Over The Edge is holding two special Culture Night
open-mics - one for fiction writers, the other for poets - with prizes for the
best readers, at Kennys
Bookshop and Gallery in
Liosbán Retail Park on Friday, September 22nd.
The open-mic for fiction writers starts at 3.30pm.
Participants should bring along two pages of a story to read. The reading will
include a guest appearance from Kevin
Doyle who will be reading from his recently published short story
collection Do You Like Oranges?
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| Kevin Doyle |
The open-mic
for poets starts at 5.45pm. Participants should bring along two poems to read.
The reading will include guest appearances from Australian poets Catherine Bateson and Jane Williams.
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| Catherine Bateson |
The evening
will be MC’d by Kevin Higgins and both open-mics will feature readings from
their long-listed stories and poems by some of the writers on the long list for
the 2017 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, for which Kenny’s is
one of the sponsors.
This reading is
open to all. If you have a poem or story you want to share, come along.
About our
special guests:
Kevin Doyle won
the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award in 2016, in the same year his eBook
collection Do You Like Oranges? won
top prize in Ireland’s inaugural ‘indie’ book awards, The Carousel Book Awards.
The Worms That Saved The World, an
illustrated kids book about a community of earthworm who fight to save their
home from a luxury golf course was published in May; Noam Chomsky has described
the book as ‘charming’. His short
stories have been published in Cork
Literary Review, Stinging Fly, Southwords, Burning Bush, Cúirt
Journal, Duality, Liblit and Sunday Tribune. His work has also been included in
anthologies such as Irish Writers Against
War (Dublin, 2003), Pulse Fiction
(London, 1998) and Snapshots (London,
1999) as well as Cork millennium collection, An Gob Saor. He has been shortlisted for many prizes
(including Over The Edge, 2010) and has won top placings in the Ian St James Short
Story Award, Kilkenny Prize, Tipperary Short Story Weekend Prize and the
Highlands and Islands Short Story Award. His work was described by the
late Patrick Galvin as ‘terse and original’. He blogs regularly on Irish
and radical politics at http://www.kfdoyle.wordpress.com
. He has read on a number of occasions
at the Frank O’Connor International Festival of the Short Story.
Catherine
Bateson
is an award-winning poet and writer for children and young adults. She has
three poetry collections published, including, Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009. She has also had
three verse novels for young adults published with University of Queensland
Press. Her poetry has been widely anthologised. She has also published over a
dozen books for children and young adults and twice won the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book
of the Year, Younger Readers. Her latest book for young adults, Lisette’s Paris Notebook was published
early in 2017 by Allen & Unwin. She
is currently working on both a new poetry collection and a new book for younger
readers. Catherine has taught creative writing for the past thirteen years, and
has been a guest writer at many schools. Her work has been read on radio and
featured on television. She has also appeared at various poetry and writers
festivals throughout Australia.
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| Jane Williams |
Jane Williams was
born in England in 1964 to an Irish father and Australian mother. She lives in
Tasmania, Australia. Since the early 1990s her poems have been published in
most major Australian literary journals and newspapers, in anthologies, and online
in countries including Ireland, USA, Canada, England, Japan, Sweden and India.
She has been a featured reader at reading venues and festivals around Australia
and in Ireland, England, Canada, USA, Malaysia, Czech Republic and Slovakia
where she held a three month residency at the Bridge Guard Residency in Sturovo
in 2016. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from Canberra University. Jane
has published six collections of poetry, most recently 2013 Days Like These - selected and new poems,
published by Interactive Press.
Over The Edge
acknowledges the generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry
Ireland, & The Art Council.