Follow Over The Edge on Twitter

Sunday, October 23, 2016

October Over The Edge: Open Reading with Lorna Siggins, Bernadette Joyce, & Jackie Walker PLUS announcement of winners of Over The Edge New Writer of the Year



Jackie Walker
The October ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, October 27th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Jackie Walker,  Bernadette Joyce, & Lorna Siggins. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished.  The evening will also see the announcement of the winners in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which received a large number of entries again this year. This year’s competition judge is Niamh Boyce. The shortlist can be read here.


Lorna Siggins has been a staff journalist with The Irish Times since 1988 and is currently the paper’s Western and Marine Correspondent, located in Galway. Formerly based in the Dublin newsroom, her reporting beat has extended from Everest to El Salvador to Erris, and she has also filed news reports from the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean/Antarctica. She has written books on the first Irish ascent of Everest in 1993, on former Irish president Mary Robinson, on air/sea rescue off the Irish coast, and, most recently Once Upon a Time in the West: The Corrib Gas Controversy (Transworld Ireland) on the Corrib gas controversy in north county Mayo.



Bernadette Joyce was born into a large family in Carrowbeg- a tiny village outside Headford. She was part of the Presentation Mission first in New Zealand and then in Chile for some forty years. To write a novel was not on Bernadette’s bucket list but because of her lived experience in shantytowns during the Pinochet years and afterwards, she felt compelled to expose the injustices she witnessed meted out to the poor- their constant struggle to be heard and believed especially in crisis situations as told in Eva's Journey (Columba Press, 2016). Bernadette now lives in Galway.



Jackie Walker has been a teacher and trainer, a community and British Labour Party activist.  Of Jewish and Jamaican ancestry, Jackie was also in the care of the Sisters of Mercy at a Catholic run children’s home in Kent. Known for her humour and insight into the complexity of biracial identity, Jackie Walker contributes a unique voice to the narrative of identity and migration. Though described as a memoir, her book Pilgrim State reads more like a novel. Along with wide critical acclaim Pilgrim State received a ‘Best Publication’ award from the Association for Social Policy for its “lyricism and extraordinary use of narrative voice.”


As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. 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 ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland, & The Arts Council.