February Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Polina Cosgrave, Sharon Black, Claire Loader, & Vincent Flannery PLUS open-mic

 The February ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, February 24^th at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Vincent Flannery, Claire Loader, Sharon Black & Polina Cosgrave. 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 or register their interest by messaging 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.

Vincent Flannery is a creative writing student at NUI Galway. His writing allows him to act as a conductor, directing his emotional states and abstract mental imagery into the physical world of writing. Writing, for Vincent, is the thread that binds his mind to his body and his body to the world. Through writing, Vincent translates an internal world into a grounded reality. Writing is the thread he follows to navigate the internal and external enigma that is the life. His poems have been published in ROPES.                             

Claire Loader is a New Zealand born writer and photographer now living in Galway, Ireland. Her work has been published in various magazines, including Poetry Bus, Splonk, Crannóg and Skylight47. She won the Women Speak Poetry Competition in 2019 and her story Return was shortlisted for the Allingham Flash Fiction Prize in the same year. She is a Forward and Pushcart Prize nominee and this year sees her first collection Pushed Toward the Blue Hour published by Nine Pens Press.

Sharon Black is from Glasgow and lives in a remote valley of the Cévennes mountains of France. Her poetry is published widely and she has won many prizes for her work including the Guernsey International Poetry Competition 2019 and The London Magazine Poetry Prizes 2019 and 2018. Her collections are To Know Bedrock (Pindrop, 2011) and The Art of Egg (Two Ravens, 2015; Pindrop, 2019). A pamphlet, Rib, is out now (Wayleave Press, 2021), and her third and fourth full collections will appear in 2022 with Vagabond Voices and with Drunk Muse Press respectively. www.sharonblack.co.uk

Polina Cosgrave is a Russian-born writer based in Ireland. Polina was born in Volgograd, Russia in 1988. She earned a degree in Linguistics as a teacher of English and French in Volgograd State Pedagogical University at the Chair of International Communication. Polina’s diploma thesis The Linguistic Phenomenon Of Fear In Stephen King’s Novels won the first prize at the University’s 63rd conference. Her work in Russian was featured on Echo of Moscow radio station, Russia-K channel and the website Polutona. Polina’s publications in Russian include poems in Aloud, Poems About Ourselves, (Ridero, Moscow, 2016), Pashnya, Almanac (CWS, Moscow, 2016), Lost Poetry Front 6 (Volgograd, 2017), Lost Poetry Front 7 (Volgograd, 2018) and her short story Ivan’s Choice in the short story anthology Twist On The Sprat Can (Eksmo, 2019). Her debut poetry collection My Name Is was published by Dedalus Press. She is featured in the Forward Prizes Book of Poetry 2022. Polina is a recipient of Arts Council Ireland Literature Bursary Award for 2021. Her work appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Local Wonders (Dedalus Press, 2021) and Writing Home: New Irish Poets (Dedalus Press, 2019). 

Over The Edge is inviting you to the February Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, February 24^th, 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.