2017 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2017 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Alvy Carragher, Breda Joyce, Miceál Kearney, Mary Lee, Pete Mullineaux, Luke Morgan, Susan Millar DuMars, Marie Cadden, Kevin Higgins, James O’Toole, Gerry Hanberry, Liz Quirke, Nicki Griffin, Sighle Meehan, Mary Madec, Ger Reidy and the anthologies Even The Daybreak - 35 Years of Salmon Poetry (Salmon), The Poet’s Quest For God (Eyewear Publishing), Fermata – Writings Inspired By Music (Artisan House) & Poems For Jeremy Corbyn (Shoestring Press) will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 10^th  at 6.30pm. 

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets, who published a new collection of poems during 2016, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be short readings from the anthologies Poems For Jeremy Corbyn (Shoestring Press, Ed. Merryn Williams), Fermata – Writings Inspired By Music  (Artisan House, Ed. Eva Bourke & Vincent Woods), Even The Daybreak - 35 Years of Salmon Poetry (Salmon, Ed. Jessie Lendennie), & The Poet’s Quest For God (Eyewear Publishing, Ed. Fr. Oliver Brennan, & Todd Swift with Kelly Davio & Cate Myddleton-Evans), 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.

July Over The Edge Writers' Gathering with Alvy Carragher, Justin Conboy, Diane Fahey, & Leabhar na hAthghabhála

July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering

at Galway City Library

presents readings by

Justin Conboy, & Diane Fahey,

a Showcase reading from the anthology

Leabhar na hAthghabhála

Poems of Repossession

(published by Bloodaxe

edited by Louis de Paor),

& the GALWAY LAUNCH

of Alvy Carragher’s debut poetry collection

Falling in love with broken things

(published by Salmon)

on Thursday, July 14^th,6.30pm

The July Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering presents readings by fiction writers, poets, and translators Justin Conboy, Diane Fahey, Micheál Ó Cuaig, Colbert Kearney, & the Galway launch of Alvy Carragher’s debut poetry collection Falling in love with broken things (published by Salmon). The event will take place at Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street on Thursday, July 14th, 6.30pm. All are welcome. There is no cover charge.

Justin Conboy hails from Salthill, Galway. Ireland. He graduated in 2015 as an Engineer from NUI Galway where computers and mathematics were his first love. Justin soon extended his love to writing and hence combined these attributes into writing his first novel, Code Thief, which was published in May.

Diane Fahey is an Australian poet and lives in a bayside town on the Bellarine Peninsula. She is the author of twelve poetry collections, most recently A House by the River (Puncher & Wattmann, 2016). The Wing Collection: New & Selected Poems (2011) and The Stone Garden: Poems from Clare (2013) were both shortlisted for major book awards. Sea Wall and River Light, a collection of poems set in Barwon Heads, received the ACT government's Judith Wright Poetry Award in 2007. Among her awards for individual poems are the Newcastle Poetry Prize and the Wesley Michel Wright Award. Diane has received literary grants from the Victorian and South Australian Governments, and from the Australia Council, including a grant in 2014 to support the writing of a book on the West of Ireland. She took part in Australian Poetry's 2013 International Poetry Tour of Ireland. Past writing residencies have taken her to Venice, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland, Hawthornden Castle International Writers' Retreat in Scotland, and to Varuna, the National Writers House, and Bundanon, both in N.S.W. She has been writer in residence at Ormond College, Melbourne, and the University of Adelaide. Her website: <dianefaheypoet.com>          

Louis de Paor is Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI Galway and one of the leading Irish language poets. He is editor of the anthology Leabhar na hAthghabhála -Poems of Repossession (published recently by Bloodaxe). He will introduce the readings from Leabhar na hAthghabhála on the evening. 

A native of Cill Chiaráin, Micheál Ó Cuaig is a sean nós singer and  the author of highly regarded collections of Irish poetry, such as Uchtóga (1985) and Clocha Reatha (1986) which critics have applauded for their emotional delicacy and scrupulous use of language. His poems feature in Leabhar na hAthghabhála.

Colbert Kearney was born in Dublin, went to school in Garbally Park and attended University College Dublin and Cambridge University.  He is emeritus professor of English at University College Cork and has published studies of Brendan Behan and Sean O’Casey.  He has also published a novel, The Consequence, and has recently completed a memoir of his parents.  A major influence on his life was his Finglas National School teacher, Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, whose ‘Aifreann na Marbh’ he translated for Leabhar na hAthghabhála.

Alvy Carragher's first collection of poems Falling in Love with Broken Things has been published by Salmon Poetry this year. She is an award-winning poet and blogger. Her work has appeared in The Irish Times, The Galway Review, Poet Head, Skylight 47 and many others. She was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series 2016 and represented the group at a reading in New York.

There is no entrance fee.

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.

Over The Edge in association with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature presents the tenth annual New Writing Showcase.

Since its inception in 2006 the New Writing Showcase has grown to become one of the most important platforms for emerging writers in Ireland. This year’s Cúirt New Writing Showcase features three participants from the Over the Edge literary series in Galway – Alvy Carragher, Mary McGill, & Teresa Sweeney - Daniel Roy Connelly, the winner of the Cúirt New Writing Poetry Prize 2015, and Sonya Gildea, the winner of the 2015 Cúirt New Writing Fiction Prize. The MC for the event will be regular Over The Edge host Susan Millar DuMars. It takes place on Thursday, April 23^rd, 4pm, at The Town Hall Theatre. Entry is free of charge. All welcome.

Alvy Carragher recently completed the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. Her poetry has been commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue Award, the 2013 Over the Edge New Writer of the year competition and she came third in the 2013 Doire Press Poetry Competition. Alvy was 2014 Connaught Slam Poetry Champion and her blog “with all the finesse of a badger” won best humour blog in the Irish Blog Awards and was a finalist for blog of the year in the Samsung Digital Media Awards 2014. Alvy was a Featured Reader at the February 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading. 

Mary McGill lives in Galway. Her fiction has appeared in The South Circular, The Bohemyth, Crannóg and Wordlegs. In 2013, she was shortlisted for the Penguin / RTÉ Guide short story competition and the Irish Times ‘Legends of the Fall’ competition. Mary was also long listed for the 2013 Over the Edge award and short listed for the 2014 RTÉ Radio One Francis MacManus Award. Mary was a Featured Reader at the August 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Teresa Sweeney is from county Galway. She was short listed in the 2014 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition. Her fiction has been published in Roadside Fiction, Number Eleven Magazine, Wordlegs, Boyne Berries and she was a runner up in the WOW! Awards 2011. She was a Featured Reader at the November 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Daniel Roy Connelly is a theatre director, writer and professor of English literature and creative writing at John Cabot University and The American University of Rome. He holds a PhD in Shakespeare's 'Othello' from The University of Saint Andrews and was the winner of the 2014 Fermoy International Poetry Festival Prize and a finalist in the 2015 Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Prize. He recently directed a sold-out 'Hedda Gabler' and returns to the stage next week at Rome's 'Teatro Arciliuto', where he will play 'Ralph Wantage' in Bryony Lavery's 'Frozen'. Daniel is the winner of the 2015 Cúirt New Writing Poetry Prize. 

Sonya Gildea was born in County Cork, Ireland. She lives and works in Dublin, and the east coast of Scotland. She is writing the poetry collection Apothecary; the short story collection, Heartscapes; and the debut novel, The Hours That God Sends. She has also received a number of awards for screenwriting. She is the winner of the 2015 Cúirt New Writing Fiction Prize.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing financial support of The Arts Council, Galway City Council, and Poetry Ireland, and our ongoing partnership with the Cúirt Festival of International Literature.