Sunday, December 19, 2021

New Year Beginners & Intermediate Online Creative Writing Classes via Galway Technical Institute BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW

 


Creative Writing for Beginners
with Kevin Higgins takes place one evening per week (Monday) from 7-9.30pm (12 weeks). It commences on Monday, January 17th, 2022. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €200. 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.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/courses/detail/5247

Intermediate Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars takes place one evening per week (Wednesday) from 7-9.30pm (12 weeks). It commences on Wednesday, January 19th, 2022. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €200. 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.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/courses/detail/5294

Both classes will be conducted via Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that have made Kevin and Susan’s regular in-person creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute so popular. Participants shouldn't worry about the technology! Full details of precisely how the workshop will function online will be explained to participants during the first session.

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 

New Year POETRY WORKSHOPS via GALWAY ARTS CENTRE

 New Year POETRY WORKSHOPS via GALWAY ARTS CENTRE

 

Starting in January, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three online 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, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, Serbian, 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 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published, also in 2016, 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, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, Hot Press, Phoenix magazine and on Tonight With Vincent Browne; and read aloud by the film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. In 2016 The Stinging Fly magazine described Kevin as "likely the most read living poet in Ireland." He has published six collections of poetry with Salmon, including Song of  Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems (2017).  Kevin has read his work at Arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013),  Amherst, Massachusetts, USA (2013), & New Mexico, USA (2018). Kevin’s most recent poetry collection, Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital, was published by Salmon Poetry (June 2019); one of the poems from which feature in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels. His poems have been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published last year by Nuascealta. His essay Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21st Century Ireland was published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press this year. Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic, will be published by Salmon in March.


 

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.

 The workshops will all commence the week of Monday January 24th. They will be conducted via Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that have made Kevin's regular in-person poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre so popular. Participants shouldn't worry about the technology! Full details of precisely how the workshop will function online will be explained to participants during the first session.

 They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, January 25th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, January 27th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, January 28th).

 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.

 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 https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/courses/355-355-poetry-with-kevin-higgins-evening-online-remote-course

Sunday, December 05, 2021

Denise Commins, Odhrán Reidy, & Sue Pace for Final Over The Edge: Open Reading of 2021

The December ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, December 16th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Sue Pace, Odhrán Reidy, & Denise Commins. There will, as always at Over The Edge: Open Readings, be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or message the Over The Edge Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Over-The-Edge-Literary-Events-712507866206899 between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.  The Over The Edge end of year celebration will take place in the House Hotel, Galway afterwards.

Denise Commins is Galway born and bred. She is a retired National school teacher . She has enjoyed attending Susan Millar DuMars creative writing classes at Galway Arts Centre and, recently, via Galway Technical Institute. Denise mostly writes poems based on memoir. She has previously read her work at the Over The Edge open-mic in Galway City Library. An active participant in a number of book groups over the years, writing is a hobby for Denise. 

Odhrán Reidy lives in Co. Galway where he works with medical devices during the day and plot devices in his spare time. He is a recovering cynic who finds himself occasionally prone to debilitating fits of optimism. He writes fiction and takes creative writing classes in Galway Technical Institute.

 

Sue Pace is a fiction writer living in Washington State, USA. Her stories have been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies, including The Raven Chronicles, Skive, Stringtown, Other Voices, & More Raw Material – an anthology inspired by Alan Sillitoe (Lucifer Press, 2015). Brett Evans, editor of Prole Magazine (UK), said of Sue’s 2017 short story collection Driving Sharon Crazy: “The characters here...are so flawed that they are perfect. Humanity is what pumps blood through these stories, and these stories are what make Sue Pace one of the most human and exciting writers today.”

Over The Edge is inviting you to the December Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, December 16th, 6.30-8pm

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 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.