Friday, March 16, 2018

March Over The Edge: Open Reading with Alice Kinsella, Geraldine O’Kane, & Simon Lewis


The March ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, March 29th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Simon Lewis, Geraldine O’Kane, & Alice Kinsella. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic

Alice Kinsella was born in Dublin in 1993, and raised in County Mayo. She holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and is currently a student on the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. Her poetry appeared in a number of publications, including Headspace magazine, The Fem literary magazine, Poetry NI Holocaust Memorial Anthology, Poethead, Icarus, Headstuff, The Sunday Independent, Skylight47, Boyne Berries, A New Ulster, Live Encounters magazine, and The Ofi Press. She is included in Poethead’s ‘Contemporary Irish Women Poets’. Her work has been shortlisted for several competitions, including Creative Writing Ink January 2016, the Annual Bangor Poetry Competition 2016, Hungry Hills Wild Atlantic Words Poetry Competition 2016 and the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Competition 2016. She was commended in the Jonathan Swift Awards 2016. Her debut play ‘The Passing’ was staged as a part of ‘What’s the Story’ at the Liberties Festival 2016 and went on to be performed at Cruthú Arts Festival and Temple Bar Culture and Arts Festival in the same year. A short collection of Alice’s poems, Flower Press, was published last month by the U.K. based Onslaught Press and will be on sale on the evening. 

Geraldine O’Kane, originally from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, is a poet, creative writing facilitator, arts administrator, curator and mental health advocate. She recently received an Artist's Career Enhancement Scheme (ACES) award from Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Her pamphlet "Quick Succession" is available to purchase from Pen Points Press. She is working towards her first full collection of poems.  Geraldine is co-host and regular reader at the Purely Poetry open mic nights in Belfast. She has read her work  in numerous literary festivals and events both North and South. Her poetry is mostly inspired by observation, addresses the issues society would prefer not to talk about, and is firmly seeded in the oral tradition of storytelling. Her work has been published in anthologies from Community Arts Partnership, The Galway Review, Poethead, Poetry Super Highway, The Incubator, The Lake Poetry Journal, Boston Poetry Magazine and elsewhere.

Simon Lewis was the winner of the Hennessy Prize for Emerging Poetry and the runner up in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2015. He also featured in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series the same year. He has been shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award, Listowel Poetry Prize, Strokestown International Poetry Prize and Bridport Prize and received commendations in the Gregory O’Donoghue prize and Dromineer Literary Prize. He has also been published in many literary journals and magazines including The Stony Thursday, Boyne Berries, Literary Orphans, The Stinging Fly, Bare Hands, and Irish Literary Review. His first collection of poems, Jewtown, was published in 2016 by Doire Press to wide critical acclaim. Simon lives in Carlow with his wife, Rozz, and their son, Emrys. Simon works in Carlow Town as the principal of the local Educate Together primary school.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always particularly welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland & The Arts Council.

Monday, March 05, 2018

SPRING Beginners & Intermediate Creative Writing Classes at Galway Technical Institute BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW



Susan Millar DuMars & Kevin Higgins


Creative Writing for Beginners with Kevin Higgins takes place one evening per week (Monday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Monday, April 9th, 2018. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. Kevin Higgins will provide writing exercises for, and give gentle critical feedback to, those interested in trying their hand at writing stories, poems, or memoir.

Intermediate Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars takes place one evening per week (Tuesday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Tuesday, April 10th, 2018. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. This class is suitable for those who’ve participated in creative writing classes before or begun to have work published in magazines. Flexible exercises and work-shopping of assignments, together with the study of the works of published writers, will help each class member to find their own writing voice.

YOU CAN ALSO BOOK in person at Galway Technical Institute, Monday-Friday, (10am-4.30pm).

For further information contact Galway Technical Institute, Father Griffin Road, Galway, phone 091-581342 or email gtiadulted@gretb.ie or see http://www.gti.ie  

Friday, March 02, 2018

Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust is seeking entries again for its exciting annual poetry competition

UPDATE March 1st 2018: Competition deadline EXTENDED to NEXT THURSDAY (March 8th) due to postal service being out of action today and tomorrow because of weather. Please spread the word.

Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust is seeking entries again for its exciting annual poetry competition. 
Previous winner Rachel Coventry
CRITERIA: poems entered in the competition should be no more than 32 lines long. They must be the original work of the entrant. Poems previously published in magazines or poetry collections are eligible. Multiple entries are accepted; poets can enter as many poems as they wish.

PRIZE
*the winner will have her or his poem published and displayed on the Arts Corridor of University Hospital Galway as part of the 2018 Poems For Patience. Poems For Patience is a long running series which over the past decade has featured poems by leading Irish and international poets such as Seamus Heaney, Philip Schultz, Jane Hirschfield, Michael Longley, Naomi Shihab Nye, Vona Groarke, Tess Gallagher and many more. The poems after exhibition on the Arts Corridor are then displayed in waiting areas throughout Galway University Hospitals.
*the winner will be invited to read his or her winning poem at the launch of the 2018 Poems For Patience at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2018.
*the winner will be provided with accommodation in Galway if travelling for one night during the 2018 Cúirt International Festival of Literature
*the winner will be given a copy of their poem printed and framed as a Poem for Patience poster
*the winner will be asked to submit six poems for consideration to be a Featured Reader at the Over The Edge: Open Reading series in Galway City Library.
Previous winner Sighle Meehan
ENTRY FEE: to enter one poem the fee is €10. If you enter two or more poems the entry fee is €7.50 per poem i.e. to enter two poems it costs €15, to enter three poems €22.50 and so on.

Payment should be made by cheque or postal order payable to Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust. Alternatively for online transfer contact the arts office. Details below.

Entries should be sent by post to Margaret Flannery, Arts Director, Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust, Galway University Hospitals, University Hospital, Newcastle Road, Galway. Do not put your name on the poems; please include your contact details on a separate sheet.

THE CLOSING DATE is Monday, March 5th 2018

THE JUDGE: The competition judge is Kevin Higgins. Kevin Higgins is Writer-in-Residence with Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust. He is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events, teaches poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute, and is Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway Summer School. He is poetry critic of The Galway Advertiser. His poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry and features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, April 2014). Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Russian, & Portuguese. In 2014 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. He was Satirist-in-Residence at the Bogman’s Cannon (2015-16). '2016 - The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins' was published by NuaScéalta in early 2016. A pamphlet of Kevin’s political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published last December by the Culture Matters imprint of the UK based Manifesto Press. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, and on Tonight With Vincent Browne. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as "likely the most read living poet in Ireland." Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems was published earlier this year by Salmon and includes a substantial number of new poems as well as selections from his six previous poetry collections.

For further details: Tel: +353 (0)91 544979
Email: Margaret.Flannery@hse.ie 
Colette Bryce launching Poems for Patience