Slimming for the Beach

[Over the Edge press release]

Over The Edge presents a read­ing by Philip Casey, Eamonn Wall, Aideen Henry, John Liddy, Jar­lath Fahy & John Menaghan at Sheridan’s Wine Bar, 14–16 Church Yard Street, Gal­way on Fri­day, July 18th, 8pm.

Philip Casey was born to Irish par­ents in Lon­don in 1950 and grew up in Co Wex­ford. His pub­li­ca­tions include three col­lec­tions of verse: Those Dis­tant Sum­mers (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1980); After Thun­der (Raven Arts Press, 1985); and The Year of the Knife Poems 1980–1990, (Raven Arts Press Dublin, 1991). A fourth col­lec­tion of poetry, Dia­logue in Fad­ing Light, was pub­lished by New Island Books in 2005. He has also pub­lished three nov­els, The Fab­u­lists (Dublin, The Lil­liput Press, 1994/ London,Serif Books, 1995); The Water Star (Lon­don, Pic­a­dor, 1999); and The Fisher Child (Pic­a­dor, 2001). A mem­ber of Aos­dána, Philip ini­ti­ated and main­tains the web­site Irish Writ­ers Online. He lives in Dublin.

Eamonn Wall was born and raised in Co. Wex­ford, has lived in the US since 1982 and is now set­tled in Mis­souri. His poetry col­lec­tions to date are Dyckman–200th Street (1994), Iron Moun­tain Road (1997), The Crosses (2000), and Refuge at Des­oto Bend (2004) all pub­lished by Salmon. From the Sin-é Café to the Black Hills (2000), a vol­ume of essays on the Irish Dias­pora, received the Michael J. Durkan Prize from the Amer­i­can Con­fer­ence for Irish Stud­ies for excel­lence in schol­ar­ship. Eamonn Wall teaches at the Uni­ver­sity of Missouri-St. Louis. This read­ing will be the Gal­way launch of Eamonn’s fifth col­lec­tion of poems, A Tour of Your Coun­try (Salmon Poetry).

Aideen Henry lives and works in Gal­way. Her poems have been pub­lished in The Shop, Sout­word, West 47, Cran­nóg, Revival, The Cúirt Annual & The Stony Thurs­day Book. She is cur­rently a stu­dent on the MA in Writ­ing at NUI Gal­way. Aideen has also taken part in poetry work­shops at Gal­way Arts Cen­tre. She has read her poems many times at the Over The Edge open-mic; was a Fea­tured Reader at the March 2007 Over The Edge: Open Read­ing and was short­listed for this year’s Cúirt Festival/Over The Edge show­case reading.

Jar­lath Fahy is a native of Tuam Co Gal­way. He is a dra­matic reader of his work. He has read at the Voices from The Tower lunchtime read­ings in Galway’s Fish­eries Tower, been a fea­tured reader at an Over The Edge: Open Read­ing in Gal­way City Library and also fea­tured at North Beach Poetry Nights. He has been com­pared to both Paul Dur­can and Pat McCabe for his darkly comic con­tent and to ee cum­mings for his typo­graph­i­cal style. The Man Who Was Haunted By Beau­ti­ful Smells (Word­son­thestreet, 2008) is Jarlath’s first pub­lished collection.

John Liddy was born in Youghal, Co. Cork, grew up in Lim­er­ick and now lives in Spain. His poetry col­lec­tions include Bound­aries (1974), The Angling Cot (1991), Song of the Empty Cage (1997), Wine and Hope (1999), Cast-A-Net (2003) & The Well: New and Selected Poems (2007). ‘La Barca de la Arena’ (a trans­la­tion by Fran­cisco Rivero in Span­ish of The Angling Cot), ‘Poi­sio­nous Plea­sure’ (a tans­la­tion by John Liddy from ‘Tosigo Ardento’ by José Maria Álvarez) will both be pub­lished soon. His work has been widely praised by crit­ics such as Desmond O’Grady and Patrick Galvin. He lives in Madrid.

John Menaghan was born in New Jer­sey to Irish-American par­ents. He teaches lit­er­a­ture and cre­ative writ­ing at Loy­ola Mary­mount Uni­ver­sity in Los Ange­les, where he also serves as Direc­tor of both the Irish Stud­ies and Sum­mer in Ire­land pro­grams and runs the annual Irish Cul­tural Fes­ti­val. His most recent col­lec­tion of poems, She Alone — a book-length poetic sequence, which traces the life of an imag­i­nary woman from birth to death and beyond – was pub­lished in 2006 by Salmon Poetry. It has been described by the Hud­son Review as “one of the best books” of the year.

There is no entrance fee. All are wel­come. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact 087–6431748.

Over The Edge acknowl­edges the finan­cial sup­port of the Arts Coun­cil and Gal­way City Council.

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AND THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY

West­side Beal­taine Writ­ers & Over The Edge Sum­mer Open-mic

Over The Edge in asso­ci­a­tion with West­side Arts Fes­ti­val presents a read­ing by the West­side Beal­taine Writ­ers and the 2008 Over The Edge Sum­mer Open-mic at West­side Library, Sea­mus Quirke Road on Wednes­day, July 23rd from 6.30pm.

The West­side Beal­taine Writ­ers, who recently par­tic­i­pated in a series of work­shops facil­i­tated by Kevin Hig­gins at West­side Library, will read their work. After­wards the annual Over The Edge Sum­mer Open-mic will take place. Every­one who has a poem or story to share is most wel­come to take part.

The MC for the evening will be Kevin Hig­gins. All are wel­come to attend.

Over The Edge acknowl­edges the finan­cial sup­port of the Arts Coun­cil and Gal­way City Council.