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.

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.