Autumn Poetry Workshops at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three poetry workshops, all facilitated by poet Kevin Higgins, whose best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face, published by Salmon Poetry, was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet. Kevin’s second collection of poems, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in 2008 by Salmon Poetry and his poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry. His third collection Frightening New Furniture was published in 2010 by Salmon. His work also appears in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe April 2014).  A collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2012. Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese & Portuguese. His fourth collection of poetry, The Ghost in the Lobby, was published in 2014 by Salmon. Kevin's poetry was the subject of a paper 'The Case of Kevin Higgins, or, The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire' presented by David Wheatley at a Symposium on Satire at the University of Aberdeen. Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16 and is Writer-in-Residence at University Hospitals Galway. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in early 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s recent political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published in 2016 by  the new Culture Matters imprint of U.K. based Manifesto Press. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems is published by Salmon (Spring 2017) and launched at the 2017 Cúirt Festival. The Stinging Fly magazine described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. His poems have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, on Tonight With Vincent Browne; and read aloud by film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London.

Each week Kevin will give participants a poetry writing exercise for the following week and will offer each participant constructive suggestions as to how her or his poem can become the best possible poem it can be.

Kevin is an experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. One of his workshop participants at Galway Arts Centre won the prestigious Hennessy Award for New Irish Poetry, two have won the Cúirt New Writing Prize, and yet another the Cúirt Poetry Grand Slam, while several have published collections of their poems; two being shortlisted for the Shine-Strong Award for Best First Collection of poems. In 2013 a group of his students set up the poetry newspaper Skylight 47, which publishes new poems, reviews of poetry books and opinion pieces about poetry related matters. Kevin teaches poetry on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme and is Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway Summer School. Kevin is also co-organiser of the successful Over The Edge reading series which specialises in promoting new writers.

Each workshop will run for ten weeks, commencing the week of Monday September 24^th.  They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, September 25^th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, September 27^th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, September 28^th). 

The Tuesday evening and Friday afternoon workshops are open to both complete beginners as well as those who’ve been writing for some time. The Thursday afternoon workshop is an Advanced Poetry Workshop, suitable for those who’ve participated in poetry workshops before or had poems published in magazines. The cost to participants is €110, with a €100 concession rate.

Places must be paid for in advance. To reserve a place contact reception at Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886, email info@galwayartscentre.ie, or go to Galway Arts Centre.ie

 

Autumn Daytime Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, 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

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 four collections of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008), Dreams For Breakfast (2010), The God Thing (2013), & Bone Fire (2016) all with Salmon Poetry. Susan was the Featured Fiction writer in a the American online magazine The Atticus Review. 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, September 24^th. 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, email info@galwayartscentre.ie, or go to Galway Arts Centre.ie

July Over The Edge Writers' Gathering with Mary O'Donoghue, Eamonn Wall, Elizabeth Reapy, & James Finnegan

July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by Mary O’Donoghue, Eamonn Wall, Elizabeth Reapy, & James Finnegan.

The July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry and fiction. The event will take place on Thursday, July 12th, 6.30pm at Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Mary O’Donoghue’s stories have most recently appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Irish Times, Stinging Fly, Dublin Review, and elsewhere. Her novel Before the House Burns was published by The Lilliput Press in 2010. Awards and recognition for her fiction include the Irish Times prize for short fiction responding to economic crisis; two Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowships; and longlisting for the Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. She is Fiction Editor at the journal AGNI, and Professor of English in the Arts and Humanities division of Babson College, Massachusetts. She lives with her husband and step-daughter in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Eamonn Wall is the author of Junction City: New and Selected Poems 1990-2015 (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2015), among other poetry publications. His prose books include Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions (Notre Dame, 2011) and From the Sin-é Café to the Black Hills: Notes on the New Irish (Wisconsin, 2000). He recently co-edited Coleridge and Contemplation, published by POETICA (Tokyo). Articles, essays, and poems have been published in The Irish Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Irish Literary Supplement, New Hibernia Review and other publications. An Enniscorthy native, Eamonn Wall lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he is the Smurfit-Stone Corporation Professor of Irish Studies/International Studies & Programs at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a past-president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and is currently a vice-president of Irish American Writers & Artists Inc.

Dublin-born James Finnegan has been highly commended in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Competition, short-listed in Over The Edge New Writer of the Year, short-listed in The Canterbury Anthology for Poet of the Year, and published in The Irish Times – Hennessy New Irish Writing, Poetry Ireland Review, CYPHERS, Skylight47, North West Words, and the anthology The Best New British & Irish Poets 2018. Finnegan, who holds a doctor of philosophy in living educational theory, is married to Livinia and lives outside Letterkenny in the countryside. His first full collection of poems, Half-Open Door, is published by Eyewear Publishing and was launched in Listowel on June 1^st 2018.

Elizabeth (EM) Reapy is originally from Claremorris County Mayo. She currently a Dublin UNESCO City of Literature Writer-In-Residence. Her debut novel Red Dirt is published by Head of Zeus and was awarded Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, September 2017. Elizabeth gave her first major reading at the February 2010 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council,

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.

Westside Arts Festival/Over The Edge Summer Open-mic

PROBABLY THE BIGGEST LITERARY OPEN-MIC OF THE YEAR

Westside Arts Festival/Over The Edge Summer Open-mic

Over The Edge in association with Westside Arts Festival presents the 2018 Over The Edge Summer Open-mic at Westside Library, Seamus Quirke Road on Wednesday, July 11^th, 5pm-8pm. Those taking part will include visiting students studying creative writing on this year’s NUI Galway International Summer School.

Everyone who has a poem or story to share is most welcome to take part. So, if you have some writing you’d like to read to an audience, this is your opportunity to do so.

The MC for the evening will be Kevin Higgins. All are welcome to attend.

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

June Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by poets Eleanor Hooker, Nathanael O’Reilly, and Anne Casey PLUS Skylight 47

The June Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents an exciting variety of poetry from Galway, Tipperary and Australia. There will be readings by Anne Casey, Nathanael O’Reilly, & Eleanor Hooker PLUS a celebration of the first ten issue of Galway-based poetry newspaper Skylight 47 DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED.

The event will take place on Friday, June 29^th, 8pm at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Anne Casey is originally from Clare and now lives in Sydney. Her poems have appeared internationally in newspapers, magazines, journals, anthologies, podcasts, broadcasts, videos, music albums, a stage show and an international art exhibition. Her debut poetry collection, where the lost things go was published to much acclaim by Salmon Poetry in 2017. She has won or been shortlisted for poetry awards in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the USA, UK, Canada and Australia. Over a 25-year career, Anne has worked as a business journalist, magazine editor, media communications director and legal author. Further information: http://anne-casey.com/. Twitter: @1annecasey.

Nathanael O’Reilly was born and raised in Australia. He has travelled on five continents and spent extended periods in England, Ireland, Germany, Ukraine and the United States, where he currently resides. His poems have appeared in journals and anthologies in ten countries, including Antipodes, Australian Love Poems, Cordite, FourW, Glasgow Review of Books, LiNQ, Mascara, Postcolonial Text, Snorkel, Tincture, Transnational Literature, Verity La and The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2017. O’Reilly is the recipient of an Emerging Writers Grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. He is the author of Preparations for Departure (UWAP Poetry, 2017), named one of the “2017 Books of the Year” in Australian Book Review; Distance (Picaro Press, 2014; Ginninderra Press, 2015); and the chapbooks Cult (Ginninderra Press, 2016), Suburban Exile (Picaro Press, 2011) and Symptoms of Homesickness (Picaro Press, 2010). He was the writer-in-residence at Booranga Writers’ Centre in May 2017.

Eleanor Hooker is a poet and writer. She lives in North Tipperary with her husband Peter, they have two sons. Her second poetry collection, A Tug of Blue (Dedalus Press) was published October 2016. In 2013 her debut, The Shadow Owner's Companion (Dedalus Press) was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award for Best First Irish collection from 2012. Eleanor is founder of the Rowan Tree Readings, a reading series that will feature international poets and authors. The series begins June 2018.  Her poetry has been published in Ireland and internationally: in the UK, USA, Germany, Poland, Romania, India and Hungary, and in literary journals including: POETRY (Chicago), PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, AGENDA Poetry, The Stinging Fly, The SHOp, The Moth, The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner, Crannóg, POEM: International English Language Quarterly, Cyphers. Online, her poems have been published at Southword, New Dublin Press, And Other Poems, Poethead, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Ofi Press, The Pickled Body, Public Pool and broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. Eleanor has read her poetry at literary events in Ireland, USA (Pittsburgh, Washington), India (Mumbai International Literary Festival) and Hungary (Budapest).

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council,

Poetry Ireland, and Galway City Council.