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| Jackie Walker |
The October ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City
Library on Thursday, October 27th,
6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Jackie
Walker, Bernadette Joyce, & Lorna Siggins. There will as
usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the winners in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer
of The Year competition, which received a large number of entries again
this year. This year’s competition judge is Niamh Boyce. The shortlist can be
read here.
Lorna Siggins has been a staff
journalist with The Irish Times since
1988 and is currently the paper’s Western and Marine Correspondent, located in
Galway. Formerly based in the Dublin newsroom, her reporting beat has extended
from Everest to El Salvador to Erris, and she has also filed news reports from
the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean/Antarctica. She has written books on the
first Irish ascent of Everest in 1993, on former Irish president Mary Robinson,
on air/sea rescue off the Irish coast, and, most recently Once Upon a Time in the West: The Corrib Gas
Controversy (Transworld Ireland) on the Corrib gas controversy in north
county Mayo.
Bernadette Joyce was born into a large family in Carrowbeg- a tiny village outside
Headford. She was part of the Presentation Mission first in New Zealand and
then in Chile for some forty years. To write a novel was not on Bernadette’s
bucket list but because of her lived experience in shantytowns during the
Pinochet years and afterwards, she felt compelled to expose the injustices she
witnessed meted out to the poor- their constant struggle to be heard and
believed especially in crisis situations as told in Eva's Journey (Columba Press, 2016). Bernadette now lives in
Galway.
Jackie Walker
has been a teacher and trainer, a community and British Labour Party
activist. Of Jewish and Jamaican
ancestry, Jackie was also in the care of the Sisters of Mercy at a Catholic run
children’s home in Kent. Known for her humour and insight into the complexity
of biracial identity, Jackie Walker contributes a unique voice to the narrative
of identity and migration. Though described as a memoir, her book Pilgrim State reads more like a novel.
Along with wide critical acclaim Pilgrim
State received a ‘Best Publication’ award from the Association for Social Policy for its “lyricism and extraordinary
use of narrative voice.”
Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland, & The Arts Council.