May Over The Edge Writers' Gathering - launch of four books PLUS 2018 Poems for Patience Winner

The May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry and fiction, including the Galway launch of new poetry collections by Stephanie Conn, Robyn Rowland and Kate Ennals; the launch of Belfast writer Rosemary Jenkinson’s acclaimed new short story collection; and a reading from her work by Ruth Quinlan, the winner of the 2018 Poems For Patience competition. The event will take place at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, May 18^th, 8pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Stephanie Conn

Stephanie Conn, from County Antrim, is a graduate of the Creative Writing M.A. Programme at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. She is the winner of the 2015 Funeral Services NI Poetry Prize, the 2015 Yeovil Poetry Prize, the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing and the 2016 Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition, which culminated in the publication of Copeland’s Daughter. Stephanie has also been shortlisted for many awards, including the 2012 Patrick Kavanagh Award and is the recipient of an ACES award. Her debut collection, The Woman from the Other Side, which we published in 2016, was shortlisted for the 2016 Shine/Strong Award. Stephanie’s follow-up collection entitled Island is published in May, 2018 by Doire Press.

Rosemary Jenkinson

Rosemary Jenkinson was born in Belfast and is an award-winning playwright and short story writer. Her plays include The Bonefire (winner of Stewart Parker BBC Radio Award 2006), The Winners, Johnny Meister + the Stitch, Basra Boy, White Star of the North, Planet Belfast and Meeting Miss Ireland. She won the 2001 Black Hill Magazine Short Story Competition, third prize in the Brian Moore Short Story Awards and was shortlisted for the 2002 Hennessy Award for New Writing. Her first collection of short stories, Contemporary Problems Nos. 53 & 54, was published in 2004 by Lapwing Press. Her second short story collection, Aphrodite’s Kiss & Further Stories, was published by Whittrick Press in 2016. She’s won many General Artist’s Awards from the ACNI and this year she has been awarded Artist-in-Residence at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. Rosemary’s new short-story collection entitled Catholic Boys is published in May, 2018 by Doire Press. 

 

Robyn Rowland

Robyn Rowland is an Irish-Australian citizen living in both countries. She regularly works in Turkey. She has written 13 books, 10 of poetry. Her latest books are Mosaics from the Map (Doire Press, Galway, 2018), which will have its Galway launch on the evening, and her bi-lingual This Intimate War Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915 – İçli Dışlı Bir Savaş: Gelibolu/Çanakkale 1915 (republished, Spinifex Press, Australia, 2018). Turkish trans. Mehmet Ali Çelikel. Robyn’s poetry appears in national and international journals and in over forty anthologies, including eight editions of Best Australian Poems. Her work is on film at the National Irish Poetry Archives, James Joyce Library, UCD. Dublin.

Kate Ennals

Kate Ennals is a poet and writer and has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on line journals (Crannog, Skylight 47, Honest Ulsterman, Anomaly, The International Lakeview Journal, Boyne Berries, North West Words, The Blue Nib, Dodging the Rain plus many more). In 2017, she won the Westport Arts Festival Poetry Competition. Her first collection of poetry At The Edge was published in 2015. Her second collection, Threads, was published in April 2018 and will have its Galway launch on the evening. She has lived in Ireland for 25 years and currently runs poetry and writing workshops in County Cavan. Kate runs At The Edge, Cavan, a literary reading evening, funded by the Cavan Arts Office. Before doing an MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2012, Kate worked in UK local government and the Irish community sector for thirty years, supporting local groups to engage in local projects and initiatives. Her blog can be found at http://kateennals.com 

Ruth Quinlan

This year Ruth Quinlan’s poem ‘Small Acts of Anticipation’ was the winning entry in Galway University Hospital’s Arts Trust’s hotly contested annual Poems  for Patience competition.   The poem will now be included in the Arts Trust’s Poems for Patience permanent poetry collection, on display in Galway University Hospitals. Ruth Quinlan won the 2014 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award and the 2012 Hennessy Literary Award for First Fiction. She has been shortlisted or runner-up for other competitions like Cúirt New Writing, the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Awards, and Doolin Writers’ Weekend.

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

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.

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

UPDATE March 1st 2018: Competition deadline EXTENDED to NEXT THURSDAY (March 8th) due to postal service being out of action today and tomorrow because of weather. Please spread the word.

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

Previous winner Rachel Coventry

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 2018 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 2018 Poems For Patience at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2018.

*the winner will be provided with accommodation in Galway if travelling for one night during the 2018 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.

Previous winner Sighle Meehan

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 Margaret Flannery, Arts Director, 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 Monday, March 5th 2018

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, and on Tonight With Vincent Browne. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as "likely the most read living poet in Ireland." Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems was published earlier this 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: Margaret.Flannery@hse.ie 

Colette Bryce launching Poems for Patience

May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents Poems for Patience winners & launch of poetry collection by Aoife Reilly

The May Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry, including the launch of Aoife Reilly’s debut poetry collection.  There will also be readings by the winners of this year’s Poems for Patience competition, Lorna Shaughnessy and Marie Cadden, and American poets Ron Houchin and Art Stringer. The event will take place at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, May 12^th, 8pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Aoife Reilly

Aoife Reilly is originally from Laois, but has been living in Galway since 2012. She works as a psychotherapist and teacher and has been attending Kevin Higgins’s poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre since Autumn 2013. Aoife’s poetry has been published in Crannóg, Skylight 47, on the Poethead website, and in a wide variety of other poetry magazines recently. Aoife was a Featured Reader at the August 2015 Over The Edge: Open Reading and was also selected to read at the 2016 Cúirt Festival / Over The Edge New Writers’ Showcase. Her debut poetry collection Lilac and Gooseberries is just published by Lapwing Press.

Art Stringer is the author of the poetry collections Channel Markers (Wesleyan University Press), Human Costume (Salmon Poetry) and Late Breaking, also published by Salmon. His work has appeared in such journals as The Nation, Antaeus, The Ohio Review, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, and in Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia.  He also edited and introduced an edition of Louise McNeill’s Paradox Hill (West Virginia University Press). For twenty-five years, he taught writing and literature at Marshall University. Art will be reading from his new poetry collection which is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Lorna Shaughnessy was born in Belfast and lives in Co. Galway, Ireland. She has published three poetry collections, Torching the Brown River, Witness Trees, & Anchored (Salmon, 2008, 2011, & 2015), and her work was selected for the Forward Book of Poetry, 2009. She is also a translator of Spanish and South American Poetry. Her most recent translation was of poetry by Galician writer Manuel Rivas, The Disappearance of Snow (Shearsman Press, 2012), which was shortlisted for the UK Poetry Society’s 2013 Popescu Prize for translation. She lectures in Spanish and Creative Writing in NUI, Galway. Lorna is the joint winner of this year’s Poems for Patience competition for her poem ‘The Dual Citizen’ which is now framed and displayed in University Hospital Galway.

Ron Houchin was born in San Diego, California, and raised from the age of three in Huntington, West Virginia.  He comes from a family of factory workers, coal miners, and farmers who have always lived in Appalachia. For thirty years he taught in an Ohio public school in the southernmost tip of Ohio. The Quiet Jars, a new and selected poetry collection, was published in 2013 by Salmon Publishing and a short story collection, Tales Out Of School, was published, also in 2013, from Wind Publications of Kentucky. Ron lives in a haunted house, built by the grandson of an ex-slave, on the banks of the Ohio River. He will be reading from his latest poetry collection which is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Marie Cadden lives in Spiddal, Co. Galway. Her acclaimed debut poetry collection Gynaecologist in The Jacuzzi was published last year by Salmon Poetry. Winner of the Cuirt 2011 New Writing Prize for Poetry,  Runner-Up 2012 Westport Arts Festival Poetry Prize,  Third Prize 2012 Francis Ledwidge Poetry Competition.   Shortlisted for Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition 2012, Bradshaw Books/Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition 2011, Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award 2010. Her poems have been published in The Recorder (USA), THE SHOp, ROPES, Revival, Boyne Berries, and the anthologies Mosaic (2011), and Lady Gregory's Townhouse (2009). A co-editor of “Ireland’s most interesting poetry magazine” Skylight 47, Marie is the joint winner of this year’s Poems for Patience competition for her poem ‘In Praise of Denial’ which is now framed and displayed in University Hospital Galway.                       

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.

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

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

 
CRITERIA: poems entered in the competition should be no more than 30 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 2017 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, 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 2017 Poems For Patience at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2017.

*the winner will be provided with accommodation in Galway if travelling for one night during the 2017 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. 

Entries should be sent by post to Margaret Flannery, Arts Director, 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, March 3rd 2017

THE JUDGE: The competition judge is Kevin Higgins. Kevin Higgins is Writer-in-Residence with Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust. He facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre; teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute, on the NUI Galway Summer School programme and on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. He is the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. Kevin is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events. His first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in March 2008 by Salmon. His work also features in the 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, 2014). Frightening New Furniture, his third collection of poems, was published in 2010 by Salmon Poetry. Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published by Salmon in 2012. Kevin has read his work at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and 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, Missouri (2013), Boston, Massachusetts (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts (2013). His poetry has been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Russian, & Portuguese. Kevin’s fourth collection of poetry, The Ghost In The Lobby, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2014. During 2015 and 2016 Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon. During 2016 he published 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins (NuaScéalta) and the pamphlet The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed (Culture Matters – Manifesto Press). Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems will be published by Salmon in Spring 2017.

For further details:  Tel: +353 (0)91 544979
 Email: Margaret.Flannery@hse.ie