Cúirt Festival of International Literature

If you're going to Galway for the Cuirt festival, check out the New Writers showcase.

This year’s Cúirt Over The Edge New Writing Showcase features three participants from the Over the Edge literary series in Galway – Rena Garrett, Eileen P Keane, & Una Mannion – and Paul Bregazzi, the winner of the Cúirt New Writing Poetry Prize 2016. The MC for the event will be regular Over The Edge host Susan Millar DuMars. It takes place on Wednesday, April 26^th, 3pm, at The Town Hall Theatre. 

Entry is free of charge. All welcome.

Rena Garrett is a graduate MA in Writing student in NUIG. She has also participated in poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre. Her poetry has been published in The Moth Magazine, and Spontaneity.org and was shortlisted for the Galway Rape Crisis Centre Short Story Competition 2016. Rena was a Featured Reader at the August 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Eileen P Keane is from North Connemara, Co. Galway. She last year completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway.  Eileen has written and performed for theatre and stage and her CD Spaces was released in 2014. She writes Poetry, Memoir and non-fiction. She is also a Singer/Songwriter and has performed at the: Electric Picnic, Lunasa Festival Sligo, and at the Clifden Arts Festival. Her songs have featured on RTE Radio and Television. Her poems appear in the latest edition of the Galway Review and her Flash Fiction was shortlisted for Allingham Festival 2015. Eileen was a Featured Reader at the March 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Una Mannion teaches Performing Arts in IT Sligo. In March 2016, her poetry was published in the New Irish Writing page in The Irish Times and her fiction was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize. She won the Yeats' Society's Seamus Heaney Prize and came second place in Dromineer Flash Fiction 2015. She has been shortlisted in the Listowel, Bridport, Fish Memoir and other competitions. She recently completed an MA in Writing at NUI Galway. She lives in Sligo with her husband and three children.  Una was a Featured Reader at the May 2016 Over The Edge: Open Reading. Una won the Emerging Poetry Award at this year’s Hennessy Literary Awards and is also the winner of the Fiction section in this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize.

Paul Bregazzi is a Special Needs Teacher in West Dublin. His poetry has appeared widely and been anthologised on both sides of the Atlantic in Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, Skylight 47, Southword, The Stinging Fly, Magma (U.K),  Fields Magazine (Univ of Texas at Austin), The French Literary Review (Fr),  Thema (U.S.), The Ofi Press (Mexico). He has been shortlisted for the Bridport prize, the RSPB/Rialto Nature Poetry Competition and The Haiku Foundation U.S. Touchstone Awards. He won 2nd place in Magma (U.K.) Editors’ Short Poetry Prize and the Oliver Goldsmith International Poetry Competition. He is co-founder of the Dublin poetry group Listeners and was selected for Poetry Ireland’s Introduction Series 2015. Paul is the winner of the poetry section in this year’s Cúirt New Writing Prize.