2020 Over The Edge / Cúirt New Writers Showcase videos

The 2020 Cúirt Festival New Writers Showcase reading was to have taken place this year at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on Wednesday, April 22nd. 

The writers selected to take part this year, chosen via anonymous submission by the Cúirt Festival committee, are fiction writters Rory Duffy and Aisling Keogh, and poet Sarah Padden.

Rory Duffy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rory Duffy lives in Athlone. His fiction has been published in several journals including Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, Southword, and Penduline Press. He was highly commended in the Over the Edge New Writer of The Year competition in 2015 and won the 2016 Over The Edge Annual Fiction Slam. Also in 2016 Rory was placed 3rd in the PJ O'Connor Awards and was also short listed for the Frances MacManus Award. In 2017 he was nominated for a ZeBBie Award by the Irish Writers Guild for his radio play Paulo in the Underworld. Rory was also highly commended in the Seán Ó'Faoláin Award in 2017. Currently his favourite bird is the common swift (Apus Apus) but this may change. Rory was a Featured Reader at the May 2019 Over The Edge: Open Reading. 

Aisling Keogh

Aisling Keogh is a psychotherapist and a stay at home mother to three young children. Her short stories have been published with The Irish Independent, Crannog Magazine, Wordlegs, Ropes, Bangor Literary Journal and A New Ulster. Her first published short story, "How to Save a Life," was shortlisted for the Hennessy Irish Literary Awards in 2011. She finished writing her first novel in 2018, was recently shortlisted for the Doolin Writers’ Weekend short story prize, and is currently submitting her novel to agents and publishers. In her free time Aisling likes to sing and play the guitar badly. Aisling was a Featured Reader at the February 2019 Over The Edge: Open Reading. 

Sarah Padden

 

Sarah Padden is of Irish descent and was raised in West Yorkshire. She returned to live in her dad’s county of Mayo over a decade ago and moved to Galway, to attend NUIG. Since living in Galway, she has attended Kevin Higgins’s poetry workshop and many Over The Edge events. Her poetry has been published in the 2017 anthology Washing Windows? Irish Women Write Poetry (Arlen House). She has also had poems published in Skylight 47, ROPES, A New Ulster, & Freehand. She won the June 2017 Galway Poetry Slam and was shortlisted for both the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year 2017 competition and the Poems for Patience Competition 2018. Sarah was a Featured Reader at the January 2019 Over The Edge: Open Reading. 

As this year's showcase could not take place physically, due to the Covid - 19 crisis, Susan Millar DuMars came up with the idea of asking each of this year's Showcase participants to make a video of their reading which would then be produced by Dave Lordan. The resulting videos are below.

 

Rory Duffy reading.

Aisling Keogh reading.

Sarah Padden reading. 

 

 

May Over The Edge: Open Readig with Orla McAlinden, Rory Duffy, & Mona Jakob

Mona Jakob, Rory Duffy, & Orla McAlinden for final Over The Edge: Open Reading before the summer break 

Orla McAlinden

The May ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, May 30^th 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Orla McAlinden, Rory Duffy, &.Mona Jakob. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. This is the final Over The Edge: Open Reading before the summer break. The evening will also see the announcement of the details of this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition.

Mona Jakob has been an on-and-off-participant in Susan Millar DuMars’ classes for creative writing over the last couple of years and is currently enrolled in her Advanced Fiction Writing Class. Her only publication so far has been in the academic field of Old/Medieval Irish (for the curious: A study of the Green Man in the story of ‘Buile Shuibhne’), but she hopes to finish her first novel in the not too distant future – working in a bookshop (Dubray’s) certainly is a good incentive. Enjoying discussions on what constitutes literary fiction, she draws inspiration from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Becky Chambers, John Connolly and Robin Hobb.

Rory Duffy lives in Athlone. His fiction has been published in several journals including Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, Southword, and Penduline Press. He was highly commended in the Over the Edge New Writer of The Year competition in 2015 and won the 2016 Over The Edge Annual Fiction Slam. Also in 2016 Rory was placed 3rd in the PJ O'Connor Awards and was also short listed for the Frances MacManus Award. In 2017 he was nominated for a ZeBBie Award by the Irish Writers Guild for his radio play Paulo in the Underworld. Rory was also highly commended in the Seán Ó'Faoláin Award in 2017. Currently his favourite bird is the common swift (Apus Apus) but this may change.

Orla McAlinden is a multi-award-winning author, vet, farmer, teacher and mother, originally from Armagh, living in Kildare. Her short-story collections and novels, The Accidental Wife, The Flight of the Wren (Red Stag/Mentor Books, Sept 2018) and Full of Grace (Red Stag /Mentor Books, May 2019) have featured in the Sunday Times (Ireland) magazine, The Irish Times, Irish News, on RTE and BBC Radio and others. Her awards include the Eludia Award for first fiction, The Cecil Day Lewis emerging writer award, and the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year. Her short fiction has never yet appeared in an Irish print journal, but she lives in hope!  www.orlamcalinden.com

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.