New Creative Writing from UCC
Naoise McGuinness, Luke Jeffers, Lucy Holme,
Kieran Fionn Murphy, Emily Anna King and Raven Goode
You can listen to all six poets reading here.
Each February, Ó Bhéal presents poets and short fiction writers engaged in UCC’s MA Creative Writing programme, who read from their new work. This event will be held both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom.
Naoise McGuinness is an MA scholar in Creative Writing at UCC, and founder of My Child and Fostering Ireland. She currently runs a blog through the style of creative non-fiction, where she talks about her life growing up in a home where her mother fostered. She believes in education through creativity, and creativity as therapy for all.
Luke Jeffers is a twenty-two-year-old writer from Cork and has completed a BA in English at University College Cork. He is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing at UCC. He has had short stories published in Honest Ulsterman and UCC’s Quarryman, with another to be published in Tír na nÓg later this year.
Lucy Holme is a poet and mother from Kent who lives in Cork, Ireland. Her poems feature in Southword, Iamb, The Honest Ulsterman and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, amongst others. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at UCC and her debut chapbook, Temporary Stasis, which was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in August 2022.
Kieran Fionn Murphy was born in NYC and studied philosophy before moving to Ireland, where he co-founded Murphys Ice Cream in Dingle. He has published a cookbook as well as poems and news articles for various publications, including recently in the anthology Local Wonders (Dedalus Press, 2021). He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in creative writing at UCC.
Emily Anna King (锡萍芳) is pursuing her MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork. Her most recent publications are in Tír na nÓg, Massachusetts Best Emerging Poets 2019 (Z Publishing), Pamplemousse, Lily Poetry Review, Paragon Press and Otherwise Engaged Journal.
While her work often explores the Chinese American adoptee experience, Emily is also passionate about investigating the intersectionality between language and music. Besides writing, she loves spending time with family, playing piano, training jiujitsu and baking.
Raven Goode is a trans woman from Denver, Colorado specializing in speculative fiction who only recently started calling herself a poet. Her poetry is often about identity and place, their connections, how identity challenges and constrains itself, and the ways in which it evolves. She has spent her time in Cork falling in love with Ireland and its people (despite spending a lot of time hiding from everyone) and has found inspiration in both.
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
7-7.45pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (will read for 6-8 minutes each, to a maximum of 60 minutes);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
DS Maolalai and Jacqueline Saphra
DS Maolalai has been writing and publishing poetry for over ten years, across two continents and multiple countries. He has published two full length collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019), a chapbook Even Dublin Has One (Origami Press, 2020) and the broadside Night Settles (Moment Poetry, 2020).
His work has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His newest collection, Noble Rot, will be released by Turas Press in early 2022. He currently lives in Dublin.
Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright and teacher. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye, 2011) was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women (The Emma Press, 2014) won the Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work.
Recent collections are All My Mad Mothers (2017), shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot prize and Dad, Remember You are Dead (2019), both from Nine Arches Press. A Bargain with the Light: Poems after Lee Miller (2017) and Veritas: Poems after Artemisia (2020) were published by Hercules Editions. Her latest play, The Noises was nominated for a Standing Ovation Award. One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets was published by Nine Arches Press in 2021. She is a founder member of Poets for the Planet and teaches and mentors for The Poetry School.
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
7-7.45pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (20 minutes each);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
