Congratulations Nicki Griffin!

Congratulations to Nicki Griffin whose debut poetry collection, Unbelonging, has been shortlisted for the very prestigious 2014 Shine/Strong Award for best first collection. 

Nicki Griffin grew up in Cheshire in the north west of England but has lived in East Clare since 1997. She completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2009. She won the 2010 Over the Edge New Poet of the Year prize and in 2012 was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council. She writes for Inland Waterways News and co-edits poetry magazine Skylight 47. Her first work of non-fiction, The Skipper and Her Mate, was published by New Island in 2013. Unbelonging, her debut poetry collection, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013.  Her second collection, due in 2016, will also be published by Salmon.

Nicki won the poetry section in the Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition in 2010. Part of her prize was that Salmon Poetry  would read, without prior commitment to publish, a manuscript of her poems. The collection, eventually titled Unbelonging, was published last year by Salmon and was in the opinion of the Shine/Strong Award judges one of the best five first collections published in Ireland during the past year. 

If you are a poet who has yet to publish a full collection of your poems, perhaps you should enter this year's Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition? Salmon Poetry will, similarly, read, without prior commitment to publish, a manuscript of poems submitted to them by the winner in the poetry section.  

Nicki Griffin is also a regular participant in the Advanced Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre, facilitated by Kevin Higgins. If you are a poet interested in taking your poetry to the next level, perhaps you might want to join one of the poetry workshops, which all start up again in September. For details, see here.  

Launch of the anthology 'Over the Edge: the first ten years' and Nicki Griffin’s debut collection of poetry 'Unbelonging'

You are invited to the launch of Over the Edge: the first ten years - An anthology of fiction and poetry edited by Susan Millar DuMars & Unbelonging, the debut collection of poetry by Nicki Griffin, winner of the 2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year award for poetry. Both books are published by Salmon. The launch takes place at Charlie Byrne’s bookshop on Saturday, November 30^th, 6pm.

You can buy the book here. 

Over the Edge: the first ten years is edited by Susan Millar DuMars and includes poetry & fiction by forty seven writers who have published a first book since being Featured Readers at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library. Over The Edge has, during the past decade, been an important platform for emerging writers in Ireland and beyond. This book celebrates the writers who have emerged via Over The Edge thus far. The book will be launched by Pat McMahon, retired Galway County Librarian, who has always been an enthusiastic supporter of Over The Edge.

Nicki Griffin was the 2010 Over the Edge New Poet of the Year. Her debut collection, Unbelonging, which will be launched by Professor Adrian Frazier of the MA in Writing at NUI Galway, has two main themes, both of which examine a sense of displacement. The first is personal, a consideration of dislocation of self in place, both her own and of those who struggle in new countries or within their own communities. The other theme is public and looks at the relationship between those with power and those without, how this affects our lives in modern western society, our civil liberties, the tensions between human needs and environmental degradation. In the collection she explores the connection between these two aspects of the human condition, how we interact with the world and how, by considering ourselves as separate from and in control of this world we threaten our future existence. Nicki grew up in Cheshire in the north west of England but has lived in East Clare since 1997. She completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2009. In 2012 she was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council. She writes for Inland Waterways News and co-edits poetry magazine Skylight 47. Her first work of non-fiction, The Skipper and Her Mate, was published by New Island in 2013.

All are welcome to attend the launch.