March Over The Edge Writers' Gathering featuring Brian Kirk, Liz Quirke, Rachel Coventry, & Bogman's Cannon showcase

The March Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry by Liz Quirke, and Rachel Coventry; a reading from his recently published novel by Brian Kirk; and a special Bogman’s Cannon showcase by which will included a discussion about the work of The Bogman’s Cannon, Ireland’s leading alternative literature website, which will feature Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Karl Parkinson, & Dave Lordan The event will take place at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, March 11^th, 8pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Liz Quirke is 31. She is originally from Tralee, Co Kerry and lives in Spiddal, Co Galway with her wife and daughter. Her poetry has appeared in New Irish Writing in the The Irish Times, The Best New British And Irish Poets 2016 published by Eyewear Publishing, Southword, Crannóg, Revival Literary Journal, The Stony Thursday Book, The Ofi Press and other publications. She won the 2015 Poems for Patience Competition and was shortlisted for the 2015 Cúirt New Writing Prize. She is currently working towards her first collection.

Rachel Coventry lives in Galway. Her poetry has appeared in various journals including The SHop, Stony Thursday Book, Cyphers, Crannóg, Boyne Berries, and Skylight 47. She was selected for the 2014 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series  and she is currently writing a PhD on Heidegger’s poetics at NUIG.

Brian Kirk is an award-wining poet and short story writer from Clondalkin in Dublin. He won the Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Award for Poetry in 2014, the Bailieborough Poetry Prize 2015 and The Creative Flow Poet of the Year Award 2015 at Dundalk FM. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2013, and was highly commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2014 and 2015. His poetry and stories have appeared in journals and anthologies in Ireland, the UK, Germany, India and USA. His poetry film Red Line Haiku was screened at The Civic Theatre in Tallaght as part of the Red Line Book Festival in October 2015 and can be viewed on Youtube. His novel, The Rising Son, is his first foray into literature for a younger audience.

Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet, originally from Donegal, now based in Dublin and she is the Diversity Editor of The Bogman’s Cannon.

Annemarie Ní Churreáin

Karl Parkinson is a poet and fiction writer from Dublin. He is a Facilitating Editor of The Bogman’s Cannon.

Dave Lordan is a poet and fiction writer, originally from West Cork now based in Wicklow, and is Founding Editor of The Bogman’s Cannon. 

For further information contact 087-6431748.

All Welcome. No cover charge.
 Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council. 

February Over The Edge: Open Reading with Danny Morrison, John Valters Paintner, & Scotty Ishmael PLUS open-mic

Scotty Ishmael, John Valters Paintner, & Danny Morrison for February Over The Edge: Open Reading

The February ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, February 25^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Danny Morrison, John Valters Paintner, & Scotty Ishmael. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. 

Scotty Ishmael is a full-time restauranteur and part-time writer of fiction and short stories. He has owned and operated Scotty's in Galway since 1991 with his lovely wife Jenny. He is the youngest of three children from Dayton, Ohio USA. He lives in Athenry with his three children, one dog, nine cats, two rabbits, a goldfish and a pony.

John Valters Paintner was born in Sacramento, California. With a degree in education and theology, John taught in the States for twelve years. While teaching in Seattle, Washington John partook in a film making course at the Seattle Film Institute, which reignited a life-long passion for writing and storytelling. Since moving to Galway City, Ireland with his wife Christine, John has completed a screen writing course at NUIG and several Over the Edge courses. His work appeared in Pukka Print Magazine’s inaugural issue. John writes short plays for The Theatre Room, Galway where he won the Best Original Writing award.

Danny Morrison

Danny Morrison (b. 1953) is a writer who lives in Belfast. He is the author of four novels - West Belfast (1989); On The Back of The Swallow (1994); The Wrong Man (1997); and Rudi - In The Shadow of Knulp (2012); a prison journal/letters - Then The Walls Came Down (1999); a memoir - All The Dead Voices (2002); a play - The Wrong Man (2005), and some scenes for the play Binlids (1998); a collection of political writings - Rebel Columns (2004); and editor of a literary anthology - Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike (2006). His short stories have appeared in a number of publications and have been broadcast on BBC, RTE and Lyric FM. He is currently working on a fifth novel, provisionally-titled, Band On The Run; and a play, The Mental. Danny is a former National Director of Publicity for Sinn Féin and a republican political prisoner. As well as writing, he is the secretary of the Bobby Sands Trust and was for many years, until 2014, chairperson of Féile an Phobail, the community festival founded in West Belfast in 1988.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always particularly welcome. 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. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com 

2016 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2016 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Michelle O'Sullivan, Trevor Conway, Lorna Shaughnessy, James O’Toole, Aideen Henry, Robyn Rowland,  Matt Mooney, Kate Ennals, Quincy Lehr, and the anthologies Raving Beauties –Hallelujah for 50ft Women (Bloodaxe),  AND AGAMEMNON DEAD: An Anthology of Early Twenty First Century Irish Poetry (Muavaise Graine, Paris), & 21 Poems: 21 Reasons for Choosing Jeremy Corbyn will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 12^th  at 6.30pm.

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets, who published a new collection of poems during 2015, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be short readings from the anthologies Raving Beauties: Hallelujah for 50ft Women (Bloodaxe),  AND AGAMEMNON DEAD: An Anthology of Early Twenty First Century Irish Poetry (Muavaise Graine, Paris); 21 Poems: 21 Reasons for Choosing Jeremy Corbyn, all of which include poems by Galway-based writers.

All welcome. There is no cover charge. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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

January Over The Edge: Open Reading with Vona Groarke, Nuala Keher, Stephen De Burca PLUS the launch of new issue of Skylight 47

Over The Edge Celebrates Thirteenth Birthday with Readings by Stephen De Burca, Nuala Keher, Vona Groarke who will Launch issue six of Skylight 47 (possibly Ireland’s most interesting poetry publication)

Vona Groarke

Over The Edge  presents the first ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ of 2016 at Galway City Library on Thursday, January 21^st, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Vona Groarke, Nuala Keher, & Stephen DeDurca. The centre piece of the evening will be the launch of issue number six of Skylight 47, the exciting bi-annual poetry paper from the Skylight Poets, which will be on sale on the evening. The publication will be launched on the evening by Vona Groarke. Skylight 47 is based in Galway and publishes poems by poets from all around the globe; all poets are welcome to submit poems for consideration for future issues. For details on how to take out a subscription to Skylight 47 see here 

Stephen De Burca is a 24 year old writer from Galway City. Currently a philosophy and English student at NUI Galway, Stephen was highly commended in the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition 2015. His writing has taken him to an art residency in Iceland in the summer of 2015 and he will be attending art residencies in France as well as the Netherlands this summer.  

Nuala Keher is a native of Galway and works as Academic Director of EQUAL Ireland, a not-for-profit charitable trust. Nuala is a strong advocate for social change both in Ireland and abroad. She has been a key member of the SIPTU trade union movement and spent a year in South Sudan with the Ministry for Education. She is joint author with Eddie Higgins of the non-fiction book ‘Your Rights at Work’ (1998) published by the Institute of Public Administration, Dublin. Nuala also writes fiction and is a participant in Susan Millar DuMars’ Advanced Fiction Writing class. She has been published in Ireland’s Own and was long listed in the 2015 Over the Edge New Writer of The Year competition.

Vona Groarke was born in the Irish Midlands in 1964. She attended Trinity College, Dublin and University College, Cork. She has lived in Dublin, Cork and Dundalk and has been writer-in-residence at NUI Galway and Maynooth. Her collections published by The Gallery Press include Shale (1994), Other People’s Houses (1999), Flight (2002), shortlisted for the Forward Prize (UK) in 2002 and winner of the Michael Hartnett Award in 2003, Juniper Street (2006) and Spindrift (2009) and X (2014), both Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Her poetry prizes include the Hennessy Award, the Brendan Behan Memorial Prize, the Michael Hartnett Award, Strokestown International Poetry Award, the Stand Magazine Poetry Prize, and runner-up in the Times Literary Supplement Poetry Competition (2003). In 2008, her version of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s eighteenth-century Irish poem was published as Lament for Art O’Leary. She has been Writer-in-Residence with the National University at Galway and at Maynooth, and was co-holder of the Heimbold Chair in Irish Studies at Villanova University (Spring 2004). She now lives in Manchester where she teaches in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester. Vona Groarke is a member of Aosdána and is currently editor of Poetry Ireland Review. As well as reading her own work, Vona Groarke will launch the new issue of Skylight 47.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. Contributors to the new issue of Skylight 47 are particularly welcome to read their Skylight 47 poems at the open-mic; those wishing to take part should get to Galway City Library by 6.20pm, at the latest, and give their names to Kevin Higgins, who The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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

NEW YEAR Beginners & Intermediate Creative Writing Classes at Galway Technical Institute BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW

Creative Writing for Beginners with Kevin Higgins takes place one evening per week (Monday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Monday, January 11^th, 2016. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. Kevin Higgins will provide writing exercises for, and give gentle critical feedback to, those interested in trying their hand at writing stories, poems, or memoir. 

To book a place, go to http://www.gti.ie/parttime/course/detail/t/72/c/201511-004246

Intermediate Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars takes place one evening per week (Tuesday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Tuesday, January 12th, 2016. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. This class is suitable for those who’ve participated in creative writing classes before or begun to have work published in magazines. Flexible exercises and work-shopping of assignments, together with the study of the works of published writers, will help each class member to find their own writing voice.

 
To book a place, go to http://www.gti.ie/parttime/course/detail/t/72/c/201511-004278

YOU CAN ALSO BOOK in person at Galway Technical Institute, Monday-Friday, (10am-4.30pm).

For further information contact Galway Technical Institute, Father Griffin Road, Galway, phone 091-581342 or email gtiadulted@gretb.ie or see http://www.gti.ie  

New Year Daytime Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Arts Centre BOOK NOW

Starting in late January, Galway Arts Centre presents a daytime class for all those beginner and continuing creative writing students out there, facilitated by Susan Millar DuMars. 

Susan Millar DuMars writes both poetry and fiction. A collection of her stories, Lights In The Distance, was published in December 2010 by Doire Press; she has published three collections of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008), Dreams For Breakfast (2010) & The God Thing (2013) all with Salmon Poetry. Susan was the Featured Fiction writer in a recent issue of the American online magazine The Atticus Review. Her next book of poems Bone Fire, will be published by Salmon Poetry in the Spring. She is also co-organiser of the Over The Edge reading series which specifically promotes new writers. Susan edited the anthology Over the Edge – the first ten years, published by Salmon, which includes work by forty seven writers who have published a first book since they did a reading at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library.

The class is suitable for both beginning and continuing creative writing students, working in either poetry or fiction. Students will spend their weeks responding to writing exercises designed to inspire, rather than inhibit. In class, they will receive gentle feedback on their work from their classmates and from the teacher. The class takes place on Monday afternoons, 2.30-4pm, commencing on Monday, January 25th. It runs for 10 weeks.

The cost to participants is 110 Euro with an 100 Euro concession price. Booking is essential as places are limited. There are no refunds once the class has started. For booking please contact Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886 or email info@galwayartscentre.ie