Autumn Daytime Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre presents a daytime class for all those beginner and continuing creative writing students out there, facilitated by Susan Millar DuMars. Susan Millar DuMars writes both poetry and fiction. A collection of her stories, Lights In The Distance, was published in December 2010 by Doire Press; she has published four collections of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008), Dreams For Breakfast (2010), The God Thing (2013), & Bone Fire (2016) all with Salmon Poetry. Susan was the Featured Fiction writer in a recent issue of the American online magazine The Atticus Review. She is also co-organiser of the Over The Edge reading series which specifically promotes new writers. Susan edited the anthology Over the Edge – the first ten years, published by Salmon, which includes work by forty seven writers who have published a first book since they did a reading at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library.

Susan Millar DuMars

The class is suitable for both beginning and continuing creative writing students, working in either poetry or fiction. Students will spend their weeks responding to writing exercises designed to inspire, rather than inhibit. In class, they will receive gentle feedback on their work from their classmates and from the teacher. The class takes place on Monday afternoons, 2.30-4pm, commencing on Monday, September 25^th. It runs for 10 weeks.

The cost to participants is 110 Euro with a 100 Euro concession price. Booking is essential as places are limited. There are no refunds once the class has started. For booking please contact Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886, email info@galwayartscentre.ie, or go to Galway Arts Centre.ie 

Autumn Poetry Workshops at Galway Arts Centre

Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, 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, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese & Portuguese. His fourth collection of poetry, The Ghost in the Lobby, was published in 2014 by Salmon. 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. Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16 and is Writer-in-Residence at University Hospitals Galway. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta earlier this year; a pamphlet of Kevin’s recent political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed is published in December by the new Culture Matters imprint of U.K. based Manifesto Press. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems is published by Salmon (Spring 2017) and launched at this year’s Cúirt Festival. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. 

Kevin Higgins

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 ten weeks, commencing the week of Monday September 25^th.  They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class September 26th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class September 28^th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class September 29^th).

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 €110, with a €100 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 GalwayArtsCentre.ie

July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Siobhan Campbell, Frankie Gaffney, Catherine Hunter, David E. Butler, Teresa Sweeney, & Lisa Frank

The July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry, fiction, and drama by Siobhan Campbell, Frankie Gaffney, Catherine Hunter, David E. Butler, Teresa Sweeney, & Lisa Frank. The event will take place on Thursday, July 13th, 6.30pm at Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Siobhán Campbell was born in Dublin, she is a graduate of University College, Dublin. She spent a number of years in New York and San Francisco and worked as Managing Editor of Wolfhound Press before joining Faculty at Kingston University in London. Widely published in the USA and UK, she has won awards in the National, Troubadour and Wigtown International competitions. Her most recent poetry collection Heat Signature was published by Seren earlier this year. 

Frankie Gaffney grew up in the Dublin's North Inner-City. His first novel, Dublin Seven, published by Liberties Press to critical acclaim, charts a young man's descent into the criminal underworld of the city. The Irish Times described it as “Ulysses meets Love/Hate”.

Catherine Hunter is a Canadian poet, novelist, editor and professor. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Necessary Crimes and Latent Heat, which received the McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year in 1997. She is also the author of three literary mysteries: Queen of Diamonds, The Dead of Midnight and Where Shadows Burn. She is a professor of English at the University of Winnipeg. 

David E Butler is a widely performed playwright, author, and retired congregational minister from Maine who is currently resident in County Clare. 

Teresa Sweeney is from county Galway. She was short listed in the 2014 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition. Her fiction has been published in Roadside Fiction, Number Eleven Magazine, Wordlegs, Boyne Berries and she was a runner up in the WOW! Awards 2011. She was a Featured Reader at the November 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading and was selected to read at the 2015 Cúirt Over The Edge New Writers’ Showcase reading. 

Lisa Frank was born and raised in Los Angeles but lived in the Pacific Northwest for several years before moving to Ireland in 2007. She won second place in the 2016 Francis MacManus Award and was a joint-winner of the 2015 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair competition. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University (where Paula Meehan also received her MFA) and is the editor of Galway Stories, featuring many of Ireland’s best fiction writers, including Kevin Barry, Mary Costello and Mike McCormack. Having taught creative writing in a variety of settings, including a mens’ prison, she now lives in Connemara with her partner and is co-director of Doire Press.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council,

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.