Poets Jenny Lambert, Deirdre Daly, & Graham Allen for March Over The Edge: Open Reading plus LAUNCH of Skylight 47 Latest Issue

The March Over The Edge: Open Reading takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, March 30th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Graham Allen, Deirdre Daly, & Jenny Lambert. The centre piece of the evening will be the launch of issue eight 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 by Graham Allen. 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 https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/buy-skylight-47/. 

Jenny Lambert is a holistic health professional based in Clare and Galway. She has worked in services for children and adults in Ireland and South Asia. Her writing is inspired by a reverence for land and sea, the body, and the cycles of death and life. She attends poetry workshops in Galway Arts Centre. She was longlisted for Over the Edge New Writer of the Year 2016, was a prize winner at Culture Night poetry reading in Kenny's, Galway 2016 and has new work published in the latest edition of Skylight 47 (March 2017).

Deirdre Daly

Deirdre Daly was poetry winner of the 2016 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition. Her poetry has been published in Crannóg and the Irish Times and her fiction has appeared in various anthologies. She lives in Dublin and is a participant in Kevin Higgins’ online poetry workshop. Deirdre is shortlisted in the Emerging Poetry category in the 2017 Hennessy Awards for New Irish Writing.

Graham Allen

Graham Allen’s debut poetry collection The One That Got Away was published in 2014 by New Binary Press and was nominated for the Crashaw Prize. Professor of English at University College Cork, Graham Allen’s poetry has appeared Southword, Other Poetry, The Stinging Fly, The Rialto, Poetry Ireland Review, Revival, La Questione Romantica, The SHOp, Theory and Event, Cultural Politics and Cyphers. His texts for stage have been performed by Gatekrash Theatre Company at the Stack Theatre, Cork School of Music, at the Comedy Club, Cork, and at the Cork Midsummer Festival in 2008. Graham Allen’s critical works include Harold Bloom: Towards a Poetics of Conflict (1994), Intertextuality (2000 and 2011), Roland Barthes (2003), The Salt Companion to Harold Bloom, co-edited with Roy Sellars (2007), Mary Shelley (2008) and The Reader’s Guide to Frankenstein (2008). His work has been translated into Japanese, Korean and Persian.

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.

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.

May Over The Edge: Open Reading with Luke Kennard, Ruth Quinlan, Mari Maxwell plus the LAUNCH of issue 5 of Skylight 47

Mari Maxwell & Ruth Quinlan to read with acclaimed British poet Luke Kennard at May Over The Edge: Open Reading and LAUNCH of issue 5 of Skylight 47 poetry newspaper.  

The May ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, May 28^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Luke Kennard, Ruth Quinlan & Mari Maxwell. Ruth Quinlan is the 2014 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year and this reading is part of her prize for winning the competition. Over The Edge is currently taking entries for 2015 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year; this year the competition is judged by poet, fiction writer, and literary activist Dave Lordan, who edits The Bogman’s Cannon, by far the liveliest online literary publication in Ireland. For full details of the 2015 competition see here.

The evening will also see the launch by British poet Luke Kennard of the latest issue (no. 5) of Skylight 47 poetry newspaper, probably Ireland’s most interesting poetry publication; this issue includes poems, reviews, an interview with a leading Irish poet, and a poetry workshop with a leading British poet.  

Mari Maxwell lives in County Galway and writes fiction and poetry. She has work forthcoming in The Brasilia Review, The Ogham Stone, Macabre Maine, and Veils, Halos and Shackles International Poetry Journal on the Abuse and Oppression of Women. Her writing was highly commended in The Francis Ledwidge 2014 Poetry Award, shortlisted in the 2014 Walking on Thin Ice Short Story Contest and longlisted in the 2013 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year. She has been published in Indian Kukai, A New Ulster, Flash Flood Journal, Crannóg, and Boyne Berries. One of her stories has been shortlisted in the Cork County Library and Arts Service Short Story Competition 'From The Well.'

Ruth Quinlan is from Tralee, Co. Kerry and holds an MA in Writing from NUI Galway. She is the 2014 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year and this reading is part of her prize. Ruth also won the Hennessy First Fiction Award in 2013 and was shortlisted for the 2014 and 2012 Cúirt New Writing fiction prize.  Her work has been published by the Irish Independent, Crannóg, ROPES,  Skylight47, Emerge Literary Journal, Thresholds, SIN, and Scissors and Spackle. She has also contributed to three anthologies, Watching my Hands at Work: A Festschrift for Adrian Frazier (fiction), Abandoned Darlings (fiction) and Wayword Tuesdays (poetry). Recently, Ruth joined the editing team for Skylight47.

Luke Kennard

Luke Kennard is the author of numerous works of poetry and short fiction. His first collection of poems, The Solex Brothers, was published in 2005, and won him one of that year's Eric Gregory Awards. His second collection, The Harbour Beyond the Movie, made him the youngest writer to be nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. He has since published two further full collections, and two pamphlets, one of which, The Necropolis Boat, was the Poetry Book Society's Pamphlet Choice in 2012. In addition to poetry, he writes criticism, short fiction, and is currently working on his first novel. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. Luke Kennard's poetry has been described as “witty, extravagant and provocatively genre-bending”, and features in the anthology Identity Parade: New British & Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe 2010).

After the Featured Readers have finished some contributors to Skylight 47 will read their poems from the new issue. COPIES OF THE NEW ISSUE OF SKYLIGHT 47 WILL BE ON SALE BEFORE, AFTER AND DURING THE READING. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. All welcome. There is no cover charge. For further details phone 087-6431748.

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

September Over The Edge Open Reading with Helen Mort, Rob Childers, Lorraine Kelly, & LAUNCH of new SKYLIGHT 47

British poet Helen Mort

Rob Childers & Lorraine Kelly to read with acclaimed British poet Helen Mort at September Over The Edge: Open Reading and LAUNCH of issue 4 of Skylight 47 poetry newspaper.  

The September ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 25^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Helen Mort, Lorraine Kelly & Rob Childers. The evening will also see the launch of the latest issue (no. 4) of Skylight 47 poetry newspaper, probably Ireland’s most interesting poetry publication, and the announcement of the shortlist for this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition, judged by poet Eleanor Hooker. 

Rob Childers is a retired elementary school teacher from Alaska who now migrates annually between Alaska, New Zealand and Clifden, Connemara. He is a member of the Clifden Writer’s Group and has attended Kevin Higgins’s poetry workshops for the past year. He has read his work on RTE radio and has had poems published in Skylight 47, and The Tule Review. Rob is longlisted for his poetry in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition.

Lorraine Kelly graduated from NUIG in 1989 with a Bachelor Of Arts in English Literature and became an accountant: the how and the why remains a mystery to this day. Not one to jump ship easily, she remained in the wonderful world of Finance for 25 years, until she came across a beginners creative writing class with Susan Millar DuMars; the dormant seed began to grow. She was longlisted for her short stories in the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition in 2013 and is also longlisted in this year’s competition.

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985. Her debut collection Division Street is published by Chatto & Windus and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Prize. She has published two pamphlets with tall-lighthouse press, 'the shape of every box' and 'a pint for the ghost', a Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2010. Five-times winner of the Foyle Young Poets award, she received an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. In 2010, she became the youngest ever poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Helen is the new Derbyshire Poet Laureate. The Daily Telegraph has described her as “the new star of British poetry”.

After the Featured Readers have finished some contributors to Skylight 47 will read their poems from the new issue. COPIES OF THE NEW ISSUE OF SKYLIGHT 47 WILL BE ON SALE BEFORE, AFTER AND DURING THE READING. 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.

ClifdenArts Week reading: Skylight 47/The Thursday Afternoon Advanced Poetry Workshop

Skylight 47/The Thursday Afternoon Advanced Poetry Workshop

reading at ClifdenArts Week

on Friday 19/09/2014, starting 2:00 pm

@ Clifden Library, Market Street Clifden, Co Galway Ireland

Phone: 095 21092

Participants in the Thursday afternoon Advanced Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre will be reading their poems, including some poems from issue 3 of Skylight 47, the groups acclaimed poetry paper.

For full details fo the reading see the Clifden Arts Week website.