AUTUMN POETRY WORKSHOPS AT GALWAY ARTS CENTRE WITH KEVIN HIGGINS

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three poetry workshops, all facilitated by poet Kevin Higgins, whose best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face, published by Salmon Poetry, was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet. Kevin’s second collection of poems, TimeGentlemen, Please, was published in 2008 by Salmon Poetry and his poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry. His third collection Frightening New Furniture was published in 2010 by Salmon and his work also appears in the generation defining anthologyIdentity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). A collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published in 2012 by Salmon Poetry. His next collection of poetry, The Ghost in The Lobby, will be published in early 2014, also by Salmon. 

Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. One of his workshop participants at Galway Arts Centre won the prestigious Hennessy Award forNew Irish Poetry, two have won the Cúirt New Writing Prize, one has been awarded an Arts Council Bursary and yet another won the Cúirt Poetry Grand Slam, while several have published collections of their poems. Kevin is also co-organiser of the successful Over The Edge reading series which specialises in promoting new writers. 

Each workshop will run for ten weeks, commencing the week of September 23^rd. They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class September 24^th), Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class September 26^th); and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class September 27^th). 

The Tuesday evening and Friday afternoon workshops are open to both complete beginners as well as those who’ve been writing for some time. The Thursday afternoon workshop is an Advanced Poetry Workshop, suitable for those who’ve participated in poetry workshops before or had poems published in magazines. The cost to participants is €110, with a concession rate. 

Places must be paid for in advance. To reserve a place contact reception at Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886 or email info@galwayartscentre.ie 

Autumn Daytime Creative Writing with Susan Millar DuMars at Galway Arts Centre

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre presents a daytime class for all those beginner and continuing creative writing students out there, facilitated by Susan Millar DuMars. Susan Millar DuMars writes both poetry and fiction. A collection of her stories, Lights In The Distance, was published in December 2010 by Doire Press; she has published three collections of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008), Dreams For Breakfast (2010) & The God Thing (2013) all with Salmon Poetry. She is also co-organiser of the Over The Edge reading series which specifically promotes new writers.

The class is suitable for both beginning and continuing creative writing students, working in either poetry or fiction. Students will spend their weeks responding to writing exercises designed to inspire, rather than inhibit. In class, they will receive gentle feedback on their work from their classmates and from the teacher. The class takes place on Monday afternoons, 2-3.30pm, commencing on Monday, September 23^rd. The class runs for ten weeks.

The cost to participants is 110 Euro with a 100 Euro concession price. Booking is essential as places are limited. For booking please contact Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick Street, phone 091 565886 or email info@galwayartscentre.ie 

September Over The Edge Writers' Gathering with Orla McGovern, Robyn Rowland, Andy Jackson, Rachael Guy, Máire T. Robinson & Nicki Griffin

Andy Jackson

September Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering

at Galway Arts Centre’s

Nuns’ Island Theatre

presents

Orla McGovern & from Australia Robyn Rowland, Andy Jackson & Rachael Guy

PLUS

the GALWAY LAUNCH of 

Máire T. Robinson’s short story chapbook

 Your Mixtape Unravels my Heart

(Doire Press)

&

Nicki Griffin’s The Skipper & Her Mate

(New Island Books)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13^th, 8pm

Órla Mc Govern is a Writer and Performer living in Galway.  Her work has been commissioned for theatre, film, print and radio projects; including outdoor mythological sagas, political art, radio drama for The Guinness Hopstore, and a floating panto on The Liffey.  She was awarded first place in the Eamonn Kelly Storytelling Competition, in Listowel Writers’ Week, and is the founding member of ‘Moth & Butterfly’, a night of Story and Improvisation. She is a contributor to Liam Duffy’s recently published Artistic Atlas of Galway.

Nicki Griffin has been writing a very popular column for the Inland Waterways Newsmagazine since 2002. The Skipper & Her Mate is her first book. Nicki also writes poetry and is an editor of the acclaimed poetry newspaper Skylight 47. She was the poetry winner in the 2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition. Nicki’s debut poetry collection, Unbelonging, will be published later this year by Salmon Poetry.

Máire T. Robinson lives in Dublin City. She graduated from NUI, Galway in 2008 with a Masters in Writing. Since then, her short stories have been published in the Irish Independent, Horizon Review, Crannóg, Cuadrivio (in Spanish Translation), Boyne Berries, Wordlegs, WOW! Anthology, Writing4all Anthology, the Chattahoochee Review and Telmetale Bloomnibus (a Ulysses-inspired e-book produced by The Irish Writers’ Centre). She was nominated for a Hennessy Literary Award in Emerging Fiction in 2012. Her debut chapbook collection of short stories, Your Mixtape Unravels my Heart, is the prize awarded Máire for winning the 2013 Doire Press International Fiction Chapbook Competition. 

Andy Jackson has performed at dozens of events and festivals (including The Age Melbourne Writers Festival, Prakriti Poetry Festival [in Chennai, India], Goa Literary & Arts Festival, Australian Poetry Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival, Newcastle Young Writers Festival and Overload Poetry Festival), had poems published in a variety of print and on-line journals, been awarded grants from the Australia Council and Arts Victoria, been the recipient of an Australian Society of Authors mentorship, and self-published two collections of poetry. His most recent collection of poems, Among the Regulars,was published by papertiger media in 2010 – this book was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Prize for Poetry (the Kenneth Slessor Prize) and Highly Commended in the Anne Elder Award.  Andy has the genetic condition Marfan Syndrome.  He is currently based in Melbourne.

Rachael Guy is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes visual theatre with puppetry. She has also worked as theatre professional for the past decade as a performer/singer and writer in the field of contemporary, experimental music theatre. Most recently she has worked as an arts worker with Arts Project Australia, assisting and facilitating art making with artists with intellectual disability. In 2009 Rachael collaborated with Andy Jackson on a poetry/puppetry work Ambiguous Mirrors which featured at Overload Festival 2009. In 2012 the first iteration of Rachael’s full-length solo work Hutch premiered at TheTarrengower Puppetfest in Central Victoria. This piece was staged underground in a disused gold mine and combined live music, puppetry and physical theatre.

Robyn Rowland has regularly visited Ireland since 1983 and lived there over extended periods of time in Connemara. She has read her poetry and given workshops at among others: Cúirt International Festival of Literature(2004), Éigse Michael Hartnett;  Listowel Writers Week; Boyle Arts Festival; Yeats Society, Sligo;  Scriobh, Sligo;  Clifden Community Arts Week; October Arts in Ennis, Co Clare; Kings House Boyle, Roscommon; The Australian Arts and Culture Festival 1999, Dublin (where her third book Fiery Waters  was launched by the Australian Ambassador). In 2009 she was guest in Istanbul at SiirIstanbul’09, and in Belgrade at the International Writers Meeting 2009; in 2010 at Sarajevo Poetry Days and Austrian Universities in Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt. In 1996 Robyn was made an Officer in the Order of Australia by the Australian Government for her contribution to higher education and women’s health.

There is no entrance fee.

For further information contact 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support

of the Arts Council and Galway City Council.

Kernan Andrews, Ron Houchin & Art Stringer for August Over The Edge: Open Reading PLUS LONGLIST ANNOUNCED FOR 2013 NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR

The first ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ after the summer break takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 29^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Art Stringer, Ron Houchin & Kernan Andrews. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the long list for this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which received a very healthy number of entries again this year.

Kernan Andrews is from Galway and is the arts editor and political correspondent of the Galway Advertiser. He writes short stories in his spare time and has been published in The Galway Review. He has read his work at Cúirt 2013; as part of the launch for NUI Galway's theatre events in the Galway Fringe Festival 2013; and at numerous Over The Edge open mics.

 

Kernan Andrews

Art Stringer is the author of three collections of poems, Channel Markers (Wesleyan University Press), Human Costume (Salmon Poetry) and, most recently, Late Breaking, which was published in February by Salmon Poetry. His work has appeared in such journals as The Nation, Antaeus, The Ohio Review, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, and in Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia.  He also edited and introduced an edition of Louise McNeill’s Paradox Hill (West Virginia University Press). For twenty-four years, he has taught writing and literature at Marshall University.

 

Art Stringer 

Ron Houchin was born in San Diego, California, and raised from the age of three in Huntington, West Virginia.  He comes from a family of factory workers, coal miners, and farmers who have always lived in Appalachia.  For thirty years he taught in an Ohio public school in the southernmost tip of Ohio. His most recent books are The Quiet Jars, a new and selected poetry collection, published last spring by Salmon Publishing and a short story collection, Tales Out Of School, published in December from Wind Publications of Kentucky. Louisiana State University Press will publish a new volume of his poems, The Man Who Saws Us In Half, this autumn in its Southern Messenger Series. Ron lives in a haunted house, built by the grandson of an ex-slave, on the banks of the Ohio River.

 

Ron Houchin 

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.

2013 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year to be judged by Sarah Clancy OPEN TO WRITERS WORLDWIDE

IMPORTANT UPDATE

EVERYONE WHO ENTERED THIS YEAR'S OVER THE EDGE NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR COMPETITION IS SPECIALLY INVITED TO THE AUGUST OVER THE EDGE: OPEN READIING 
AT WHICH THE LONG-LIST WILL BE ANNOUNCED

THIS TAKES PLACE ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 29th @ GALWAY CITY LIBRARY (6.30-8PM)
The longlist will be posted here, on the Over The Edge website, later that evening.

 

competition judge Sarah Clancy

major sponsor Charlie Byrne's Bookshop

2013 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition

Major Sponsor: Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop,

other sponsors to date:

ISupply, Flood Street
Ward's Hotel, Lower Salthill

Kenny’s Bookshop

& Derek Nolan T.D

In 2013 Over The Edge is continuing its exciting annual creative writing competition. Since its inception in 2007, it has grown to become one of the most important competition’s for emerging writers in Ireland and internationally. The competition is open to both poets and fiction writers worldwide. The total prize money is €1,000. The best fiction entry will win €300. The best poetry entry will win €300. One of these will then be chosen as the overall winner and will receive an additional €400, giving the overall winner total prize money of €700 and the title Over The Edge New Writer of The Year 2013. The 2013 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year will be a Featured Reader at Ireland’s leading literary reading series, the Over The Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library, on a date to be scheduled in Winter 2013/14. Salmon Poetry will read, without commitment to publish, a manuscript submitted to them by the winner in the poetry category. Doire Press will read, without commitment to publish, a manuscript of short stories submitted to them by the winner in the fiction category. In two new additions to the prize this year the overall winner will receive a hamper of books from the famous Kenny’s Bookshop of Galway and the winner in the poetry category will have one of the poems from her or his winning entry published in the January 2014 issue of Skylight 47 magazine.

Entries should be sent to Over The Edge, New Writer of The Year competition, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland.
Writers who live in Ireland and wish to be informed of the results by post should enclose an SAE. 

Otherwise, YOU DO NOT NEED TO ENCLOSE A STAMPED ADDRESSED ENVELOPE WITH YOUR ENTRY.  

Entries will be judged anonymously, so do not put your name on your poem(s) or story. Put your contact details on a separate sheet.

Criteria: fiction of up to three thousand words, three poems of up to forty lines each, or one poem of up to one hundred lines. Multiple entries are acceptable but each must be accompanied by a fee. The fee for one entry is €10. The fee for multiple entries is €7.50 per entry e.g. two entries will cost €15, three entries €22.50 and so on. You can pay by cheque or Irish postal order to Over The Edge. YOU CAN ALSO PAY ONLINE (via PayPal) SEE BELOW. However, those paying online must still send hardcopy of their entries to Over The Edge, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland and INCLUDE A NOTE that says 'payment submitted online'. To take part you must be at least sixteen years old by September 1st 2013 and not have a book published or accepted for publication in the genre in which you enter. Chapbooks excepted. Entries must not have been previously published or be currently entered in any other competition. The competition is open to writers worldwide. If you wish to pay by cheque we accept payment in Dollars, Sterling, Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars and so on. Writers from outside the Euro area can calculate the payment for their entry here http://www.xe.com/ucc/

TO PAY YOUR ENTRY FEE ONLINE GO TO

Competition payments

ONE ENTRY €10.00 EUR TWO ENTRIES €15.00 EUR THREE ENTRIES €22.50 EUR FOUR ENTRIES €30.00 EUR FIVE ENTRIES €37.50 EUR SIX ENTRIES €45.00 EUR SEVEN ENTRIES €52.50 EUR EIGHT ENTRIES €60.00 EUR

The closing date is Wednesday, August 7th, 2013. A long-list will be announced at the August Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 29th, 2013 (6.30-8pm). THE LONGLIST WILL BE AVAILABLE, BEFORE THAT, AT CHARLIE BYRNE’S BOOKSHOP FROM 5PM ON THURSDAY AUGUST 29TH. The shortlist will be announced at a special Over The Edge Culture Night event at Kenny’s Bookshop & Gallery, Liosbán Retail Park, Tuam Road, Galway on Friday, September 20th, 7pm. The winners will be announced at the October Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, October 31st 2013 (6.30-8pm).

This year’s competition judge is Sarah Clancy. Sarah Clancy has been shortlisted for several poetry prizes including the Listowel Collection of Poetry Competition and the Patrick Kavanagh Award. Her first book of poetry, Stacey and the Mechanical Bull, was published by Lapwing Press Belfast in December 2010 and a further selection of her work was published in June 2011 by Doire Press. Her poems have been published in Revival Poetry Journal, The Stony Thursday Book, The Poetry Bus, Irish Left Review and in translation in Cuadrivio Magazine (Mexico). She was the runner up in the North Beach Nights Grand Slam Series 2010 and was the winner of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature Grand Slam 2011. She has read her work widely at events such as Cúirt and as a featured reader at the Over the Edge reading series in Galway, the Temple House Festival, Testify, Electric Picnic, O Bheal and at the Irish Writers’ Centre, she was an invited guest at the 2011 Vilenica Festival of Literature in Slovenia and in Spring 2012 her poem "I Crept Out" received second prize in the Ballymaloe International Poetry Competition. Her second poetry Thanks For Nothing, Hippies was published by Salmon Poetry last year and has been a poetry best seller.

For further details contact Over The Edge on 087-6431748,
e-mail over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com  

Galway Pro-Choice in association with Over The Edge Presents ‘Our Choice’

 

Galway Pro-Choice in association with Over The Edge presents 

Our Choice

an evening of poetry, fiction and music at Róisín Dubh 

on Wednesday, August 14th starting at 7pm.

The event will be hosted be Aoibheann McCann. The participating writers are Celeste Augé, Ger Burke, June Caldwell, Sarah Clancy, Bernie Crawford, Susan Millar DuMars, Kate Ennals, Elaine Feeney, Lisa Frank & Susan Lindsay. There will be music by Sandra Coffey and a raffle. The purpose of the event is to raise funds for Galway Pro-Choice. Sarah McCarthy of Galway Pro-Choice will speak briefly about the need to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. There is no formal cover charge but there is a suggested donation of €5 per person.

The Arts Council, which funds most of Over The Edge's events during the year, is not in any way associated with this event.

'Laffey Minor' by Seamus Scanlon published by Akashic Books 'Mondays are Murder' series

Seamus Scanlon's story Laffey Minor is published as part of Akashic Books 'Mondays Are Murder' series. Akashic Books is a leading U.S. based publisher of crime fiction.

Seamus was 2010 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year. For details on how to enter this year's competition see here.