GALWAY: November Over The Edge: Open Reading

Thursday, November 21st, 2013, 6.30pm-8pm, FREE

Galway City Library

The Featured Readers are Niamh Boyce, Audrey Dinneen and Padraic McCormack. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished.

Audrey Dinneen’s initial foray into the world of creative writing was through a Diploma in Childrens’ Literature while resident in the USA. She continued to attend creative writing classes in England and does so now in Galway. She is an avid reader and a member of two book clubs. She was thrilled to be invited by Susan Millar DuMars to participate in her first public reading at Over the Edge.

Padraic McCormack is a retired politician having represented Galway West from 1989 - 2011. He was twice chairman of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party and a former Mayor of Galway City. He has recently published his memoir The Rocky Road To The Dáil - politics from the inside. Since he retired from the Dáil, Padraic has taken part in creative writing classes at both GMIT and Galway Technical Institute. He is planning to publish a book of short stories, some of which he will read at Over The Edge.

From Athy, Co Kildare, Niamh Boyce's debut novel The Herbalist was published by Penguin in June 2013. She won the Hennessy XO New Irish Writer of the Year in 2012 for her poem 'Kitty'. Her short fiction has been nominated for The Francis Mac Manus Competition, The Molly Keane Creative Writing Award and the 2009 New Irish Writing Award. Her work can be found in magazines such as The Moth, The Stony Thursday Book, Crannóg, Boyne Berries, The Poetry Bus, and New Irish Writing Today Magazine. She blogs at http://niamhboyce.blogspot.ie/

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. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

GALWAY: Lux Aeterna

Sunday, November 17th, 2013, 5pm, €10

St Nicholas Collegiate Church 

LUX AETERNA

St Nicholas Singers in concert with poetry from Susan Millar DuMars and Kevin Higgins.

A Requiem for modern times

In its first outing in November 2012, St Nicholas Singers performed one of the great nineteenth century Requiem settings, that of Gabriel Faure; this year it gives Galway audiences the chance to hear a thoroughly modern take on this ancient form.

Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna was written in 1997 and is a work of 25 minutes’ duration in five movements, setting various Latin liturgical texts, some of them from the Requiem Mass and all of them suffused with the notion of light. The composer himself says “I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my Mother’s final illness and found great personal comfort and solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels—spiritual, artistic, and intellectual.”

This is a poignant, quietly serene Requiem for modern times. There is no gloom or grim foreboding, no Day of Judgement lurking, but rather a generous radiance captured in the lush harmonies and haunting melodies.  It is a work that is as uplifting for listeners as it is to sing, and in the glorious acoustic of Galway’s medieval collegiate church promises to be a very special experience.

Interspersed with the movements of the Lauridsen work will be readings from acclaimed Galway-based poets Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar DuMars. Susan will read excerpts from her recent publication The God Thing, in which she writes with compassion and clarity about the terminal illness and death of a family member and her own resulting struggle to keep faith and love alive within herself.

St Nicholas Singers is an all-comers group of 40-60 voices which prepares its performances over two weekends of intensive rehearsals. It is open to all regardless of age or experience, and new members are always welcome.

The choir is conducted by Mark Duley and accompanied by organist Ronan De Burca.

Further information available from info@scholacantorumgalway.ie

GALWAY: October Over The Edge Open Reading

Thursday, October 31st, 2013, 6.30pm-8pm, FREE

Galway City Library

The Featured Readers are Sarah O’Toole, Margaret Brady and Frank Dullaghan. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the winners in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which received a large number of entries again this year. This year’s competition judge is Sarah Clancy.

Sarah O'Toole hails from the West of Ireland and works as a theatre practitioner and lecturer. She was the winner of the Aran Islands/Hillstead poetry competition in 1997 and travelled to Connecticut to read at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival with other emerging poets from both sides of the Atlantic. Since returning to her passion for poetry she has been published in Emerge Literary Journal, Crannóg and The Irish Left Review. She has also written two plays which have been performed in Ireland - an adaptation of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" and an original piece "The Heroism Hotline" co-written with Donnacha Bushe.

Margaret Brady grew up in 1960s Dublin. An only child, she filled the long, lonely winter evenings curled up by the fire with good books. Over the years she remained a voracious reader of virtually every genre of book with a particular soft spot for science fiction. She moved to Galway from Dublin as a trailing spouse nearly 20 years ago. It was only meant to be for one year, but Galway seemed to be the perfect place to raise children. She hasn't returned to Dublin yet. She shares her home with her two college going children, an energetic dog and four and a half cats. She has recently been a participant in creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute.

Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer living and working in Dubai since 2006. He holds an MA with Distinction in Writing from the University of South Wales (previously Glamorgan). His poetry has been widely published in UK and Irish journals. Prior to living in Dubai, Frank lived in the UK where he was a co-founder of the Essex Poetry Festival and chaired the judging panel for The Young Essex Poet of the Year competition. He was also editor of Seam Poetry Magazine for many years. In Dubai, he has run workshops in poetry and short story writing in schools, university and for various literary and writing groups. He is a member of the spoken word platform Poeticians as well as the Dubai Writers Group and the Emirates Literary Group. Frank has two collections of poetry - On the Back of the Wind, 2008 and Enough Light to See the Dark, 2012 from Cinnamon Press - and two collections of haiku published in the UK. His third poetry collection, A Slow Implosion of the Heart, is due out from Cinnamon Press in September 2014.

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. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

GALWAY: October Over The Edge Open Reading

Thursday, October 31st, 2013, 6.30pm-8pm, FREE

Galway City Library

The Featured Readers are Sarah O’Toole, Margaret Brady and Frank Dullaghan. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the winners in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which received a large number of entries again this year. This year’s competition judge is Sarah Clancy.

Sarah O'Toole hails from the West of Ireland and works as a theatre practitioner and lecturer. She was the winner of the Aran Islands/Hillstead poetry competition in 1997 and travelled to Connecticut to read at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival with other emerging poets from both sides of the Atlantic. Since returning to her passion for poetry she has been published in Emerge Literary Journal, Crannóg and The Irish Left Review. She has also written two plays which have been performed in Ireland - an adaptation of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" and an original piece "The Heroism Hotline" co-written with Donnacha Bushe.

Margaret Brady grew up in 1960s Dublin. An only child, she filled the long, lonely winter evenings curled up by the fire with good books. Over the years she remained a voracious reader of virtually every genre of book with a particular soft spot for science fiction. She moved to Galway from Dublin as a trailing spouse nearly 20 years ago. It was only meant to be for one year, but Galway seemed to be the perfect place to raise children. She hasn't returned to Dublin yet. She shares her home with her two college going children, an energetic dog and four and a half cats. She has recently been a participant in creative writing classes at Galway Technical Institute.

Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer living and working in Dubai since 2006. He holds an MA with Distinction in Writing from the University of South Wales (previously Glamorgan). His poetry has been widely published in UK and Irish journals. Prior to living in Dubai, Frank lived in the UK where he was a co-founder of the Essex Poetry Festival and chaired the judging panel for The Young Essex Poet of the Year competition. He was also editor of Seam Poetry Magazine for many years. In Dubai, he has run workshops in poetry and short story writing in schools, university and for various literary and writing groups. He is a member of the spoken word platform Poeticians as well as the Dubai Writers Group and the Emirates Literary Group. Frank has two collections of poetry - On the Back of the Wind, 2008 and Enough Light to See the Dark, 2012 from Cinnamon Press - and two collections of haiku published in the UK. His third poetry collection, A Slow Implosion of the Heart, is due out from Cinnamon Press in September 2014.

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. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

GALWAY: September Over The Edge Open Reading

Thursday, September 26th, 2013, 6.30pm-8pm, FREE

Galway City Library

The Featured Readers are Padhraic Harris, Rachel Coventry and 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. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

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

Thursday, October 3rd, 2013, 7pm, FREE

Gort Public Library

Ireland
 

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. 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 19th 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. http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com 

GALWAY: Culture Night Open Mic

Friday, September 20th, 2013, 6pm

Kenny’s Bookshop & Gallery, 

Liosbán Retail Park,

Tuam Road,

Galway

Over The Edge is holding a special Culture Night open-mic, with prizes for the best readers. The event is open to both poets and prose writers and all are welcome to participate.

The evening will be MCed by Dani Gill of Cúirt and will also see the much awaited announcement of the Short List for 2013 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year, for which Kenny’s is one of the generous sponsors.

CLIFDEN: Reading by Galway's Skylight Poets

Friday, September 20th, 2013, 2pm

Clifden Library,

Market Street,

Clifden,

Co Galway,

Ireland

The Galway’s Skylight Poets, who will mostly read poems published in the second issue of the critically acclaimed Skylight 47 poetry newspaper, as part of the 10th anniversary celebration for the Over the Edge readings in Galway City Library. Facilitated by poet and essayist Kevin Higgins.

For more about Clifden Arts Week.

http://www.clifdenartsweek.ie/event/reading-from-the-galways-skylight-poets/

For more about Skylight 47 poetry paper

http://www.overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.ie/2012/11/skylight-47-possibly-irelands-most.html