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 20th.
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 guest appearances by renowned crime writer and novelist Ken Bruen and
Anne Walsh Donnelly reading from her debut short story collection.
 |
| Ken Bruen |
The open-mic
for poets starts at 5.45pm. Participants should bring along two poems to read.
The reading will include guest appearances from Jean Kavanagh, Louise C. Cole,
and Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi.
 |
| Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi |
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 2019 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, for which Kenny’s is
one of the sponsors.
 |
| Kevin Higgins |
This reading is
open to all. If you have a poem or story you want to share, come along.
About our
special guests:
Ken Bruen, born in Galway in 1951, is the author of
the internationally acclaimed Jack Taylor series of crime novels which have
been adapted for television by TV3. He spent twenty-five years as an English
teacher in Africa, Japan, S.E. Asia and South America. Galway Girl, the fifteenth book in the series will be published in
November.
Anne Walsh
Donnelly
lives in the west of Ireland. She was shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary
Award for emerging poetry and selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions in
2019. She won the Over The Edge fiction slam in 2018 and was joint winner in
2019. Her poetry chapbook, “The Woman With An Owl Tattoo” was published
in May 2019 by Fly On The Wall Poetry Press. Her debut short story collection,
“Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife” is published by The Blue Nib.
Chiamaka
Enyi-Amadi is a
Lagos-born, Galway-raised and Dublin-based writer, spoken-word artist, editor
and arts facilitator. She is a graduate of UCD BA Hon. English and Philosophy,
and is currently completing a Masters in Cultural Policy and Arts Management in
UCD. Her work is published in journals both online and print - notably RTÉ
Poetry Programme, Smithereens Press, The Irish Times, The Bohemyth, Poetry
International, Poetry Ireland Review 129, and the forthcoming anthology The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short
Stories (Head of Zeus 2020, edited by Sinéad Gleeson) and Writing Home: The New Irish Poets
(Dedalus Press 2019, co-edited by Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi) Visit her blog : The Unimaginable Things to keep
up with her work, and on Instagram at Unimaginable_Me & Facebook
@theunimaginablethings
Jean
Kavanagh is an Irish poet living in Oslo,
Norway. She studied Irish Folklore and English Literature in UCD, Dublin. She
has been shortlisted twice, in 2010 and 2011, for Galway's Over The Edge New
Writer of the Year, and in 2012 was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry
Award. Jean’s second full collection of poetry How The Weather Was was published by Salmon in March.
Louise
C. Cole is originally from Worcestershire
in England but has lived in Roscommon for the past seventeen years. Her debut poetry
collection Soft Touch was chosen for
publication by UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
Over The Edge
acknowledges the generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry
Ireland, & The Arts Council.