Claire Kilroy
Jimi McDonnell is a native of Tuam, Co.Galway. He cites his family, playwright Tom Murphy and footballer Ja Fallon as pivotal influences. Since 2007, Jimi has been the music correspondent for the Connacht Tribune. Last year he took Susan Millar DuMars’ Creative Writing course at GTI and is now enrolled in the MA in Writing programme at NUI, Galway. Jimi is currently working on poetry and fiction projects.
James Marshall was born on the west coast of Scotland sometime in the nineteen sixties to a Swedish mother and Scottish father. He grew up in and around London. James landed in Galway in 1999 and never took off again. A mid life crisis resulted in his musical tastes broadening towards the extreme end of the spectrum; the more bizarre and challenging the better. He has attended creative writing classes with both Susan Millar DuMars and Kevin Higgins at Galway Technical Institute and is currently working on his first novel, but not as much as he should be.
Claire Kilroy is the author of three novels which loosely form a trilogy about the obsessions and exhilarations of art. Her debut, All Summer, a literary thriller about a stolen painting, was awarded the 2004 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Her second novel, Tenderwire, a love story between a violinist and a masterpiece violin, was published to great acclaim in 2006, and was shortlisted for the 2007 Irish Novel of the Year as well as the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Her latest novel, All Names Have Been Changed, set in 1980s Dublin and centring around a great Irish writer and his Trinity writing class, was published this May. Educated at Trinity College, she lives in Dublin.
There will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.
Praise for Claire Kilroy’s All Names Have Been Changed:
"This impressive novel shows Kilroy perfectly at home in the literary firmament that she describes." The Independent
‘Consistently compelling … Kilroy’s descriptions are in places strikingly original and very funny … [in] a novel that effectively explores the exhilarations and a dangers of a powerful imagination, and the lasting influence literature can exert.’ Catherine Morris, Time Literary Supplement
"Written with swagger, this is a gripping study of group dynamics and an exploration of what it means to follow in a literary tradition." Financial Times
“All Names Have Been Changed marks out Claire Kilroy as a novelist growing in confidence and hitting her artistic stride – gifted, original and more than capable of stepping up to the plate of literary tradition she so brilliantly portrays.” The Irish Times
'Writing from the top class...All Names Have Been Changed is truly remarkable”. Irish Independent
Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council