August Over The Edge: Open Reading with Lisa Harding, Jude Flynn, Una O'Farrell PLUS open-mic AND long list for 2018 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year

The first ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ after the summer break takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 30^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Lisa Harding, Jude Flynn, & Una O’Farrell. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the long list for the 2018 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year for which the competition judge this year is poet Rachel Coventry.

Lisa Harding

Una O’Farrell was born in Galway. Una has worked in Health Care throughout her career which ended prematurely due to ill health. Her career was spread across hospitals in Dublin Limerick and Galway along with a number of breaks to rear her family. Throughout her life Una has moved around the country and settled in Galway twenty years ago where she lives with her husband. Una has a BSc in Clinical Physiology from Dublin Institute of Technology. Una attended several creative writing classes with Kevin Higgins and has recently completed advanced classes with Susan Du Mars. She has read her poetry at the open mike at Over the Edge events at the Galway City Library. She has completed her first novel of fiction titled “That’s It” and is in the process of submitting it to be published.

Jude Flynn is a graphic designer and an emerging writer of predominantly short fiction originally from Athlone. He has attended a series of writers’ workshops at GTI and GMIT during his time living in Galway. Major influences on his writing have been the works of David Foster Wallace, Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, Lionel Shriver and many others. Thematically, Jude's short stories tend to centre around childhood and adolescence and how the world is interpreted and misinterpreted through a youthful gaze.

Lisa Harding is a playwright, short story writer, actress and novelist. She played Connie in RTÉ’s Fair City and has performed at the Abbey, the Gate, and the Lyric, among others. Her prize-winning novel Harvesting was published by New Island to critical acclaim and has just been optioned by an IFTA and BAFTA winning director. Her second novel is shortly to go on submission with Aitken Alexander, and she is about to embark on the process of adapting Harvesting for screen.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome. The evening will also see the announcement of the long list for this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which has again received a very healthy number of entries this year.  The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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