Over The Edge in association with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature presents the fourteenth annual New Writing Showcase

Since its inception in 2006 the New Writing Showcase has grown to become one of the most important platforms for emerging writers in Ireland. This year’s Cúirt / Over The Edge New Writing Showcase features three participants from the Over the Edge literary series in Galway – Daniel McBrearty, Jessamine O’Connor, & John D. Kelly – and Shannon Savvas and Jeremy Haworth,  the winners of the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2019. The MC for the event will be regular Over The Edge host Susan Millar DuMars. It takes place on Wednesday, April 10^th, 11 am, at The Town Hall Theatre. Entry is free of charge. All welcome.

John D. Kelly lives in Co. Fermanagh. Since he began writing creatively in 2011, his work has been commended in many competitions and published in various literary publications. He was Highly Commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2016, awarded joint ‘Silver’ in the International Dermot Healy Poetry Competition in both 2015 and 2014, and won first prize in Hungry Hill ‘Poets Meet Painters’ 2014, amongst other awards. John was a Featured Reader at the February 2018 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Jessamine O'Connor

Jessamine O Connor facilitates The Hermit Collective arts troupe, The Wrong Side Of The Tracks Writers, and the Ballaghaderreen branch of Failte Isteach conversational English classes. She won the iYeats, the Francis Ledwidge, and the Poetry Ireland Butlers Café poetry competitions, and was short-listed for the Hennessy, Over The Edge, Cuirt New Writing, Galway Hospital Poems For Patience, Bradshaw Books, Leaf Books and Red Line Book Festival competitions. She is currently promoting her fifth chapbook Pact, and her first full collection of poems is coming out with Salmon in early 2020. Jessamine was a Featured Reader at the May 2018 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Daniel McBrearty

Daniel McBrearty, or Danny to his friends, is a writer of both poetry and prose. The Donegal native's poetry has been published in A New Ulster, and his fiction was chosen as the winner in the Ulster Male category in Hot Press' Write Here Write Now Competition last May. A student of creative writing at NUI Galway, Danny’s writing deals with being young in an irrational world. He has no idea what his writing style is. That’s for other people to decide. Danny was a Featured Reader at the December 2018 Over The Edge: Open Reading and he was a runner-up in this year’s Poems for Patience competition.

Shannon Savvas is a New Zealand writer who divides her life and heart between New Zealand, England and Cyprus. Her flash fiction and short stories have been published online in journals in New Zealand and the United States and in a number of anthologies. Shannon describes herself as a “chronic long and short lister in [writing] competitions.” She won the 2017 Reflex Fiction Winter competition and is the winner of the fiction category in the Cuirt New Writing Prize 2019.

Jeremy Haworth is a novelist and poet. Originally from Bray, Co. Wicklow, he now resides in rural Co. Laois with his wife, Claire, and two children. He divides his time between writing and developing an organic market garden. He is currently working towards the publication of his first book of poetry. Jeremy is the winner of the poetry category in this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of The Arts Council, Galway City Council, and Poetry Ireland, and our ongoing partnership with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature.

2019 Poems for Patience competition ENTER NOW!

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

2018 Poems for Patience launch

 
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 2019 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 2019 Poems For Patience at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2019.
*the winner will be provided with accommodation in Galway if travelling for one night during the 2019 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.

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 Bridget Cheasty, Arts Assistant, 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 Friday, February 22^nd 2019

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, Hot Press magazine,  on Tonight With Vincent Browne and read aloud by film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as "likely the most read living poet in Ireland." His most recent book Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems was published last 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: guhartstrust@hse.ie    

Competition judge Kevin Higgins