September Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering with poets from Australia, Northern Ireland, & Galway

September Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering

at Galway Arts Centre’s

Nuns’ Island Theatre

presents

Northern Irish poets

Maria McManus & Deirdre Cartmill,

Australian poet Teresa Bell,

Galway poet & writer Vinny Finn

PLUS

The AWAY WITH WORDS writers.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12^th, 8pm

The September Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Galway based poet and writer Vinny Finn, visiting Australian poet Teresa Bell, Northern Irish poets Deirdre Cartmill & Maria McManus and the AWAY WITH WORDS writers.  The event will take place at Galway Arts Centre’s NUNS’ ISLAND THEATRE, Nuns’ Island, Galway on Friday, September 12th, 8pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Vinny Finn is a Psychotherapist based in Galway.  He has enjoyed some success in writing having won the Marie Edgworth Award for Poetry as well as the Windows Award.  He was involved in several projects with the Longford Arts Council and Poetry Ireland before moving to Galway.  His writing is influenced principally by spiritually and how it affects the mind, with a focus on psychotherapy, theology and philosophy as a constant background in his work.  He enjoyed the sporadic nature of poetry and how it blends well with an organic, holistic sense of self.  He is currently working on his first book, a true story and what may be described as a 'psychological noire'; expected (with publishers help) in 2015.

Vinny Finn

Teresa Bell is a writer, performer, teacher and director based in Sydney. Teresa’s performances are always unique and combine a blend of music, physical theatre, performance and the poetic. She was Founding Director of Australia’s first national poetry centre, Australian Poetry and prior to this was Artistic Director for Playworks, the national script development organisation. Teresa has directed performances and toured her work to nearly every state in Australia and overseas. Her directing and writing work have won numerous awards including the Wal Cherry, an AWGIE and the George Fairfax and Shelton Lea awards for performance. Teresa is appearing at an interdisciplinary conference titled ‘Making Sense of Madness’ at Oxford University in early September where she will be giving a paper and performing an extract from her new book before coming to Ireland to read her new work.  

Teresa Bell

Maria McManus is a poet and playwright. Maria's most recent publication is We are Bone (Lagan Press 2013). Her previous poetry includes The Cello Suites (Lagan Press 2009), which has been recorded with an original score composed and played by the cellist Tom Hughes.  Reading the Dog (Lagan Press 2006) her first collection of poetry, was runner up in the 2007 Strong Awards at the Poetry Now International Festival and was also short-listed for the 2007 Glen Dimplex New Writers Award.  In 2008  & 2012 she was awarded an Arts Council individual artist award. Of We Are Bone the poet Joan Newmann said ‘A joyful read as if you are coming towards each reader with your arms held out.’ 

Maria McManus

Deirdre Cartmill is a Belfast based poet, writer and screenwriter. She has published two poetry collections The Return of the Buffalo (Lagan Press, 2013) and Midnight Solo (Lagan Press, 2004). The Return of the Buffalo deals with grief and loss, and attempts to make sense of the seemingly meaningless, but this is always weighted with how suddenly, unexpectedly joyous life can be. Midnight Solo is written from the perspective of a generation who grew up through the conflict in the north of Ireland and their struggle to envision a new normality in a post-conflict society.  She received an Artists' Career Enhancement Scheme Award from the Arts Council in 2011 and spent a year affiliated with the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University.

Deirdre Cartmill

Away with Words is an innovative arts project which enables people with intellectual disability to explore and develop their creativity through writing. Away with Words offers a wide range of theme based workshops and events facilitated by local writers who also support people to engage in the arts life of their community through participation in public readings and publication of their work. In 2012, a collection of their writing Jessica Casey & Other Works was published by Salmon and launched at the Cúirt Festival. http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=257&a=217

There is no entrance fee.

For further information contact 087-6431748.

 Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council

and Galway City Council.

http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

September Over The Edge Writers' Gathering with Orla McGovern, Robyn Rowland, Andy Jackson, Rachael Guy, Máire T. Robinson & Nicki Griffin

Andy Jackson

September Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering

at Galway Arts Centre’s

Nuns’ Island Theatre

presents

Orla McGovern & from Australia Robyn Rowland, Andy Jackson & Rachael Guy

PLUS

the GALWAY LAUNCH of 

Máire T. Robinson’s short story chapbook

 Your Mixtape Unravels my Heart

(Doire Press)

&

Nicki Griffin’s The Skipper & Her Mate

(New Island Books)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13^th, 8pm

Órla Mc Govern is a Writer and Performer living in Galway.  Her work has been commissioned for theatre, film, print and radio projects; including outdoor mythological sagas, political art, radio drama for The Guinness Hopstore, and a floating panto on The Liffey.  She was awarded first place in the Eamonn Kelly Storytelling Competition, in Listowel Writers’ Week, and is the founding member of ‘Moth & Butterfly’, a night of Story and Improvisation. She is a contributor to Liam Duffy’s recently published Artistic Atlas of Galway.

Nicki Griffin has been writing a very popular column for the Inland Waterways Newsmagazine since 2002. The Skipper & Her Mate is her first book. Nicki also writes poetry and is an editor of the acclaimed poetry newspaper Skylight 47. She was the poetry winner in the 2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition. Nicki’s debut poetry collection, Unbelonging, will be published later this year by Salmon Poetry.

Máire T. Robinson lives in Dublin City. She graduated from NUI, Galway in 2008 with a Masters in Writing. Since then, her short stories have been published in the Irish Independent, Horizon Review, Crannóg, Cuadrivio (in Spanish Translation), Boyne Berries, Wordlegs, WOW! Anthology, Writing4all Anthology, the Chattahoochee Review and Telmetale Bloomnibus (a Ulysses-inspired e-book produced by The Irish Writers’ Centre). She was nominated for a Hennessy Literary Award in Emerging Fiction in 2012. Her debut chapbook collection of short stories, Your Mixtape Unravels my Heart, is the prize awarded Máire for winning the 2013 Doire Press International Fiction Chapbook Competition. 

Andy Jackson has performed at dozens of events and festivals (including The Age Melbourne Writers Festival, Prakriti Poetry Festival [in Chennai, India], Goa Literary & Arts Festival, Australian Poetry Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival, Newcastle Young Writers Festival and Overload Poetry Festival), had poems published in a variety of print and on-line journals, been awarded grants from the Australia Council and Arts Victoria, been the recipient of an Australian Society of Authors mentorship, and self-published two collections of poetry. His most recent collection of poems, Among the Regulars,was published by papertiger media in 2010 – this book was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Prize for Poetry (the Kenneth Slessor Prize) and Highly Commended in the Anne Elder Award.  Andy has the genetic condition Marfan Syndrome.  He is currently based in Melbourne.

Rachael Guy is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes visual theatre with puppetry. She has also worked as theatre professional for the past decade as a performer/singer and writer in the field of contemporary, experimental music theatre. Most recently she has worked as an arts worker with Arts Project Australia, assisting and facilitating art making with artists with intellectual disability. In 2009 Rachael collaborated with Andy Jackson on a poetry/puppetry work Ambiguous Mirrors which featured at Overload Festival 2009. In 2012 the first iteration of Rachael’s full-length solo work Hutch premiered at TheTarrengower Puppetfest in Central Victoria. This piece was staged underground in a disused gold mine and combined live music, puppetry and physical theatre.

Robyn Rowland has regularly visited Ireland since 1983 and lived there over extended periods of time in Connemara. She has read her poetry and given workshops at among others: Cúirt International Festival of Literature(2004), Éigse Michael Hartnett;  Listowel Writers Week; Boyle Arts Festival; Yeats Society, Sligo;  Scriobh, Sligo;  Clifden Community Arts Week; October Arts in Ennis, Co Clare; Kings House Boyle, Roscommon; The Australian Arts and Culture Festival 1999, Dublin (where her third book Fiery Waters  was launched by the Australian Ambassador). In 2009 she was guest in Istanbul at SiirIstanbul’09, and in Belgrade at the International Writers Meeting 2009; in 2010 at Sarajevo Poetry Days and Austrian Universities in Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt. In 1996 Robyn was made an Officer in the Order of Australia by the Australian Government for her contribution to higher education and women’s health.

There is no entrance fee.

For further information contact 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support

of the Arts Council and Galway City Council.