Twelfth Annual Over The Edge Fiction Slam with Una Mannion & Alvy Carragher

 Over The Edge presents its twelfth annual fiction slam with Featured Readers, Alvy Carragher and Una Mannion, on Zoom on Friday, April 9th, starting 8pm sharp.

Alvy Carragher

Alvy Carragher grew up in rural Ireland and considered herself a writer long before it was appropriate. She has an MA in Writing from NUI Galway, and her first collection of poems, Falling In Love With Broken Things was published by Salmon Poetry in 2016; her follow up The Men I Keep Under My Bed will be published by Salmon this year. Her debut novel The Cantankerous Molly Darling was published by Chicken House Books in 2019. A former resident of both Louisiana and South Korea, she is currently holed up in Vancouver where she is tinkering away at a second novel and learning to speak Canadian. Alvy was a Featured Reader at the February 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading and at the 2015 Cúirt / Over The Edge New Writers’ Showcase.

 

                                                                Una Mannion

Una Mannion was born in Philadelphia and now lives in County Sligo, Ireland with her husband and three children A CROOKED TREE is her first novel and was published by Faber & Faber in 2020. Una has an MA in Writing from NUI Galway and was a Featured Reader at the May 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading and at the 2017 Cúirt / Over The Edge New Writers’ Showcase.

The first twelve fiction writers to text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com on the evening of Friday, April 9^th and register will be guaranteed a place in the slam. All participating writers should prepare two pieces of their own fiction, as there are two rounds. The time limit in both rounds is five minutes. Extracts from longer stories are admissible. Stories do not have to be memorised. The Fiction Slam will be judged by a three person jury made up of Alvy Carragher, Una Mannion and an audience member. Three writers will go through to the second round and the prize for the winner is two bottles of excellent wine, one read, one white, and a most delicious box of chocolates, which will be delivered to you.

Over The Edge is inviting you to the April 2021 Fiction Slam on Zoom. Friday, April 9th, 8pm sharp.

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

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

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

March Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Helen Ivory, Bill Richardson, Sadhbh Goodwin PLUS open-mic

Helen Ivory

The March ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, March 25th  at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Sadhbh Goodwin, Bill Richardson, & Helen Ivory. There will, as always at Over The Edge: Open Readings, be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Sadhbh Goodwin is a nineteen year old poet from Galway. Their poetry has been published in the Wild Words anthology (four years in a row), in VoxGalvia, and Cinders magazine, and was also featured on Headstuff.org as poem of the week. They write in both Irish and English, and their poem “Oidhreacht” was featured on the #WEARETHEPOETS poetry jukebox in Dublin. They have performed before in the “Over the Edge" open mic, as well as the “In my Orbit" open mic at the Galway Arts centre. They are currently studying English in UCC.

Bill Richardson is from Dublin and lives in Galway. Currently Emeritus Professor in Spanish at the National University of Ireland Galway, he previously taught Spanish at both second and third levels and has published books and articles on Spanish and Latin American culture. He has attended Creative Writing courses run by Susan DuMars and has participated in a poetry workshop at the Irish Writers’ Centre. His poems have appeared in Vox Galvia and The Galway Review, as well as in the Stony Thursday Book No. 17. His poem ‘The Taking of Caravaggio’ was a runner-up in the Fish Poetry Prize Competition 2020.   

Helen Ivory is a British poet and visual artist living in Norwich. Her fifth Bloodaxe collection is The Anatomical Venus (2019).  She edits the poetry webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and teaches creative writing online for the University of East Anglia/WCN. A book of her mixed media poems Hear What the Moon Told Me is published by KFS, and chapbook Maps of the Abandoned City by SurVision.  She has work translated into Polish and Ukrainian as part of the Versopolis project.

Over The Edge is inviting you to the March Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, March 25^th, 6.30-8pm

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

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.

February Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom with Kate Fox, Jake Arden, & Rozz Lewis

The February ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, February 25th  at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Rozz Lewis, Jake Arden, & Kate Fox. 

There will, as always at Over The Edge: Open Readings, be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Rozz Lewis is a primary school teacher living in Carlow, Ireland. She runs a literary blog at http://www.rozz.ie/. Her stories have been published in literary magazines like Stinging Fly, Crannóg, Boyne Berries, Wordlegs, Silver Apples, Spontaneity, Galway Review and Literary Orphans. She has been listed for the New Planet Cabaret, Penguin Short Story and Fish Fiction Prizes. Rozz was highly commended for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year 2016.

Jake Arden was born in Galway, the son of writer/activists Margaretta D’Arcy and John Arden. He completed a Modern History degree and a masters in Social Research in London and worked in the voluntary, local government, higher education and charity sectors for many years. Today he lives in Canterbury East Kent. He has published a book of short stories, Spartans of the Corrib (2015), drawing on his unusual bohemian childhood and a novel A Little Patch of England (2020), inspired by the local history of East Kent during World War Two. He is currently working on a new novel, The Romantic Awakening of Kitty Pemberton, about a group of Kent tourists who visit Paris in 1830 and get swept up in the Glorious Three Days Revolution of July. https://www.facebook.com/Invicta-Pirate-Press-111551237350621

 

Kate Fox is a British poet, performer and broadcaster who sometimes describes herself as a stand-up poet. She has been a Poet in Residence on Radio 4's Saturday Live, Glastonbury Festival and the Great North Run. She is a regular contributor to Radio 3’s The Verb and presenter of Radio 4’s “Pick of the Week”. Radio 4 broadcast her two half hour comedy shows "The Price of Happiness" in 2015, and a second series in 2017.  Her stand up spoken word show celebrating Northern women; “Where There’s Muck There’s Bras” sold out several theatres in the North of England when it toured after being commissioned by the Great Exhibition of the North in 2018. She is now working on a book of the show for a major publisher.  Her new show “Bigger on the Inside” uses a stand up lecture format to explore the history of neurodiversity through a lens of Doctor Who and was commissioned by the BBC’s Contains Strong Language Festival in 2020. She is also currently writing a commissioned play about an imagined encounter between Ted Hughes and Bernard Manning for the Ted Hughes Festival. She has taught and facilitated numerous creative writing. performance and comedy workshops, including for the Arvon Foundation, First Story, Creative Partnerships and New Writing North. In 2009 she was the only writer ever to do a Cultural Leadership placement and researched writers’ work with young people. Publications include Fox Populi from Smokestack Books (2013), pieces in Bloodaxes’s Funny Peculiar, Funny Ha Ha and the Iron Book of Humorous Verse and she has edited several anthologies of young writers work. Her next collection The Oscillations will be published by Nine Arches in February 2021. https://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/the-oscillations.html

 

Over The Edge is inviting you to the February Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, February 25^th, 6.30-8pm

 

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 

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.

2021 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase takes place on Zoom in association with Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2021 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase, featuring Aoife Reilly, John D. Kelly, Rita Ann Higgins, Attracta Fahy, Vinny Glynn-Steed, Danielle Holian, Christine Valters Paintner, Mary Turley McGrath, Jessamine O’Connor, John W. Sexton, Marion Kilcoyne, Hilary Wakeman, Denis Mockler, Eileen Sheehan, Peadar O’Donoghue, Kevin Higgins, and the anthologies The Shop: An Anthology of Poetry (Liffey Press, edited by Hilary Wakeman & Hilary Elick) & Galway Then, Galway Now – The Crannóg 2020 Anthology (Wordsonthestreet) will take place on Zoom on Friday, February, 12^th starting at 6.30pm (Galway local time - GMT). The event will be jointly MCed by Kate Ennals and Kevin Higgins.

In this annual retrospective of the most peculiar year just past, poets based in the West of Ireland, who published a new collection of poems during 2020, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be readings from the anthologies The Shop: An Anthology of Poetry & Galway Then, Galway Now – The Crannóg 2020 Anthology, to which several Galway-based poets contributed.

 

Over The Edge is inviting you to the 2021 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase Reading on Zoom. Friday, February 12^th, 6.30-8pm.

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 

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

 

All of the poetry books showcased at this event will be available for purchase via Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop https://charliebyrne.ie/product/silver-spoon/

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 as Over The Edge Celebrates 18th Birthday on Zoom with Ciaran O’Rourke, Kathryn Slattery, & Stephen McNulty

The January ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place on Zoom on Thursday, January 21^st  at the usual Over The Edge time 6.30-8.00pm (local Galway time). The Featured Readers are Stephen McNulty, Kathryn Slattery, & Ciaran O’Rourke. There will, as always at Over The Edge: Open Readings, be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always especially welcome at the open-mic. Anyone interested in taking part in the open-mic should text Kevin Higgins on 087-6431748 or email over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com between 6pm and 6.30pm on the evening of the reading. This reading celebrates the eighteenth anniversary of the first Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library and there will be an online birthday party throughout, even possibly a birthday cake to celebrate the fact that Over The Edge is now old enough to legally drink alcohol.  The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars.

Stephen McNulty is a radiographer at Galway University Hospital. Stephen scribbles poetry whenever he is not forcing a member of the public into a CT scanner. A regular attendee of the Galway Arts Centre poetry workshops, his poems have appeared in Boyne Berries, Drawn to the Light, ROPES and Vox Galvia. He is, for his many sins in both this life and his past lives, an avid Mayo GAA fan. 

Kathryn Slattery was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up just across the state line in Mississippi. A graduate of Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, she now lives in the West of Ireland with her husband and an ever-increasing amount of rescue pets. Her poetry and prose have been published in Ropes Literary Journal, Nightingale and Sparrow, The Siren’s Call, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Planet in Peril Anthology, The Blue Nib, Impspired, The Wellington Street Review, Analogies and Allegories, and Streetcake. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Nightingale and Sparrow Chapbook Competition and has was longlisted for the 2018 and 2019 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. Most recently she received a special mention in the 2020 Desmond O’Grady Poetry Competition. Her debut poetry collection will be published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in September 2021. 

 

Ciaran O’Rourke has won the Cúirt New Irish Writing Award, the Westport Poetry Prize, and the Fish Poetry Prize. His first collection, The Buried Breath, was published by Irish Pages Press in 2018 to considerable acclaim, and his second collection is due in 2021. He lives in County Leitrim.

Over The Edge is inviting you to the January Over The Edge: Open Reading on Zoom. Thursday, January 21^st, 6.30-8pm

 

Join The Over The Edge Zoom Meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 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.