Moya Cannon to read at Galway City Museum

Moya Cannon

North Beach Poetry at Galway City Museum on Tuesday 9th December at 7 pm in association with Poetry Ireland & Over The Edge presents a reading with Moya Cannon, Alan McMonagle and John Walsh

Moya Cannon was born in Dunfanaghy, Co. Donegal in 1956 and has lived in Galway for over twenty years. She has published three collections of poems, Oar, The Parchment Boat and Carrying the Songs, New and Selected poems, (Carcanet Press 2007). She has been an editor of Poetry Ireland Review. A recipient of the Brendan Behan Award and of the Lawrence O Shaughnessy Award, she is a member of Aosdána.

Alan McMonagle was born in Longford, grew up in Sligo and now lives in Galway. In 2007 he received his MA in Writing from NUI, Galway. His work has appeared in Southword, Crannog, The Cuirt Annual and The Stinging Fly. He won second prize in the 2006 Sean O'Faolain short story contest and a subsequent invitation to read at the Frank O'Connor short story festival in Cork. His first collection of short stories, Liar Liar, was recently published by Wordsonthestreet.

John Walsh is from Derry. He has published two collections, Johnny Tell Them (Guildhall Press 2006) and Love’s Enterprise Zone (Doire Press 2007). He is the organizer of the North Beach Poetry Nights’ Slam in Galway, Ireland’s longest running Poetry Slam, and Director of the new poetry press, Doire Press. John is an engaging reader and performer of his work. Admission 5 Euro.

Footnote: The 2nd Annual North Beach Poetry Nights'Grand Slam featuring 15 poets/performers is on Monday 15th December in The Crane Bar on Sea Road.with guest performer: Lucy English (Bristol)

North Beach Poetry gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland and Galway City Council.info: John Walsh @ 091-593290

Greek-Irish Literary Symposium

A Greek-Irish Literary Symposium will take place on Friday, 12 December 2008 at the Melina Merkouri Theatre, Ilion, Athens, with the participation of Greek poets Tassos Denegris, Nanos Valaoritis & Dimitris Lyacos and Irish poets Patrick Chapman, Kevin Higgins & Susan Millar DuMars. The symposium is sponsored by Culture Ireland, The Irish Embassy, Athens and The Office of the Mayor of Ilion. The symposium will also see the publication of Literary Ways 2: Greece – Ireland, in which poems by the participating Greek poets will be translated into English and poems by the three participating Irish poets will be translated into Greek. The poets will also read their work at the University of Athens at a reading organised by the Irish Embassy in Greece. For further details contact Dimtris Lyacos at lyacos@yahoo.co.uk or Caroline Phelan at Caroline.Phelan@dfa.ie


Tassos Denegris (Athens,1934) has published 7 collections of poetry and translated, among others, J.L.Borges, J.Cortasar ,O. Paz, John Dos Passos ,I. B. Singer. He has been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Hungarian. Fellow at the International Writing Programme (Iowa,1975), invited guest at the Cambridge Poetry Festival(1983),he has also given readings in Belgrade, New Delhi, Strasbourg, Tuebingen, Colombia, Peru, USA, Spain, Nottingham. Tassos Denegris’ collected poems “The Wildboar Speaks”, was recently published by Ypsilon/books.

Nanos Valaoritis: Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1921. He studied Classics and Law at the University of Athens, English literature at London University, and followed a course of Mycenean Grammar with Michel Lejeune at the “Ecoles des Hautes Etudes” of the Sorbonne. From 1944 – 1953, in London he translated and presented, Modernist Greek poets of the thirties for the first time in Cyril Connolly’s “Horizon” 1946 & translations for John Lehmann’s “New Writing” 1944-1948. He met T.S Eliot, Stephen Spender, W.H Auden, Dylan Thomas and worked for Louis MacNeice in the BBC. In 1954 he moved to Paris, met Andre Breton, and participated in the activities and meetings of his Surrealist group until 1960. He returned to Greece, in 1960 and edited the avantgarde review “Pali” 1963-1967. He left Greece again in 1968, after the Junta came to power in 1967. Taught “Creative Writing and Comparative Literature“ at San Francisco State University, returned to Paris and Greece in 1976-78 and resumed teaching at SFSU 1978 until his retirement in 1993. Co-edited in Greece the literary review “Synteleia” ( End of Time), with poet Andreas Pagoulatos. Wrote a number of books of poetic prose, a novella, and four novels - among them, ”My Afterlife Guaranteed” in English (City Lights 1990) and in Greek (1995). Divides his time between Greece, France and California. Married to American Surrealist painter Marie Wilson.

Dimitris Lyacos was born in Athens in 1966. He studied law at the University of Athens and philosophy at University College London. His trilogy Poena Damni (Z213: Exit, Nyctivoe, The First Death), written over the course of fifteen years, has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian and German and has been performed extensively across Europe and the USA. A sound and sculpture installation of Nyctivoe opened in London and toured Europe in 2004-2005. A contemporary theatre-dance version of the same book was showing in Greece in 2006-2007. Lyacos’ work has been the subject of lectures and research at various universities, including Miami, Amsterdam, Trieste and Oxford. Various extracts from the trilogy have appeared in literary journals around the world. Z213: Exit will be published in Greece next spring by Ypsilon/books. For more information on the author visit www.lyacos.net.

Patrick Chapman was born in 1968 and lives in Dublin, Ireland. His poetry collections are Jazztown (Raven Arts Press, 1991); The New Pornography (Salmon, 1996); Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights (Salmon, 2007); and A Shopping Mall on Mars (BlazeVOX, 2008). He has also written a collection of stories, The Wow Signal (Bluechrome, 2007) and an audio drama, Doctor Who: Fear of the Daleks (Big Finish, 2007). He wrote the multi-award-winning film, Burning the Bed (2003), adapting from his own short story. The film starred Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen. In 2003, he won first prize for a story in the Cinescape Genre Literary Awards. In 2006, he and Philip Casey founded the Irish Literary Revival website. His New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from Salmon.

Leading Poet-critic, John Goodby, for November Over The Edge

John Goodby

The November Over The Edge: Open Reading will take place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, November 20th, 6.30-8pm. The Featured Readers are Elizabeth Power, Gordon Hewitt & John Goodby.

Elizabeth Power was born in East Cork but now calls Galway home. She completed an MA in Writing at NUIG in 2007. Her poetry has appeared in a wide variety of magazines, including Crannóg, Force 10 and Tribes ‘n Vibes. Elizabeth’s work also featured in the anthology Writers Seeking Lovers. Currently she works as a librarian and is writing a novel about a time travelling witch.

Gordon Hewitt initiated the Belfast Poets Touring Group, a group of performance poets who toured Ireland, the US, New Zealand and Australia in 2006 & 2007. The group, now known as Scream Blue Murmur, performed recently in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and at the Electric Picnic. Gordon is active in di-Verse (Poets against Racism) which oversees the annual Love Poetry Hate Racism event which is held in over 60 cities worldwide each April. Gordon’s style is a unique blend of spoken word, performance poetry, song and chant.

John Goodby is a poet and translator who lectures at the University of Swansea. His poetry has been described by Sean O'Brien as ‘bold and sensuous ... it reads like a chowder of names laced with methedrine ... at once lush and abrasive.’ John Goodby has translated Heine's Germany: A Winter’s Tale (2005), the contemporary Algerian poet Soleiman Adel Guemar, and is currently translating the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Among his latest publications are the first anthology of translations of Irish women poets into Spanish, No Soy Tu Musa and uncaged sea (2008), a cut-up version of the Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas. He is the author of the influential Irish Poetry Since 1950: From Stillness Into History (Manchester University Press) and founder of Wales’s only poetry performance group, Boiled String.

As usual there will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council

Irish Times Critic for October 'Over The Edge: Open Reading'

Noel Harrington

The October Over The Edge: Open Reading will take place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, October 30th, 6.30-8pm. The Featured Readers are Noel Harrington, John Kenny & Eamonn Harrigan.

Noel Harrington lives in Tulla, Co Clare. A regular reader at the White House poetry sessions in Limerick, he has been published in The Stinging Fly, Revival, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, Moloch, The Flosca competition winners chapbook and The Stony Thursday Book. Revival Press published a chapbook of his poems in 2007. He is half way through a short story collection and five years into a prose-poem novel with the working title Harrington's Folly.

John Kenny teaches English literature at NUI Galway and is director of the new BA Connect in Creative Writing there. He regularly reviews new fiction for The Irish Times, and his book John Banville will be published in November. He is Academic Director of The John McGahern Seminar & Summer School and also founding editor of The John McGahern Yearbook, the first volume of which was published in July. He is working on a collection of stories to be titled Make it Home. One of his stories recently appeared in The Dublin Review.

Eamonn Harrigan loves to write fiction and has taken creative writing classes with Susan Millar DuMars. His short story “The Death of Foxy” was short-listed for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition 2008 and he has collaborated on writing a play “For Pete’s Sake”. Eamonn’s background is in management and he has had research into Green Business Issues published. He likes to spend his time encouraging paper to refuse ink. He is currently a student on the MA in Screenwriting at the Huston Film School, NUIG.

As usual there will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council

Launch of 'Liar, Liar' by Alan McMonagle

NEW KINVARA POETRY NIGHT

9.00pm
2nd Monday Every Month

GREEN’S BAR, KINVARA

Bring a poem (or two):
Poems you have written;
or poems you love;
or just come to listen

First session
9.00pm Monday
10th November 2008

EVERYONE WELCOME

New Zealand based writer, Wes Lee, 2008 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year

Wes Lee from Wellington, New Zealand is the 2008 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year. Her story, Tigers, has been chosen as the winner by competition judge, Celeste Augé. The winning entry will appear in the January-March issue of Galway Arts Centre's online literary quarterly, West 47.

Wes Lee is a short story writer from the UK, currently living in the antipodes. Formerly a Printmaker and a Lecturer in Fine Arts, she began writing full-time in 2005. Recent writing highlights include being awarded prizes by two of her favorite short story writers: First prize by David Means for the Flosca Short Story Competition in Ireland, and Second prize by Kate Braverman for The Kate Braverman Prize in San Francisco. She has won a number of other awards for her writing and her stories have appeared in various publications, including The Warwick Review, Cadenza and Turbine.

The runner up is Hans-Joachim (Hajo) Quade of Galway for his poems High Flyer, Winkles & Time Warp, while another Galway-based writer, Alan McMonagle, took third place with his story The Fight.

The Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition is sponsored by Charlie Byrne’s Book Shop, The Bank of Ireland, Kelly Office Supplies and Des & Mary Kavanagh.

Sheridan's Wine Bar, October 17th: Poets from Dublin, Limerick, Galway & South Carolina

South Carolina poet, Paul Allen

Over The Edge presents a reading by poets Paul Allen, Enda Coyle Green, Mags Treanor, Tim Cunningham & Mary Dempsey at Sheridan’s Wine Bar, Church Yard Street, Galway on Friday, October 17th, 8pm.

Paul Allen teaches poetry and writing song lyrics at The College of Charleston, in Charleston, SC, USA, where he is Professor of English. He has received the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry twice. His CD, The Man with the Hardest Belly: Poems and Songs, has sold out but is available for download through Amazon.com and Napster. Paul recently read at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His most recent poetry collection, Ground Forces, is just published by Salmon Poetry.

Enda Coyle Green lives in County Dublin. Widely published in magazines and anthologies, her work has also been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and Lyric FM. Her prizes for poetry include a Hennessy Award nomination in 2002. Her first collection, Snow Negatives, received the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2006; the judges citation said that Enda’s work is “strong, sure and totally trustworthy.” Snow Negatives was published by Dedalus Press in 2007.

Mags Treanor is a fiction writer and poet, based in Galway. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and broadcast on RTE radio. Her first collection of short stories and poetry was published by Maverick Press in 2007. This year Mags was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introduction series and also took second place in the Cúirt Festival Poetry Grand Slam. Mags has performed at the Electric Picnic and read her work at the London Irish Centre. She recently completed an M.A. in Creative Writing & New Media with the deMontfort University of Leicester.

Tim Cunningham was born in Limerick in 1942 and lives in Billericay, Essex. His first collection, Don Marcelino’s Daughter, was published by Peterloo Poets in 2001. His second collection Unequal Thirds was published in 2006, again by Peterloo. His new book, Kyrie, is just published by Revival Press - the imprint of the White House Poets. Kyrie, is firmly rooted in nineteen fifties’ Ireland, a place and time when religion permeated every aspect of life. His is not quite the Limerick of Angela’s Ashes but nevertheless Tim Cunningham has continued on where Frank Mc Court left off but this time in poetry and verse.

Mary Dempsey has been short listed for the Anna Livia Fm Poetry Prize and The Salmon Poetry Prize. Her poems has been published in the Cork Literary Review and received a recommendation in their poetry competition, from judge Bernard O' Donoghue. Her work has appeared widely in magazines such as Ropes, Women Studies Review NUIG Galway & Crannóg. She has given readings and writing workshops in Parma and Lorient. Mary’s audio narrative, What Happened, was selected for The Arts Council Touring Experiment in 2007. Her film work has been shown at the Galway Fleadh, as well as on TG4 and RTE. Mary has attended Kevin Higgins’ advanced poetry workshop at Galway Arts Centre

There is no entrance fee. All welcome. For further information contact 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Galway City Council.

Galway National Poetry Day Reading

The Mayors of Galway City and County
Councillors Pádraig Conneely and Peter Feeney
& Galway City and County Arts Offices
invite you to a

Gala 30th Anniversary Celebration of
Poetry Ireland

Featuring favourite poetry read by
Celeste Augé, Louis de Paor, Ted Deppe,
Michael D. Higgins, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, John Walsh
and Special Guests

With music and song by
Judith Mok (soprano)
and John Feeley (classical guitar)

Fear a 'Tí: Michael O'Loughlin, Galway Writer in Residence

6.00pm, Thursday October 2nd, 2008
Galway City Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway

Admission Free

www.galwaycity.ie
www.galway.ie
www.poetryireland.ie/poetryday

National Poetry Day, Mayo Reading

An Evening of Poetry.

Castlebar Library,

Thursday, October 2nd at 7pm

Mayo County Arts Office in association with Poetry Ireland presents a mouth-watering evening of readings hosted by Mayo County Library, gleaned from a wealth of local and national talent and featuring new and some familiar names from the literary community. The line-up complete will feature Kevin Higgins, Maighread Medbh, Noel Monahan, Terry McDonagh, Ger Reidy and Aoife Casby.

http://www.mayococo.ie/en/Services/ArtsOffice/ArtsCultureNews/

NORTH BEACH POETRY NIGHTS SLAM AT CRANE BAR

North Beach Poetry Nights presents

on Monday October 13th at 9 pm
at New Venue: The Crane Bar, Sea Road

Guest Poet RAVEN (Dublin)
MC: Brendan Murphy

about Raven "No hidden agenda but the beating of our own hearts, no manifesto but the breath til even that goes..."
Also: The North Beach Poetry Nights' 2 Round Slam.

The winner of this month's Slam goes forward to
the 2008 North Beach Poetry Nights' Grand Slam in December.
The prize for the Grand Slam winner is publication of a collection of her/his work.

("Inheritance" debut collection by last year's winner Miceál Kearney available in
Charlie Byrne's bookshop and from www.doirepress.com)

We look forward to seeing you at The Crane Bar.
Admission 5 Euro.

North Beach Poetry Nights gratefully acknowledges the support
of the Arts Council and Galway City Council Arts Office.

info: john walsh @ 593290

Salmon Poetry launches books by Gerald Dawe & Michael Heffernan

Salmon Poetry in association with Over The Edge invites you to the Galway launch of Catching the Light: Views & Interviews by Gerald Dawe and The Odor of Sanctity by Michael Heffernan

Venue: The City Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway

Date/Time: Saturday September 27th, 2pm


About "Catching the Light: Views & Interviews" by Gerald Dawe
This fascinating series of literary views and interviews illuminate the coming of age of Belfast-born poet Gerald Dawe during the fifties and sixties in Northern Ireland, the literary and political worlds he discovered on moving to Galway in the early seventies, and his travels since, in Europe and other parts of the world, shadowed by the violent closing decade of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new century.

“One of the wonderful things about Gerald Dawe’s work, both as a poet and as a critic, is that there’s a sense in everything he writes of a kind of precision, care and attention to detail which manages to be both extraordinarily honest, and extraordinarily precise in its relation to whatever object he’s writing about—whether he’s evoking it as a poet or whether he’s describing it as a critic—what you find continually is that quality of engagement which is the same quality you find in the poet. It’s the quality of openness to the world.” Fintan O’Toole
Purchase the book online at http://www.salmonpoetry.com/catchingthelight.html


About "The Odor of Sanctity" by Michael Heffernan
Michael Heffernan was born in 1942 in Detroit, and grew up there, in a multi-ethnic working-class neighborhood, eight blocks from the Detroit River and Canada. He often dreams of border crossings. He has frequently traveled abroad, from Ireland to the Dodecanese during the 60s, to the Great Wall approaching Inner Mongolia in 2002. He began writing poems in 1958. His poems contain narratives, characters, masks, and free imaginations, expressing themselves in new dance-steps on the ground trod by the iamb. These acts of language, of words only, offered a new knowledge of reality, along with a vision of freedom and a kind of worldly holiness.

"Michael Heffernan has sustained and amplified a poetry of real intelligence, technical precision, and acoustic splendour. He is a writer who has hit his stride, sure-footed in his craft enough to let imagination run and leap and dance.” Thomas Lynch
Purchase the book online at http://www.salmonpoetry.com/odor.html
For further information, please contact Jessie or Siobhán at 065-7081941 or email info@salmonpoetry.com

Salmon Poetry, Knockeven, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/

Kevin Higgins to speak to speak at Symposium on the Arts

SAME BUT DIFFERENT

Friday, 03 Oct, 2008
The Huston Film School and the Burren College of Art presents a symposium on commonality and difference in the arts

11am - 5.30pm (Bus departs NUIG Quadrangle and Huston School of Film at 10am).
Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan.

Speakers include: Timothy Emlyn Jones, Kevin Higgins, Emmet Kiernans, Mary McPartlan,, Aine Phillips, Rod Stoneman, Larry Thomas.

Chaired by Kevin Barry, Dean Of Arts, NUIGalway

Inter-disciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity are ubiquitous themes for many art forms, including the visual arts, film, writing, drama and dance, yet the extent to which there is a shared understanding of the similarities and differences of the arts – and of interdisciplinarity - remains unclear and worth exploring. Given the appropriation of methods and the ubiquitousness of digital media, where does one art end and another begin?

The Huston School of Film and Digital Media and Burren College of Art propose a one-day symposium to explore this area of common interest. The aim is to develop some shared understanding of the arts among the practitioners of the arts associated with the university and to open the possibility of collaboration.

The symposium will include speakers from the academic staff of NUI Galway and Burren College of Art, together with other associated speakers, before an audience of colleagues and postgraduate students. A plenary session will follow the presentations

What is unique to each art form? What does each art form have in common with other art forms?

Further information: http://www.filmschool.ie or http://www.burrencollege.ie

North Beach Poetry at Galway City Museum

North Beach Poetry at Galway City Museum

on Tuesday 7th October at 7 pm

presents a reading by poets Caroline Lynch, Pete Mullineaux and Susan Millar DuMars

Caroline Lynch won the Listowel Writers’ Week Best Poetry Collection prize in 2007and her first collection, Lost in the Gaeltacht, was published this year by Salmon Poetry. She obtained an MA in Writing from NUIG in 2007 and she lives in Galway. She is currently working on her next collection.

Pete Mullineaux lives in Galway and is resident MC for the Cuirt Festival Poetry Grand Slam. Originally from Bristol, he was first published by Macmillan, aged 13– then joined the UK performance poetry scene, winning the City of London Poetry/song contest along the way.
He has read from Cuirt’s Bardic Breakfast to the Glastonbury Festival, alongside such luminaries as Salman Rushdie, E.P. Thompson & the Pogues. A long awaited debut collection - A Father’s Day - has just been published by Salmon.

Susan Millar DuMars' first collection of poems, Big Pink Umbrella, was published by Salmon Poetry this year. A mini-collection of her short stories, American Girls, was published by Lapwing in 2007. Susan and her husband Kevin Higgins organise the Over the Edge readings series in Galway.

Admission 5 Euro.

Footnote: Next North Beach Poetry Nights' Slam is on Monday 13th Octoberin its new venue, The Crane Bar on Sea Road.North Beach Poetry gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts Counciland Galway City Council.info: John Walsh @ 091-593290

Colette Bryce for September 'Over The Edge: Open Reading'

Over The Edge in association with Poetry Ireland presents the September Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, September 25th, 6.30-8pm. The Featured Readers are Orla Higgins, Des Kavanagh & Colette Bryce.

Orla Higgins lives in Galway, loves to travel and wants to be a writer when she grows up. She works as a Business & Communications Consultant, primarily with arts and non-profit organisations. She also lectures part-time at NUIG with both the Department of Marketing and the Huston School of Film. Her first love is fiction but she has recently collaborated on writing a play titled For Pete's Sake. She has been a serial attender of Susan DuMars’s creative writing classes and is now a student on the MA in Writing at NUIG.

Des Kavanagh hails originally from the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal. He has been writing for four years and is a regular participant in Kevin Higgins’s advanced Poetry Class at Galway Arts Centre. He also takes an active interest in folklore and local history and has chaired the McGlinchey Summer School in Inishowen for most of the past ten years. He recently co-edited the Irish language version of his father’s book, The Last of the Name. He has read his poetry at Westside Library and Clifden Arts Week.

Colette Bryce is originally from Derry; she now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne where she held the North East literary fellowship from 2005-2007. She has published three poetry collections with Picador, The Heel of Bernadette, The Full Indian Rope Trick and, this month, Self-Portrait in the Dark. The Observations of Aleksandr Svetlov, a pamplet, appeared in 2007. She was the winner of the UK National Poetry Competition in 2003 and of the Cardiff International in 2007.

As usual there will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The evening will also see the announcement by competition judge Celeste Augé of the winner of this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year. MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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

Clifden Arts Week showcases Galway Arts Centre's Advanced Poetry Workshop

Friday 19th September 1:00pm at Clifden Library Clifden Arts Week presents A Showcase Reading by Galway Arts Centre’s Advanced Poetry Workshop. (Facilitator Kevin Higgins). Readers will include Lorna Shaughnessy, author of Torching the Brown River , Mary Madec, winner of the 2008 Hennessy Award for Poetry, Deirdre Kearney, Mary Mullen and Des Kavanagh. Admission: €5. 1:00pm http://www.clifdenartsweek.ie/

Mike McCormack for Sheridan's Wine Bar Feast of Fiction

Over The Edge presents a reading by fiction writers Colm Brady, Fiona Claire, Jim
Mullarkey & Mike McCormack

at Sheridan’s Wine Bar, 14-16 Church Yard Street, Galway, Friday, September 12th, 8pm.

Colm Brady is originally from Longford, but now lives in Galway City, where he has been a serial student in several creative writing classes. Colm says he has “now graduated from being an accountant who writes to a writer who works at anything.” He recently completed an MA in Writing at NUIG. Colm’s work has appeared on the Virtual Writer website and elsewhere. He was shortlisted for the 2008 Cúirt Festival/Over The Edge showcase reading.

Fiona Claire is an actress and writer who lived for many years in Los Angeles, but now lives in County Galway. She has worked in numerous television shows, including Third Rock From The Sun, Star Trek Voyager, and King of Queens, and in films such as L.A. Confidential, and Contact. She has written a collection of fables for adults, one novel and is working on a second. She was a Featured Reader at the November 2006 Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library.

Jim Mullarkey lives in Galway. He was a member of Galway City Council for 1993 to 1999 before turning his hand to writing. He has been short-listed for the Raymond Carver Short Story Award and the Fish Short Story Competition. His story ‘Heaven’ was runner-up in the RTE Francis McManus Award. Jim read at the inaugural Cúirt Festival/Over The Edge showcase reading in April 2006.

Mike McCormack is a Mayo-man and was born in 1965. He studied English and philosophy at UCG, as it was then, and has published three books, Getting it in the Head, 1996 - a collection of short stories – and two novels Crowe's Requiem, 1998 and Notes from a Coma, 2005. He teaches fiction on the MA in Writing at NUIG and for three years was writer in residence at NUI Galway. He is currently finishing a book of short stories.

There is no entrance fee. All welcome. For further information contact 087-6431748.


Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Galway City Council.

Short-list announced for Over The Edge 'New Writer of The Year'

The short-list for the 2008 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition is as follows:

Megan Buckley, Galway

Fiona Clark Echlin, Tipperary

Denise Garvey, Galway

Eamonn Harrigan, Galway

Brian Kirk, Dublin

Tom Lavelle, Galway

Wes Lee, New Zealand

Mary Madec, Galway

Donny Mahoney, Dublin

Alan McMonagle, Galway

Brendan Murphy, Galway

Mairin O'Grady, Kildare

Aiden O'Reilly, Dublin

Hans-Joachim Quade, Galway

Evelyn Walsh, Dublin

The winners will be announced by competion judge, Celeste Augé, at the Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 25th, 6.30-8pm, when the Featured Readers will by Colette Bryce, Des Kavanagh & Orla Higgins. The reading is sponsored by Poetry Ireland.

Roddy Lumsden at first Over The Edge: Open Reading after Summer break

The August Over The Edge: Open Reading takes place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, August 28th, 6.30-8pm. The Featured Readers are Vincent Flannery, Bernie Crawford & Roddy Lumsden (pictured).

Vincent Flannery was born in Warrington, England but grew up in Ballyglunin, Co. Galway. He works with Family Support Services with the HSE in Galway. He has participated in creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute. In 2007 Vincent made the long list for the Over the Edge, New Writer of the Year competition with his short story, 'Choices'. He has written several other short stories and has recently completed his first novel, Blackbird, which he hopes to have published in the near future.

Bernie Crawford is originally from County Limerick, but moved to Galway in the early nineteen eighties and now lives in Maree, Oranmore. She has lived and worked extensively in southern Africa, including Lesotho, Zambia and Tanzania. Bernie has been writing poetry on and off for some time, but started writing more seriously two years ago. She was recently a participant in the Advanced Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre.

Roddy Lumsden has published four books of poetry, most recently Mischief Night - New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe). His fifth collection Third Wish Wasted is due in early 2009. Originally from St Andrews in Scotland, Roddy lives in London where he teaches for The Poetry School. He has done editing work on several prize-winning poetry collections and is organiser and host of the reading series BroadCast in London. He is currently compiling Identity Parade, a major anthology of recent British and Irish poets.

As usual there will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council

Creative Writing Classes with Dave Lordan at Bray Institute of Further Education

Award winning poet Dave Lordan is giving a new round of creative writing classes at Bray Institute of Further Education (www.bife.ie/nightclasses 012866233) beginning on Monday 22nd Sept (Beginners) and Tuesday 23rd Sept (Intermediate). The course will last ten weeks and the cost is 95 euro.





COURSE OUTLINE

* THE OVERALL AIM OF THE COURSE IS TO GIVE STUDENTS THE CONFIDENCE IN THEIR OWN WRITING VISION ALONG WITH THE METHODS TO CARRY THAT VISION OUT.

* A WIDE VARIETY OF SHORT TEXTS FROM WRITERS AND CRITICS WILL BE USED IN PHOTOCOPY. HOWEVER, THE MAIN FOCUS WILL BE ON LOOKING AT AND IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ OWN WORK

* STUDENTS WILL BE GIVEN REALISTICALLY ACHIEVABLE GOALS AND SHORT, BUT USEFUL, CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES TO COMPLETE EACH WEEK..

* AT THE END STUDENTS WILL HAVE THEIR OWN SMALL AND WELL-WORKED CREATIVE WRITING PORTFOLIO.

* THE COURSE CAN BE TWEAKED TO SUIT DIFFERENT LEVELS AND ABILITIES.

WEEKS 1-4 BASICS OF WRITING

INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING- WHY WRITE.

Using quotations and short texts from experienced and successful Creative Writers we allow each individual student to come to establish and express their own particular motivations for writing.

WHAT TO WRITE- A LOOK AT GENRE AND SUB-GENRE.

The decision to begin writing creatively is the first step in a huge and sometimes bewildering journey. One of the first questions we will need to provide an answer for is what should we write? Films? Poetry? Horror? Aphorisms? Comic strips? Invent a completely new genre to suit ourselves? The answer depends on personal circumstances, as well as ON the individual talents, goals and insights of the students. This session will look at students bringing to bear their talents and insights on the particular genre/s of writing most suitable to them.

HOW TO WRITE-INSPIRATION AND ROUTINE.

The focus is on finding the space, time and method, in the light of each students individual personality, goals and circumstances to write. Keeping notebooks. Regular writing sessions. Personal deadlines. Short, medium and long term goals.

READING AND WRITING-LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS.

A look at the work and techniques of some of the great masters of past and present. The supreme importance of wide and constant reading to improving one's own writing. The focus here is on the infinite variety of writing masks and voices, with the aim of building up each student's belief in their own individual vision and powers of expression.

WEEKS 5-8 INTO ACTION


BUILDING A CREATIVE WRITING PORTFOLIO

In this central part of the course we will take turns to provide group feedback and constructive criticism on each other's work. The aim is to build up student's ability to be objective in analysing and bettering their material. Over the course of the four weeks the students will build up a small portfolio of work in at least two genres. The students will realise through this that consistent work and genuine criticism improves their writing. They will also have the basics of a portfolio needed to apply to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Creative Writing.


WEEKS 9-10 KEEPING GOING


STICKING AT IT 1- EDITING AND PERSEVERANCE.

How to be ruthless in applying the editor's pen to your own work. Drafting, redrafting and proofreading. How to bring work to a satisfactory completion. This session will also look at Writing as a life-long journey and at how to make a long term space for writing in your life.


STICKING AT IT 2- OUTLETS FOR YOUR WRITING.

This session looks at how to find an appreciative and responsive audience for your writing. Publishing and self-publishing. Magazines and online journals. Creative writing groups. Publishers and agents. Teaching students finally that the most important audience for their writing is themselves.

FOLLOW UPS TO CONSIDER

1) STUDENTS ORGANISE A READING TO WHICH STUDENTS TEACHERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC ARE INVITED.

2) STUDENTS PREPARE AND PUBLISH A JOINT COLLECTION OF THEIR WORK.

Either or both of these suggestions usually generate press interest and are huge feel-good factors for the students, as well as generating positive feedback for the school. They are a record of the class's achievement and as such are something the school can point to when trying to attract further students.