March Over The Edge: Open Reading with Seán Lysaght, Gráinne McHale, & Tim Dwyer

The March ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, March 26^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Sean Lysaght, Tim Dwyer & Gráinne McHale. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are especially welcome. 

Gráinne McHale is from County Galway. She graduated in 2010 with a BA Fine Art in GMIT Galway and is currently studying for a MA Writing at NUIG. She writes poetry and fiction; has made a number of short films and her artwork has been exhibited both internationally and at home. 

Tim Dwyer lives in upstate New York but has extensive family collections in the west of Ireland. His poetry collection Smithy Of Our Longings- Poems From The Irish Diaspora will be published by Lapwing Publications this month. His poetry has also appeared in such journals as Southword, The Stinging Fly, Boyne Berries, and Galway’s own Skylight 47 poetry paper.

Seán Lysaght

Seán Lysaght was born in 1957 and grew up in Limerick. He now lectures at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and lives with his wife Jessica in Westport, County Mayo. His first collection of poetry, Noah’s Irish Ark was published in 1989, followed by The Clare Island Survey (Gallery, 1991). His work on the life and writings of Robert Lloyd Praeger: The Life of a Naturalist was published by Four Courts Press in 1998. His verse narrative of the life of Edmund Spenser was published under his own imprint in 2011. His subsequent poetry collections, Scarecrow (1998), Erris (2002), The Mouth of a River (2007), his translations after Goethe, Venetian Epigrams and Selected Poems are published by The Gallery Press. His most recent collection Carnival Masks was published in 2014. In 2007 he received the O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome at the open-mic. 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.

Special Over The Edge: Open Reading At Gort Library For ‘I Will Arise And Go Now’ Festival

The Over The Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library are known for their large, supportive audiences. Over the past decade many now established poets and fiction writers have taken their first steps at these legendary readings. As part of the ‘I Will Arise and Go Now’ Festival, which is taking place in Gort to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the birth of W.B. Yeats, Gort Library is facilitating a special Yeats Commemorative Over The Edge: Open Reading. The event takes place at Gort Public Library on Wednesday, March 18th 6.30-8pm. 

The Featured Readers are Susan Lindsay, Christopher Meehan & Marion Cox; each of the Featured Readers will begin by reading their favourite W.B. Yeats poem. The MC for the event, Kevin Higgins, will also read his favourite Yeats poem. 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.

Gort Public Library

Marion Cox  lives in County Galway where she runs a HR and Management advisory service.  With a passion for words and literature, she found herself inexplicably rising in the ranks of international business and has worked at senior executive level in multinationals in the US and Europe.  Having somewhat recovered, she organises the Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering at Coole Park and takes poetry classes with Kevin Higgins.  Marion’s prose and poetry has been published in The Healing Pen, Writing for Wellbeing (Patricia McAdoo), The Citroen Quarterly (North America) and Irish Left Review.  Last year, she was a featured reader with the Galway Girls at An Béal Binn, Erris Festival of Words, Belmullet. Marion was a Featured Reader at the December 2014 Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library.

Christopher Meehan hails from Kilkee in County Clare.  In 2012 he was shortlisted for the Fish International Poetry Prize while in 2013 he was placed 3^rd in the Over-The Edge New Writer of the Year Competition.  His poems have been published in Skylight 47, Boyne Berries, Crannog, ROPES 2014 and online in The Galway Review.      

Susan Lindsay second collection of poetry Fear Knot was published by Doire Press in 2013. She was a founding co-editor of Skylight 47, ‘possibly Ireland’s most interesting poetry publication’ and has been member of Skylight Poets writers’ workshop and the poetry reading group at Oranmore library. She facilitates conversations mediated by poetry and she read for the 2011 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. Susan was a Featured Reader at the March 2006 Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library.

There will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished, which is open to everyone. The MC for the evening will be Kevin Higgins. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland, The I Will Arise And Go Now Festival, & The Arts Council. 

March Over The Edge Writers' Gathering with Kathy D’Arcy, Angela Carr, Dave Lordan, Pearl O’Kennedy, & Lorna Shaughnessy

The Over The Edge March Writers’ Gathering presents readings by visiting and Galway writers and poets. Kathy D’Arcy, Angela Carr, Dave Lordan, Pearl O’Kennedy, & Lorna Shaughnessy will read their work at The Kitchen @ The Museum, Spanish Arch, Galway on Friday, March 13^th, 8pm.

Lorna Shaughnessy was born in Belfast and lives in Co. Galway, Ireland. She has published two poetry collections, Torching the Brown River and Witness Trees (Salmon, 2008 and 2011), and her work was selected for the Forward Book of Poetry, 2009. She is also a translator of Spanish and South American Poetry. Her most recent translation was of poetry by Galician writer Manuel Rivas, The Disappearance of Snow (Shearsman Press, 2012), which was shortlisted for the UK Poetry Society’s 2013 Popescu Prize for translation. She lectures in Spanish and Creative Writing in NUI, Galway.

Pearl O’Kennedy is a native of Shantalla in Galway City, where she worked for many years with homeless young people. She is a visual artist and well known art teacher. Pearl has been a participant in Kevin Higgins’ Monday morning creative writing class at Westside Resource Centre. Her recently published book I Remember, I Remember: Galway Stories And Memories has received very favourable reviews and is selling well.

Dave Lordan latest collection of poetry is Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains (Salmon Poetry). He is a researcher for the RTE Poetry Programme, he teaches at the Centre of Poetry Studies in DCU as well as at The Bog Smoke Writing Factory, and he runs the creative community website http://www.bogmanscannon.com

Angela Carr is a poet and writer, based in Dublin, with work published in a number of Irish and UK literary journals including Mslexia, Abridged, Crannog and Bare Fiction. Three times shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award, she won the Cork Literary Review Poetry Manuscript Competition 2013, the Allingham Poetry Competition 2014 and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introduction series. Her debut collection, How to Lose Your Home & Save Your Life, is published by Bradshaw Books. More at www.adreamingskin.com

Kathy D’Arcy is a young Cork poet whose collections Encounter (Lapwing) and The Wild Pupil (Bradshaw) were published in 2010 and 2012 respectively. Tom McCarthy has described her work as 'among the best poems I have read in years.'  In 2013 she was awarded an Arts Council Literature Bursary, and in 2014 she was the recipient of an Irish Research Council grant to undertake a PhD with UCC's Creative Writing department.  She originally qualified and worked as a doctor, and now teaches creative writing as well as working with homeless teenagers in the city.

There is no entrance fee. All welcome. 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.

Cúirt International Festival of Literature PROGRAMME LAUNCH

This year's festival programme again includes the annual New Writers' Showcase co-organised by Cúirt & Over The Edge. The full festival programme will be available on the Cúirt website from Wednesday.

2015 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop

The 2015 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase featuring Louis de Paor, Sarah Clancy, Gerry Hanberry, Edward O’Dwyer, Edward O’Dwyer, Celeste Augé, Mary Madec, the Amach! LGBT anthology of poetry and creative writing anthology, Quincy Lehr, Kevin Higgins, The Hundred Years’ War: Modern War Poems (Bloodaxe, edited by Neil Astley), Jean Kavanagh, and Tom Duddy will take place at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Friday, February, 13^th  at 6.30pm.

In this annual retrospective of the year just past, Galway-based poets, who published a new collection of poems during 2014, are invited to read three poems from the collection in question. There will also be a reading from Tom Duddy’s posthumously published poetry collection The Years (HappenStance Press); short readings from the anthologies Amach! LGBT anthology of poetry and creative writing, & The Hundred Years’ War: Modern War Poems; and a special guest appearance from the fiction anthology Noir by Noir West (published by Arlen House, edited by James Martyn Joyce).

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.

February Over The Edge: Open Reading with Christine Valters Paintner, Erin Fornoff & Julian Gough

The February ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, February 26^th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Julian Gough, Erin Fornoff & Christine Valters Paintner. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are especially welcome. 

Christine Valters Paintner is the online Abbess of a virtual monastery called Abbey of the Arts leading retreats and pilgrimages with her husband John of twenty years. She is the author of eight nonfiction books on spirituality and creativity including The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom. Christine is an American living in Galway, where she actually adores winter and the rain, never tires of finding more monastic ruins, and has found Ireland to be a wondrous poetic muse.

Appalachian born, Dublin-based poet Erin Fornoff has performed her poetry at Glastonbury, Electric Picnic, and dozens of other festivals and events across the UK and Ireland. In 2013 she was featured at Farmleigh House' "New Voices' alongside Hozier, came in third at the Strokestown Poetry Awards, and won the StAnza Slam. She has been published in The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, New Planet Cabaret, Cyphers, and many others. In 2014 she was selected for the 2014 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series and became Artistic Director for Lingo, Ireland's first ever spoken word festival. In the coming months she will open for Hollie McNish on her Ireland tour. She is working on a novel. 

Julian Gough is an award winning author who first shot to fame in the 1980s when, as a student at University College Galway, he was leader singer and lyricist with alternative rockband Toasted Heretic. He won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2007 and his The iHole was shortlisted for the one-off BBC International Short Story Award in 2012. He has also been shortlisted, twice, for the Everyman Bollinger Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. He represented Ireland in Best European Fiction 2010; won a Pushcart Prize in the US in 2011; and represented Britain in Best British Short Stories 2012. He is the author of three novels, Juno & Juliet, Jude in Ireland, and Jude in London; two radio plays, The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble, and The Great Squanderland Roof; and a poetry collection, Free Sex Chocolate. In 2011, he wrote the ending to Time Magazine’s computer game of the year, Minecraft. In July 2013 his Kindle Single CRASH! went to number one in the UK Kindle Single chart in the week of its release. London born and Irish raised, Julian now lives in Berlin. 

Julian Gough

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always most welcome at the open-mic. 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.