Creative Writing Space @ Galway City Youth Café

Launch of issue 34 of Crannóg FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25th @ The Crane Bar

Issue 34 of the fine Galway-based literary magazine, Crannóg,

is launched on Friday October 25th at 6.30PM 

in The Crane Bar, Galway.

Still only €6.

Performance Poetry Course with Dave Rock

Award winning performance poet, storyteller and emerging hip-hop artist Dave Rock is offering a course on every aspect of performing poetry. Whether you want to develop your slam style skills or simply deliver with more presence and passion, this course is for you. Suitable for performers at all levels. The course focuses on confidence, aliveness, and technical mastery onstage. Deliver your work as it deserves to be delivered. Over the four weeks we will work on stage presence, delivery, and audience connection, to bring out the unique talents of each person.

Price: 90 euro/75 euro concession.
Dates and time: Thurs Oct 24 - Thurs Nov 14. 6-8pm.
Max places: 10. Booking essential.
Contact Galway Arts Centre: info@galwayartscentre.ie
(091) 565 886.

Dave Rock has repeatedly placed in the top three or four of major poetry slams such as the Cuirt International Festival of Literature Poetry Grandslam, and the All Ireland Slam. He has also been a finalist in other grandslams both in Ireland the UK. He brings a unique physical and vocal presence to the stage, and often works with pure improvisation. He has coached many major slam winners.

“Dave Rock acted as a huge influence and guide for me in terms of how a performer can embody poetry as they speak. He acts more as a mentor than a tutor, and the coaching I received from him almost felt more like discussion that led to growth in my own performance. It was a joy to learn from him, and through these experiences I feel I grew a great deal as a facilitator and educator myself.”
Sarah Griff, All Ireland Poetry Slam finalist, winner Over the Edge Fiction Slam, Literary Deathmatch Dublin, Bawdy Storytelling Slam San Fransisco
 
Price: 90 euros/75 euros concession.
Max no. of places: 10.
Booking essential.

Special Over The Edge: Open Reading At This Year’s Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering

The Over The Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library are famed for their large, supportive audiences. During the past decade many now established writers have taken their first early steps at these legendary readings. The venue for these readings since their inception in 2003 has always been Galway City Library. This year’s Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering will include a special Over The Edge: Open Reading which will take place at Gort Public Library on Thursday, October 3^rd, 7pm. The Featured Readers are Bernie Crawford, Anthony O’Brien & Marie Cadden. There will as is usual at Over The Edge events be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. Everyone who has a poem or page or two of a story they’d like to try out on an audience is most welcome to come along and participate.

Bernie Crawford lives near Oranmore, Co Galway.  She won first prize in The Dead Good Poetry Competition in 2013. She was long-listed for Over the Edge Poetry Competition in 2011 and again this year 2013. She was also long listed this year for Doire Press Annual International Poetry Chapbook Competition. In 2012 she was long-listed for the Powers Irish Whiskey Short Story Competition and was also a finalist in the Baffle poetry festival in Loughrea. She has been invited to read at a number of venues and her poems have appeared in the poetry anthology Behind The Masks and in a number of publications including Irish Left Review and Skylight 47.

Anthony O’Brien was born in Limerick and has been involved in Creative Writing since his schooldays in CBS Sextons Street. As well as his chapbook 21 Poems Anthony’s poems have been published in The Old Limerick Journal, The Limerick Poetry Broadsheet and The Stony Thursday Book and many other magazines. He has translated the poetry of the 19^th century poet French Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine two of these translations were published in The Gorey Detail. In the 1990s he was a member of Fourfront poets with fellow Limerick poets Ciaran O Driscoll, Jo Slade and Mark Whelan. They wrote poetic drama pieces for the stage which they performed themselves at venues nationally. Since moving to live in Oranmore he has contributed to many Galway poetry workshops and recently been published in the NUIG creative writing chapbook Sourcings edited by Moya Cannon. Anthony is a member of the Oranmore Library Poetry Reading group and The Weir writing group and was shortlisted for the 2013 Cúirt New Writing prize

Marie Cadden lives in Spiddal, Co. Galway.  Winner of the Cuirt 2011 New Writing Prize for Poetry,  Runner-Up 2012 Westport Arts Festival Poetry Prize,  Third Prize 2012 Francis Ledwidge Poetry Competition.   Shortlisted for Desmond O'Grady Poetry Competition 2012, Bradshaw Books/Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition 2011, Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award 2010. Poems published in The Recorder (USA), THE SHOp, ROPES, Revival, Boyne Berries, Skylight 47 and anthologies Mosaic (2011), Behind the Masks (2010 - as co-editor) and Lady Gregory's Townhouse (2009).                    

There will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished, which is open to everyone. 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 & The Arts Council.

S.A.R.A Writers' Group Welcomes New Members

Salthill Active Retirement Association (S.A.R.A) Writers’ Group 
would welcome new members.

When? Thursdays 10.30---12.30. a.m 
The group meets fortnightly

Where? Meeting Room Salthill Church.

More Information: Call Anne at 086-0517356

The NUIG Writing MA of 2012/13 is hosting an open mic night/reading at the Crane Bar to raise funds for ADVENTURE HAT

The NUIG Writing MA of 2012/13 is hosting an open mic night/reading upstairs at the Crane Bar on the 23 of September from 7:30-9:30pm.

Come for the craic - listen, read, or simply enjoy a pint of the Crane's finest.

The 2012/13 MA, "The Blackfort Writers" have also invited the 2011/12 MA, "The Abandoned Darlings" in addition to a handful of Galway's best-known writers including Kevin Higgins, Eva Bourke, Mike McCormack and Adrian Frazier to name a few.

A €3 donation will be collected at the door. All proceeds go to the creation of the Black Fort Writers' anthology, "Adventure Hat."

For more info, check out: www.facebook.com/blackfortwriters or www.blackfortwriters.wordpress.com 

September Over The Edge: Open Reading with Padhraic Harris, Rachel Coventry & Australian poet John Foulcher

 John Foulcher

Padhraic Harris & Rachel Coventry to read with Australian poet John Foulcher at September Over The Edge: Open Reading  

The September ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 26^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Padhraic Harris, Rachel Coventry & John Foulcher. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. 

Rachel Coventry had been writing poetry and fiction since September 2010 when she did a beginners creative writing class with Kevin Higgins. Her work has appeared in Skylight 47, The Burning Bush 2, Boyne Berries, Bare Hands, and the First Cut. She was short listed for the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Competition. She is currently studying for a PhD in the philosophy of art at The National University of Ireland, Galway.

Padhraic  Harris lives in Galway where he practises law. He dabbled in writing in his youth. Samples of his early short stories may be found in Criterion magazine. After a long break he renewed his interest in writing in the past year and finds inspiration, encouragement and enjoyment in creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute.

John Foulcher has published nine books of poetry and a textbook about writing poetry. His poems were set for study on the New South Wales Higher School certificate for over 10 years in the 80′s or 90′s. His poetry is described by the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature as ‘simple, direct and convincing’. John received a Young Writer’s Fellowship from the Oz Council in 1981 (Light Pressure came out of that); Australia Council General Writing Grant, 1977; Australia Council Young Writer’s Fellowship, 1980. He won the National Library Bicentennial Award in 1988, the ACT Book of the Year Award in 1994, received an Established Writers Grant from the Oz Council in 2003, and in 2010-11 was the Oz Council’s resident in the Keesing Studio in Paris. He has been the poetry editor of both The Canberra Times and the Voices, the magazine of the National Library. In 2010, he was awarded a writer in residency in Paris at the Cité Internationale des Arts by the Literature Board of the Australia Council. His most recent and widely acclaimed book, The Sunset Assumption, was the result.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most 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 & The Arts Council.