as well as to bury, generously listing and quoting from a phalanx of poets. Poets who, while sometimes outside 'the best room', are making the best noises. In an age where poets are being routinely enlisted to make banks and building societies look 'street' [and themselves vacuous] ----this type of corrective slap is ever more necessary. Long may he [purposefully] rave." Matthew Caley, poet & author of Trawlerman’s Turquoise (Bloodaxe Books, 2019)  

 

For further details contact Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on (091) 561 766 or Kevin on 087-6431748. 

 

August Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Barbara Rockman, Siobhan Potter, & Hannah Ward

The first ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ after the summer break takes place on Zoom on Thursday, August 26th  at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Hannah Ward, Siobhan Potter, & Barbara Rockman. 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.                                   

Hannah Ward is from Roscommon and grew up in a family ran petrol station which closed in 2018. Hannah is currently a student in NUIG studying creative writing and working towards a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy. Hannah would like to follow in the grand Irish tradition of speaking in great descriptive volumes, with a lot of heart and conviction, and never really making a point. Her poetry has been published in the Vox Galvia creative writing page in The Galway Advertiser.

Siobhan Potter works as a verbal artist. Her practice, centred in relationship, explores the capacity of oral epic poetic form to midwife experience. Siobhan is the curator of ‘not the time to be silent’, an Arts response to social distancing and is a current recipient of an Arts Council of Ireland Literature project award. Siobhan’s poetry has been published in oral and print form.

Barbara Rockman is author of Sting and Nest, Poems, winner of the 2012 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her 2019 poetry collection, to cleave | University of New Mexico Press received the National Press Women Prize and was a finalist for the International Book Award and the New Mexico Book Award. Barbara has been a recipient of the Baskerville Poetry Prize, New Mexico Discovery Award, and The MacGuffin Prize; her Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poems appear in terrain.org.,Thrush, Nimrod and Verse Daily. Barbara teaches poetry at Santa Fe Community College, Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families, and in community workshops.She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Find her at motherpoet@aol.com

Over The Edge is inviting you to the August Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, August 26^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.

 

Autumn Beginners & Intermediate Online Creative Writing Classes via Galway Technical Institute BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW

 

Creative Writing for Beginners with Kevin Higgins takes place one evening per week (Monday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Monday, September 13^th, 2021. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. Kevin Higgins will provide writing exercises for, and give gentle critical feedback to, those interested in trying their hand at writing stories, poems, or memoir.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/courses/detail/4966

 

Intermediate Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars takes place one evening per week (Wednesday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Wednesday, September 15th, 2021. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. This class is suitable for those who’ve participated in creative writing classes before or begun to have work published in magazines. Flexible exercises and work-shopping of assignments, together with the study of the works of published writers, will help each class member to find their own writing voice.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/courses/detail/5009

Both classes will be conducted via Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that have made Kevin and Susan’s regular in-person creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute 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.

For further information contact Galway Technical Institute, Father Griffin Road, Galway, phone 091-581342 or email gtiadulted@gretb.ie or see http://www.gti.ie