Flosca will update you on all things happening in the literary scene in Galway and beyond.

Launch of Flosca Anthology 2008

Join us for the launch of our first publication, Flosca Anthology 2008, a chapbook of the prize-winners and shortlisted entries of our inaugural competitions: the Flosca Short Story Competition and Comórtas Filíochta Gaeilge.

The event will take place on Friday April 25th at 5pm in Galway's Town Hall Studio as part of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, and it will feature our judges announcing the winners of the competitions and awarding prizes to those who can attend, along with readings from some of our winners and runners-up.

There will be a small reception afterwards with wine and finger food, and music from Cathal Nally. All are welcome!

Before our launch our judges, David Means and Liam Ó Muirthile, will be giving a reading of their own in the Town Hall Theatre in what should prove to be one of the highlights of this year's festival. The reading will take place at 3.30pm.

Tickets cost €6 and are available from the Town Hall Theatre box office.

Over the Edge Emerging Writers Showcase at Cúirt

Mary Madec, Megan Buckley, Fergal McNally & Mary Mullen will read at 11.00am, Thursday April 24th in Galway's Town Hall Theatre.

Mary Mullen is an Alaskan-born writer who has lived in south County Galway for a decade. Her work has been published in We Alaskans, Sunday Miscellany 2003-2004, The Stinging Fly, the Cork Literary Review, Galway Now, West47online, the Anchorage Daily News, and the chapbook The Whole Building Could Be On Fire. She is working on a collection of personal history essays and short stories. Mary is a graduate of NUIG’s MA in Writing programme. She is currently facilitating a memoir writing class at Galway Arts Centre. She was a Featured Reader at the January 2007 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Fergal Mc Nally is originally from Navan. He enrolled at N.U.I.G in 2003 where he studied English, political science and sociology. In 2007 he graduated with a first from the university’s M.A. in Writing programme. He has twice had poetry published in ROPES magazine. His one act play Spilt Milk won best production in the 2007 Muscailt Festival one act play series. His work was displayed during Cúirt last year as part of DOCUMENT, a collaborative project between writers and artists. He is currently working on his first novel. He was a Featured Reader at the May 2007 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Mary Madec was born in County Mayo. She started writing poetry about four years ago and since then has published in Crannóg, West 47, The Cúirt Annual, the SHOp, The Sunday Tribune, WOW and Iota among others. In Spring 2007 she was chosen for the Poetry Ireland Introductions; in July she was runner-up in the Raftery competition and chosen for the WINDOWS showcase and anthology. Last autumn she started up a community-writing project Away with Words for people with intellectual disabilities. Mary has just been short-listed for this year's Hennessy Literary Awards for New Irish Writing in the Emerging Poetry category. She was a Featured Reader at the November 2005 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Megan Buckley is a Doctoral Teaching Fellow in the English Department at NUI, Galway, where she teaches seminars on nineteenth-century women's poetry. Her poems have been published in the US, the UK, and Ireland, in publications such as The Ledge (US), The Pedestal (US), eclectica.org (US); the Dazzle and Attract Project in Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK, in which one of her poems was projected onto the wall of a building (UK); Crannóg, ROPES, TribeVibes, and others. She collaborated with visual artists in DOCUMENT, 2005 and 2006, and she was shortlisted for the Over The Edge Writer of the Year Award in 2007. She was a Featured Reader at the November 2007 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing support of the Cúirt international festival of literature, Galway City Library, Sheridan's Wine Bar, Galway City Council & The Arts Council.

http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com

http://www.galwayartscentre.ie

Poetry Takes Flight - Nead an Dreoilín / The Wren's Nest: A series of 6 short poetry films

APRIL 24: Cúirt International Festival of Literature - premiere screening (for tickets ring the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on 091 - 569777)
APRIL 29: 8pm broadcast on TG4

A beautiful collection of short films, featuring the work of some of Ireland's finest poets, "Nead an Dreoilín" can be viewed as 6 individual films, or as one 26" programme. Each short film features a poem by an Irish language poet. Poets featured are:

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Biddy Jenkinson
Gearóid Mac Lochlainn - watch it on http://www.vimeo.com/908850
Louis de Paor
Máire Mhac an tSaoi
Mícheál Ó Cuaig - watch it on http://www.vimeo.com/908867

Each film is a rich interweaving of images and sound, and each poem is treated in its own unique way; with every film, carefully chosen footage lyrically and poetically reflects the poems they accompany.

So, depending on the poem, we may see black & white archive film, intimate colourful super 8 home movies, black and white photography or vivid footage of the city streets.. we may see contemporary performance poetry from the Falls road, or 1950s footage of Irish labourers digging the roads of London. We see family memories, a nation's memories, the glow of Dublin city at night, train tracks in the midlands on a frosty winter morning...

In each film the only voice we hear is that of the poet; initially we hear the poet's thoughts, on poetry, the poem, inspiration. This is followed by the poet reading the poem.

Directed by James Kelly of Feenish Productions, this is James’s third production for TG4; Spléachadh (2002); was a series of 32 one minute films looking at contemporary artists and makers throughout the island of Ireland, and Colman Doyle: Ábhar Machnaimh (2006) was a 52’ documentary on the subject of legendary Irish Press photographer, Colman Doyle.

Winners of Flosca Competitions

We are pleased to announce the winners of our first two competitions - Flosca Short Story Competition and Comórtas Filíochta Gaeilge. Thanks to everyone who entered, and keep an eye out for further competitions to be announced later in the year!

The winning entries are:

Flosca Short Story Competition

1st Prize: Westerns by Wes Lee
2nd Prize: Bog Woman by Marie MacSweeney
3rd Prize: Raw-Red by Patricia Byrne

Comórtas Filíochta Gaeilge

An 1ú Duais: Foghlaimíonn Fionn le Andreas Vogel
An 2ú Duais: Proinsias le Andreas Vogel
An 3ú Duais: An Fáinne Fí le Ciarán Kelly

Congratulations to our winners! They will receive their prizes as stated on the individual competition pages, and will all be published in our prize-winners' chapbook, Flosca Anthology 2008, which will be launched at the end of April.

Shortlist of Flosca Short Story Competition

We are pleased to announce the shortlist of the 2008 Flosca Short Story Competition, all of whom will be offered publication in our prize-winners' chapbook, Flosca Anthology 2008.

The shortlist of stories is as follows (in alphabetical order):

Bog Woman by Marie MacSweeney
Dogged by Ronnie Nixon
Raw-Red by Patricia Byrne
This Moment Between Things by Wes Lee
Those Edens by Noel Harrington
Westerns by Wes Lee

We would like to extend our congratulations to all of those on our shortlist, and wish them the best of luck in the final stage of the competition. The winners will be announced very soon.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and keep an eye out for further Flosca competitions being announced here later in the year!

Flosca Launch, 29 April 2007

On Sunday, 29 April, Flosca Teo officially opened for submissions to our new writing competitions, the Flosca Short Story Competition and the Flosca Irish Language Poetry Competition.

The competitions were launched as part of the The 22nd Cúirt International Festival of Literature, in the Town Hall Bar and Studio in Galway. The studio was filled past capacity as people filed in to see Galway’s newest literary venture take flight.

The Flosca Short Story Competition and the Flosca Irish Language Poetry Competition were christened with an enthusiastic speech by Caroline Walsh, the Literary Editor of The Irish Times. She applauded Flosca’s unique bent on the publishing market, as the founders of Flosca are all working writers who understand the plight of getting work out into the world.

Caroline Walsh’s introduction was followed by a reading from Mike McCormack, author of Getting It In the Head (1995), Crowe's Requiem (1998), and Notes from a Coma (2005). Mike entertained the crowd with a selection from his forthcoming book of short stories.

Louis de Paor, the author of several collections of poetry, both in Irish and English, followed this by reading a selection of his poetry, both in the original Irish language and also with English translations. These beautifully illustrated the standard of vivid, living poetry that can be achieved in the Irish language and that we hope to solicit with the Flosca Irish Language Poetry Competition.

Afterward, wine and hors d’oeuvres were served in the Town Hall bar, with an acoustic set by Cathal Nally of the band Sun Paddy.

Flosca will update you on all things happening in the literary scene in Galway and beyond. If you have readings or other literary events that you'd like listed here, send the details to:

events@flosca.com