VIETNAM WAR veteran Jack Grady will be among the poets reading at the Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering, which also includes award-winning Australian poet Joel Deane, and Galway’s Sighle Meehan.
The event takes place in The Kitchen at the Galway City Museum, Spanish Arch, on Friday March 9 at 8pm, and will also feature a showcasing for Dodging The Rain, a new online magazine edited by graduates of the MA in writing programme at NUIG, with readings by three of the publication’s contributors - Seanín Hughes, Eamon Doggett, and Graham Bollard.
American-born Jack Grady considers himself to be a sort of 'Rip Van Winkle of poets' in the sense he returned to writing poetry after a ‘long sleep’, ie, a hiatus of many years, 11 of which were spent working in the Middle East. He is a former winner of the Worcester County (Massachusetts ) Poetry Contest; a founder member of the Ox Mountain Poets in Ballina; and his work has been published internationally.
Joel Deane is poet, novelist, journalist, and speechwriter. He has worked in Melbourne and San Francisco as a journalist; written speeches for Australian Labor politicians such as Bill Shorten, Chris Bowen, Steve Bracks, and John Brumby. He has published three books, as well as the poetry collections, Year of the Wasp (2016 ), Magisterium (2008 ) and Subterranean Radio Songs (2005 ).
Sighle Meehan lives in Galway and won the 2014 Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust poetry competition. Her poems have been published in The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, and, Poetry Ireland Review.
