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The 9th episode of Season 8 will air on Saturday 12th April 2024. It is produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details and links to the guest stars…
Seán Hewitt
Seán Hewitt is a poet, memoirist, novelist and literary critic. His debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire, won The Laurel Prize in 2021, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their “30 under 30” artists in Ireland. His book J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism was published with Oxford University Press (2021). His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, was published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the USA (2022). It was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, for the Foyles Book of the Year in non-fiction, for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Polari Prize, and for a LAMBDA award. He won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022. 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World, illustrated by Luke Edward Hall, was published in 2023. A second collection of poetry, Rapture’s Road, was published in 2024. His work has been translated into 8 languages. His debut novel, Open, Heaven, is forthcoming in Spring 2025. He is Assistant Professor in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Follow Seán on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/seanehewitt
Find out more about Seán at https://linktr.ee/seanehewitt
Buy a copy of Rapture’s Road at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454043/raptures-road-by-hewitt-sean/9781787334274
Lucy Heuschen
Lucy Heuschen is a British poet living in the countryside near Bonn, Germany with her family and rescue dog. Lucy is the founder of The Rainbow Poems and editor of the Sonnets for Shakespeare anthology. She is the Poetry Society’s Stanza Representative for Germany. Lucy’s poems have appeared in The High Window, Ink Sweat & Tears, Obsessed With Pipework, Lighthouse, Skylight 47 and of course, The Storms! Her debut pamphlet “We Wear The Crown” was published by Hedgehog Press in 2022 and her second, “Loggerheads” — the subject of this episode of Eat The Storms — won The Broken Spine’s annual chapbook competition in 2023 and will make its way into the world in late April 2024. Lucy’s first full collection is also forthcoming from Yaffle Press
Follow Lucy on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/PetiteCreature1
Find out more about Lucy at https://www.lucyheuschen.co.uk/
Loggerheads will be soon available from The Broken Spine Arts https://thebrokenspine.co.uk/
Edward Denniston
Originally from Longford town, Edward Denniston has lived and worked in Waterford City since 1980, the city to which his Presbyterian ancestor came as a dissenting minister in the early 18th century. Edward is a retired teacher of English and Drama. His publications are: The Point of Singing (Abbey Press, 1999); Eskimo Advice – an e-book (Rectory Press & Hayrake Poetry, 2007); Interacting – 60 Drama Scripts (Russell House Publishing UK, 2007); The Scale of Things (Salmon Poetry, 2013), For Crying Out Loud (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and VITAL (Compost Poetry, 2023); Hospital Voices (2018), in collaboration with composer, the late Eric Sweeney, for the 25th Anniversary of Waterford Healing Arts Trust. As editor: Teachers Who Write (Waterford Teachers’ Centre, 2018); in 2021, Entry and Exit Wound, a text to accompany music composed by Grainne Mulvey and first performed at Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. All being well, Edward hopes to have a collection ready for 2027, to be published by Salmon Poetry.
Follow Edward on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/EdwardDenniston
Find out more about Edward at http://edwarddenniston.weebly.com/
Lawrence Moore
Lawrence Moore writes from a loft study overlooking the coastal city of Portsmouth where he lives with his husband Matt and nine mostly well behaved cats. Among other publications, his poems have appeared in Sarasvati, Fevers of the Mind, Feral Poetry and The Madrigal. He released a chapbook, Aerial Sweetshop in 2022 and has just released his first full poetry collection, The Breadcrumb Trail, published by Jane’s Studio Press.
Follow Lawrence on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/LawrenceMooreUK
Find out more about Lawrence at https://linktr.ee/LawrenceMoorePoetry
The Breadcrumb Trail is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breadcrumb-Trail-Poetry-Collection-Studio/dp/1738496007/ref=sr_1_1?crid=91SH9UZHHYH8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.SETKFqMrXp12WPfpPuBX8A.BEbkb86oWtzDGzbDO2xN781G8Q8-8upHNpuPEcb5hRU&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+breadcrumb+trail+lawrence+moore&qid=1709411034&sprefix=%2Caps%2C57&sr=8-1
Catherine Ronan
Catherine Ronan holds a degree in Applied Psychology and French. Writing poetry since childhood, she returned to UCC to study Creative Writing in 2019. Since then she has joined multiple poetry collectives, performs on open mics, is a member of Debarra’s Spoken Word Team and created her first poetry film ‘Policing Mary.’ Her work has been chosen for Poetry in the Park and Heritage Projects. She won the Winter Solstice Poetry Competition, was long listed for Cúirt and highly commended in the Munster Literature Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition. Published both nationally and internationally, her debut poetry collection ‘ Elemental Skin ‘ was published by Revival and has been nominated by them for the Piggott, Forward and Heaney Poetry Prize.
Follow Catherine on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094684287146
Elemental Skin is available at https://limerickwriterscentre.com/product/elemental-skin-by-catherine-ronan/
Gustav Parker Hibbett
Gustav Parker Hibbett is a Black poet, essayist, and MFA dropout. Their first collection, High Jump as Icarus Story, is being published in July 2024 with Banshee Press. They are 2023 Obsidian Foundation Fellow and a 32 Poems Featured Emerging Poet, and their work has appeared in Adroit, Guernica, fourteen poems, London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, and elsewhere. They are currently pursuing a PhD in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin.
Follow Gustav on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/gustav_parker
For more about Gustav check out https://www.gustavparkerhibbett.com/
Anna Saunders & The Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2024
Behind the Storms featured guest
Cheltenham Poetry Festival offers an annual 10 day program of exciting live literature events. As well as the Spring programme, the Festival celebrates the power of words throughout the year at readings, performances and workshops. Launched by poet Anna Saunders in 2011, the Festival kicked off with a sell-out performance by iconic punk poet John Cooper Clarke at Cheltenham Town Hall. It has since gone from strength to strength with audiences growing rapidly.
Anna Saunders is the CEO and founder of Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Anna is responsible for the Festival’s strategic, artistic, and organisational management and for planning, programming and delivering the festival. Anna is also responsible for designing and implementing the Festival’s Communications and Fundraising Strategy. Anna is the author of Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck, (Pindrop Press), Kissing the She Bear (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox, (Indigo Dreams) Ghosting for Beginners, (Indigo Dreams), and Fever Few, (Indigo Dreams 2021) and The Touch of Prohibitions 2022.
Follow Cheltenham Poetry Festival on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/Cheltpoetfest
Follow Anna on Twitter / X at https://twitter.com/AnnaSaund1
For all details about the festival check out https://cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk/
For more about Anne check out her website https://annasaunderswriter.co.uk/
Damien B Donnelly, Producer, Host and Poet
Damien B Donnelly is a 48-year-old Irish, adopted, queer writer and podcast producer who spent 23 years living in Paris, Amsterdam, and London working in the fashion industry, returning to Dublin at the end of 2020. He is the host and producer of the poetry podcast Eat the Storms and the editor-in-chief of The Storms, a journal of poetry, prose and visual art. His debut pamphlet, Eat the Storms, published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21, followed by a Pushcart Prize nominated Stickleback (micro collection) and In the Jitterfritz of Neon, a conversational pamphlet co-written with Eilín de Paor. His first full collection Enough! was published by Hedgehog in August 2022. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, both online and in print. His 2nd full collection Back from Away arrives on the 8th May 2024 with Turas Press
The Storms journal is available at https://eatthestorms.com/the-storm-shop/
He is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/deuxiemepeau and instagram at both @damiboy and @weshallalwayshaveparis
You can purchase his pamphlets and collections at his website https://deuxiemepeaupoetry.com/
Backing music for Eat the Storms is from Purple Planet Royalty Free Music, with thanks…
https://www.purple-planet.com/
You can find us on many platforms including Spotify and here is the link…
Storm Shelter 