Nicki Griffin grew up in Cheshire in the north west of England but has lived in East Clare since 1997. She completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2009. She won the 2010 Over the Edge New Poet of the Year prize and in 2012 was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council. She writes for Inland Waterways News and co-edits poetry magazine Skylight 47. Her first work of non-fiction, The Skipper and Her Mate, was published by New Island in 2013. Unbelonging, her debut poetry collection, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013. Her second collection, due in 2016, will also be published by Salmon.
Nicki won the poetry section in the Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition in 2010. Part of her prize was that Salmon Poetry would read, without prior commitment to publish, a manuscript of her poems. The collection, eventually titled Unbelonging, was published last year by Salmon and was in the opinion of the Shine/Strong Award judges one of the best five first collections published in Ireland during the past year.
If you are a poet who has yet to publish a full collection of your poems, perhaps you should enter this year's Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition? Salmon Poetry will, similarly, read, without prior commitment to publish, a manuscript of poems submitted to them by the winner in the poetry section.
Nicki Griffin is also a regular participant in the Advanced Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre, facilitated by Kevin Higgins. If you are a poet interested in taking your poetry to the next level, perhaps you might want to join one of the poetry workshops, which all start up again in September. For details, see here.
