Poetry Divas at Inaugural Meadery Sessions

As part of the Kinsale Arts Weekend, the Poetry Divas will be bringing their poetry to the inaugural Meadery Sessions in Kinsale Mead Co. And there will be some super music two from Clonakilty musician and singer Chris Hayes.

An evening of local music, poetry and mead, as part of the Kinsale Arts Weekend. Hosted by Kinsale Mead Co, this is the first in-house event and is sure to be a celebration of talent from around West Cork topped off with a selection of meads fermented in the very meadery in which the event is taking place.

Performing at the inaugural Meadery Sessions at Kinsale Meadery.
Poets: Kate Dempsey, Maeve O'Sullivan, Niamh Bagnell & Amanda Bell of the Poetry Divas.
Musician: Chris Hayes
With mead tastings! a

Where: Kinsale Mead Co, 5 Barrack Lane, Kinsale (behind Lidl)
When: Friday 20th July 6:30pm
Free in (bucket for donations)

Poetry Divas at the West Cork Literary Festival

Poetry Divas bring their poems to the West Cork Literary Festival on Monday in the wonderful Organico café. Blurring the wobbly boundary between page and stage.

An afternoon of poetry and mead with the Poetry Divas. The Poetry Divas are a glittery collective of women poets who read their own poetry tailored to the event and audience. They promise a deliciously infectious show that’s bound to touch a nerve and blur the wobbly boundary between page and stage. 

Maeve O'Sullivan is a ninja of vaious poetic forms including the haiku and has published four collections with Alba Publishing. Amanda Bell’s debut poetry collection First the Feathers (Doire Press 2018) was shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award. Kate Dempsey makes mead and writes poetry; her debut collection The Space Between (Doire Press 2016) had a poem commended for the Forward Poetry Prize.

Poetry Divas come to Kinsale

The Poetry Divas in the form of Maeve O'Sullivan, Triona Walsh and Kate Dempsey are bringing their poetry to Kinsale next week. Blurring the wobbly boundaries between page and stage in the lovely Prim's Bookshop on Main Street starting at 8pm. 

Please come along and you can sign up for an open mic after. 

All welcome

Doire Press on Tour

Winter Warmer festival Cork

Ó Bhéal's 5th Winter Warmer festival is this weekend, with 23+ poets, films from the Ó Bhéal International poetry-film competition, poetry interpreted through dance, accompanied by music and a closed-mic set for ten local poets.

Free Admission to all events
(€5 suggested donation)

Venue: The Village Hall Patrick’s Quay, Cork

The full programme is here 

If I could go, I'd recommend Friday 24th November 10.00pm – 11.15pm Brendan Cleary & Ken Marshall, Órfhlaith Foyle, Felispeaks, Stephen James Smith

and Saturday 25th 8.30pm – 9.30pm Stephen Watts,  Billy Ramsell, Adnan Al-Sayegh

but everyone will have their preferences so do check it out.

At The Edge

AT The Edge, Cavan

Cavan Literary Night

Tuesday 24 October 6.30pm Johnston Library

The Autumn AT The Edge, Cavan arrives at the Johnston Library on Tuesday 24th October with a reading from three poets.

Afric McGlinchey

Brian Kirk

Maíréad Donnellan

Musical Interlude - Elena Duff

Afric McGlinchey was born in Galway, and raised in Zambia and Zimbabwe. She was awarded the 2010 Hennessy Emerging Poetry Award. Her début collection, The Lucky Star of Hidden Things was based on her peripatetic upbringing in Africa and Ireland, published by Salmon Poetry in 2012. She is currently working on her second volume

Brian Kirk is an award winning poet and short story writer from Clondlakin in Dublin. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2014 and 2015. His poetry has been nominated for the Forward Prize and Pushcart Prize.

Maíréad Donnellan is member of Lit lab writers’ group. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and magazines and she has been shortlisted in national poetry competitions including Cúirt new writing prize and Doire Press chapbook competition

Following the Readings, will be an ‘Open Mic’ session at which everybody is welcome. Please register with Kate on the night.

AT the Edge Cavan is supported by the Cavan County Council Arts Office.

AT The Edge, Cavan

Tuesday 29 August 2017, 6.30pm

Johnston Library, Cavan

Another super night for the lucky people in Cavan or close by. Get to the library!

AT The Edge, Cavan on Tuesday 29 August, 6.30pm in the Johnston Library. There will be an open mic following the readings. All welcome. Organised by Kate Ennals.

AT the Edge, Cavan, funded by Cavan Arts Office, curates three literary evenings a year. Three poets or writers are invited to come and read their work for fifteen minutes and the readings are followed by an Open Mic Session. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Lisa Frank writes stories. Lisa Frank was born and raised in Los Angeles but lived in the Pacific Northwest for several years before moving to Ireland in 2007. She won second place in the 2016 Francis MacManus Award and was a joint-winner of the 2015 Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition. She is also the editor of Galway Stories, featuring many of Ireland’s best fiction writers, including Kevin Barry, Mary Costello, Mike McCormack and Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Having taught creative writing in a variety of settings, including a mens’ prison, she now lives in Connemara with her partner and is co-director of Doire Press.

Maurice Devitt writes poems. He was runner-up in The Interpreter’s House Poetry Competition in 2017, and winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition in 2015. Maurice has been placed or shortlisted in the Patrick Kavanagh Award, Listowel Collection competition, Over the Edge New Writer Competition, Cuirt New Writing Award, Cork Literary Review  and the Doire Press International Chapbook Competition. He has had poems published in Ireland, England, Scotland, the US, Mexico, Romania, India and Australia, runs the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site and is a founder member of the Hibernian Writers  Group.

Stephen James Smith is a Dublin poet and playwright central to the rise of the Irish spoken word scene.  His poetry videos have amassed over 1 million views online, including ‘My Ireland’, a short poetry film commissioned by St. Patrick’s Festival.  Stephen has performed extensively at top venues and events such as Electric Picnic, Other Voices, the National Concert Hall, the Abbey Theatre (Noble Call), Vicar Street (alongside Oscar winner Glen Hansard), the London Palladium, the Oscar Wilde Awards (LA), Glastonbury Festival and George Town Literary Festival (ML).  Arlen House publishes his debut collection, Fear Not, with a launch due in Autumn 2017.

O'Bheal

Upcoming Events for June and July 2017

(scroll down for full details -the online version is here.)

Stephanie Conn and Simon Lewis – 5th June
Matthew Caley – 12th June
Jo Slade – 19th June
Linda Ibbotson and Sarah Byrne – 26th June
Maria McManus – 3rd July
Didi Jackson & Major Jackson – 10th July
in association with Foras na Gaeilge  Celia De Fréine – 17th July
Cork-Coventry Twin Cities Poetry Exchange  Andrea Mbarushimana and Russ Berry – 24th July
Mary O’Malley – 31st July

Entrance is free. Readings will last between 30-45 minutes after which there will be the usual open-mic session. Be sure to come early to get good seats. Full bar available.

The night begins with a Poetry Challenge starting at around 9.30pm. Guest poets begin after 10.00pm

 

Reading At The Edge

I'm delighted to return to Cavan on Tuesday, next week for At The Edge, run by Kate Ennals. Do come and join it, it's a terrific line up and there's an open mic after too.

AT The Edge, Cavan

Cavan Literary Night

Tuesday 2 May 6.30pm Johnston Library

AT The Edge, Cavan returns to the Johnston Library on Tuesday 2 May with a reading from a poet and two fab writers.

Kate Dempsey

Colm Keegan

Helena Mulkerns

Helena Mulkerns writes short stories and her latest collection is Ferenji and Other Stories. She received a bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland to complete her fiction debut, A Child Called Peace, a themed collection of short fiction.

Colm Keegan was shortlisted four times for the Hennessy XO New Irish Writing Award and was all Ireland Poetry Slam Champion 2010. His poetry collection, Don’t Go There, was released in 2012 to critical acclaim.

Kate Dempsey’s poetry is published in many journals in Ireland and the UK. Prizes include The Plough Prize, Hennessy New Irish Writing Award shortlisting. Her debut collection, The Space Between, was published by Doire Press in 2016.

Following the Readings, will be an ‘Open Mic’ session at which everybody is welcome. Please register with Kate on the night.

AT the Edge Cavan is supported by the Cavan County Council Arts Office.

Fiction at the Friary

Fiction at the Friary is a new monthly fiction event in The Friary, North Mall, Cork. This event, run by Danielle McLaughlin and Madeleine D'Arcy, will feature readings by guest authors throughout 2017, along with open mic, optional writing exercises, occasional book reviews and plenty of conversation.

So far they've had Danny Denton, Eimear Ryan and William Wall.

Sunday 30th April  3-6 pm the reader is Susan Lanigan, whose excellent novel, White Feathers, set in WW1, was shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year 2015.

Surviving Anne by Gustavo Dessal

ICLO-NLS invites you to the Irish Book Launch of Surviving Anne by Gustavo Dessal

“A brilliantly constructed psychological thriller and unique peek into the world of madness, guided by the psychoanalytical teachings of Jacques Lacan” - Maria Cristina Aguirre, Lacanian Compass

The author will be in conversation with Poet Katie  Donovan - Recipient of the 2017 O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry

DATE:  Friday 7 April 2017

TIME:   6.30pm to 8pm

VENUE: Gutter Bookshop, Cow’s Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 

RSVP:   email:register@iclo-nls.org

Free event - booking is essential

New Issue of Skylight

The launch of Skylight 47, Issue 8, takes place at the March Over The Edge reading at Galway City Library at 6.30 on Thursday 30th March. You are all invited to join us to celebrate the release of another great issue full of poetry, reviews, interviews, comment pieces, and of course, the masterclass.



Poetry contributors to Issue 8 are also invited to read their poem at the launch event.

I'm very happy to have a poem included in this issue but I have to miss the launch as I'll be moving house. Do yourself a favour, get down there and grab a copy.

International Women's Day - Women Aloud NI

There are some awesome women coming to Dublin from Northern Ireland tfor International Women's Day so make sure you get to at least one of the events.


Staccato Wednesday 8th March 8pm Toners, Baggot Street


The poets on the evening are: Maria McManus, Deirdre Cartmill and Nandi Jola.
Bernie McGill, Sheila Llewellyn and Annemarie Neary are all featured in Sinéad Gleeson’s wonderful anthology, The Glass Shore, the companion volume to the ealier The Long Gaze Back – both of them award-winners at the Irish Book Awards, and deservedly so.


See blog from Catherine Dunne, the organiser here

Irish Writers Centre, Saturday 11th March 11am

The Irish Writers Centre is delighted to collaborate with Women Aloud Northern Ireland, along with female writers resident in the Republic of Ireland, in a day-long literary readathon in celebration of International Women’s Day.

The event will consists of panel discussions, day-long opportunities to hear extracts from Women Aloud NI members and the Irish Writers Centre as well as networking opportunities which will serve to cement the relationships between women writers across genres — and across Ireland.

This event is one in a series of events from Women Aloud NI, including readings, bookstore and library visits and mystery events that will celebrate International Women’s Day from Wednesday 8 March. The aim of these events is to inspire women to write, read, and champion the literary work of local women, strengthen their relationship with local booksellers and librarians, and promote the performances, readings and literary endeavours of women writers.


Link here

Sunflower Sessions Reading

I'm chuffed to be the first Featured Reader at the 2017 Sunflower Sessions Wednesday 22nd February.

This will be my last reading in Dublin for some time as I'm preparing to move south to Kinsale. A farewell tour! 

The Sunflower Sessions is on the last Wednesday of every month in Jack Nealon's Pub,165 Capel St, Dublin

We kick off as usual at 7.30pm and run until 10.30pm. As ever, it’s an open mic night plus a featured reader (more on that later in the week). Readers have between 3 and 7 minutes (depending on how busy it is) so if you’re going to read (and we really hope you do), you should bear that in mind.

Of course, it’s a night for listening as well as reading and it’s open to anyone and we have regular attendees who haven’t written a word :)

We’ll also have copies of Flare 02 for sale, our new quarterly compilation of readings from the Sunflower Sessions (as well as the last few copies of Flare 01), so be sure to pick up a copy if you haven’t had the chance (or pick up another copy to replace the dog-eared one that you’ve loved to pieces). Flare is entirely not-for-profit and funds go towards the annual costs of the open mic night.

So bring your words, bring your hearts and bring a friend.

Link here

Nollaig na mBan event at the Irish Writers Centre

;

This sounds like a lovely evening for traditional Women's Christmas on Friday 6th January 7:30pm €10. I would love to be invited to read.

A Nollaig na mBan event honouring Maeve Brennan's centenary

Join us on 6 January for our annual celebration of Nollaig na mBan, which this year coincides with the centenary of Maeve Brennan's birth. Broadcaster and journalist Sinéad Gleeson will MC this special evening of entertainment, with contributions from writers Claire-Louise Bennett, Angela Bourke, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Anne Enright alongside music from singer-songwriter Inni-K.

As in previous years, we're encouraging those attending to take part in a New Year's Kris Kindle extravaganza. Bring along a much-loved book by a female writer, wrap it and label or tag it with a description of no more than three lines. If you bring a book, you go home with one too!

Maeve Brennan was born on Dublin's Great Denmark Street just along the way from the Irish Writers Centre on 6 January 1917. She moved with her family to Washington DC in 1934 and later settled in Manhattan where she eventually joined the staff of The New Yorker, to which she contributed book reviews, fashion notes, essays, and short stories. The stories were gathered in two volumes, In and Out of Never-Never Land (1969) and Christmas Eve (1974). Maeve Brennan died in the Lawrence Nursing Home in Arverne, New York, on 1 November 1993. The Stinging Fly Press recently reissued The Springs of Affection, the posthumous selection of her Dublin-based stories, first published in 1997. They are also publishing a new edition of The Long-Winded Lady, Maeve's columns from The New Yorker, to coincide with her centenary.

Link here

Reading at The Listeners

I'm reading with Maurice Devitt this Monday 28th November 8pm at The Eden House, Rathfarnham. 

All welcome. 

It should be an innovative joint reading.

Some upcoming book launches - Salmon Press

3 from Salmon Press to be launched on |Tuesday 8th November 6.30pm in Books Upstairs.

Fish On A Bicycle - New and Selected Poems by Jean O'Brien

This New & Selected is a revisiting of Jean O'Brien's four collections starting with The Shadow Keeper in 1997 and moving up to the present day. Her new poems mark a maturing of her work dealing with ill health, parenthood, nature and everything in between. As with her previous collections her work is honest and direct and calls for a similar response from the reader. As ever she broaches hard subjects without fear or compromise and faces her own mortality. These poems are dealt with in a light-hearted way that belies their seriousness, they are lively and always readable.

The Art of Dying by Adam Wyeth
From mountain pass to storm-tossed seashore, from Barcelona to the Drakensberg, these new poems by Adam Wyeth feature journeys both witty and surreal.  There is much that is busy transforming here, from kitchen to ice-rink; rock to hatching egg.  In the richly imagined Talking Tree Alphabet, a birch tree becomes Marilyn Monroe holding down her skirt, while the blackthorn is a ‘ravaged whore’. At the heart of the collection, the still point around which the energies flow, is a boy’s relationship with his father, the absurd indignity of death, and the ceaseless unfolding of the generations: ‘An ancient vellum/ where the next life is written’. Language, the raw material of the poet who shapes and makes sense of the world, is celebrated without forgetting the humble source of it all, Yeats’s foul rag and bone shop, or ‘thorns/that draw blood and score the heart completely’ (from ‘Gorse’). Dancing on the edge of civilization, preferring the energizing potential of dream and myth, Wyeth’s is a refreshing new voice on the Irish poetry scene.  Katie Donovan

Slow Clocks of Decay by Patrick Chapman
Slow Clocks of Decay is Patrick Chapman’s seventh poetry collection, his most mature and expansive to date. Exploring universal themes through the lens of his remarkable imagination – the loss of friends to suicide; the insidious nature of depression; the inevitability of ageing; and the destructive effect of religion – Slow Clocks of Decay culminates in a bravura sequence that conjures the poet’s own final journey as a fantasia of Hitchcockian intrigue set in a Paris of the mind.

Launch of new books by Eleanor Hooker and Catherine Ann Cullen

Two new collections by two super poets,  A Tug of Blue by Eleanor Hooker and The Other Now by Catherine Ann Cullen. Dedalus Press. You'll end up buying both, believe me.
Tuesday 8th November 7pm
The Teachers Club

Dublin Book Festival

Dublin Book Festival is one of Ireland’s most successful and vibrant book festivals.  This annual public Festival showcases, supports and develops Irish Publishing by programming, publicising and selling Irish published books, their authors, editors and contributors all in an entertaining, festive, friendly and accessible environment that reflect the creativity and personality of the Irish Publishing sector and its authors.

What's on link here

A delicious menu includes:
Friday, 11 November 1:10 pm - 2:00 pm
Boys' School, Smock Alley Theatre
Slake Your Thirst – The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland

Saturday, 12 November 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Main Theatre, Smock Alley Theatre
Dublin City Public Libraries Reader’s Day
With Mia Gallagher, Diarmuid Gavin, Mike McCormack, Deirdre Purcell and Donal Ryan in conversation with Dave Kenny

Saturday, 12 November 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Boys' School, Smock Alley Theatre
Poetry Ireland: The Rising Generation
With Jane Clarke, Christodoulos Makris, Julie Morrissy and Ciaran O’Rourke with music from Sive

Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, 12 November 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Boys' School, Smock Alley Theatre
Salmon Poetry Anniversary Event. Even The Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry
With many of Salmon’s outstanding poets taking part, including Seamus Cashman, Mary Dorcey, Jean O’Brien, Mark Granier, Colm Keegan, Mary O’Donnell, Maurice Harmon, Alvy Carragher, Anne Hartigan, Phil Lynch, Alan Jude Moore, Patrick Chapman and more!

Saturday, 12 November 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Main Theatre, Smock Alley Theatre
Looking at the Stars
With Colin Barrett, Tara Flynn, Joseph O’Connor and Mary O’Donnell in conversation with Rick O’Shea

Sunday, 13 November 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Main Theatre, Smock Alley Theatre
Magazines and their Makers with Brendan Barrington, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Tony O’Dwyer, Olivia Smith and Susan Tomaselli in conversation with Paula Shields

Sunday, 13 November 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
The Workmans Club
The Magazine Social with Angela Carr, Oisín Fagan, Caelainn Hogan, Pat O’Connor, Deirdre Sullivan and Dimitra Xidous

I could go on.

Donegal Bay & Blue Stacks Festival

I'm excited to be heading up to Donegal at the weekend to read at the Donegal Bay and Blue Stacks Festival. It's a great line up.

Sunday Oct. 9th, Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon at 3:00 pm - €5


Poems, Songs and Stories from Elizabeth Reapy, Imelda Maguire, Anthony Glavin, Kate Dempsey, Rosie Carney and Sarah Cullen
Download the programme here- https://donegalgathering.files.wordpress.com/…/donegal_bay_…

Elizabeth (EM) Reapy’s debut novel, Red Dirt, has just been published by London publishing house, Head of Zeus. A thriller inspired by the author’s backpacking trip around Australia in 2011, the novel’s events unfold in the context of the 88 days of Outback farm-work that  backpackers, including many Irish, are required to do to qualify for a second year holiday visa.  A native of Mayo, her work is also featured in The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, as recently published by New Island Books.

Boston-born writer and editor Anthony Glavin is no stranger to the Abbey Arts Centre, having been featured in a number of the RTE Radio 1 Sunday Miscellany programmes recorded here, over the past few years. He is the author of two short story collections, One For Sorrow and The Draughtsman and The Unicorn, as well as two critically acclaimed novels, Nighthawk Alley and Colours Other Than Blue. He served as a commissioning editor for New Island Books from 1996 to 2004, for whom he edited Nuala Ó Faoláin’s  Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman and Joseph O’Connor’s The Irish Male: His Greatest Hits, among many other titles.

Kate Dempsey’s poetry is published in many journals in Ireland and the UK. She has won many awards for her work, including The Plough Prize, a Cecil Day Lewis Award, a Hennessy New Irish Writing Award shortlisting and she has had a poem nominated for the Forward Prize. She runs the Poetry Divas, ‘a glittery collective of women poets who blur the wobbly boundary between page and stage’. Her debut collection, The Space Between, was published this year by Doire Press.

Imelda Maguire’s most recent collection of poetry, Serendipity, was published last year by the Limerick Writers Centre. Born in Kildare, raised in Limerick, Imelda has lived most of her adult life in Sligo and Donegal, where she now resides. Her first collection, Shout If You Want Me To Sing, was published in 2004 by Summer Palace Press.

Rosie Carney is a singer and songwriter, originally from Hampshire, now living in Downings. Earlier this year she performed at the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, as part of a Culture Ireland–sponsored Irish artists showcase. A recent Burberry Acoustic video, for her song Humans, has already been viewed by over 20,000 people.

Sarah Cullen is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter from Carrigart. Coming from a well-known musical family, she has been a performer from a very young age. Blurring the boundaries between traditional country, jazz and blues, she has performed in the US and on mainland Europe as well as being involved in many musical projects in Ireland. Earlier this year, she travelled with Rosie Carney to the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas.