Podcast available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Breaker, Player FM, Radio Public, OverCast, PocketCast, CastBox, ITunes, Podbean, Podcast Addicts and many more platforms.

This Live Show aires on Zoom, with tickets via Eventbrite on Tuesday 14th December 2021 at 7.30pm GMT. Produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly and below are details and links to all the guest stars…

Ness Owen

Ness Owen is a poet and FE lecturer from Ynys Mon. She has been widely published in anthologies and journals including in Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, Mslexia, Red Poets, Poetry Wales, The Atlanta Review, Culture Matters, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Interpreter’s House, Black Bough Journal and Mother’s Milks Books. Her first collection ‘Mamiaith’ (Mother Tongue) was published by Arachne Press in 2019 and her second collection will be published by Parthian in October 2022. She is currently co-editing an anthology themed on the A470 road through Wales and sub-edited a summer edition of Black Bough Journal together with other poets.  Some of her work has been recently translated into German, Dutch and Romanian. 

Follow Ness on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ness_owen

Link to Mamiaith from Arachne Press https://arachnepress.com/books/poetry/mamiaith-by-ness-owen/

Lauren Thomas

Lauren Thomas is currently doing a masters in poetry writing with Newcastle University at the Poetry school London. She has been published in various online and print publications, most recently Black Bough poetry, Magma and has work forthcoming in Lighthouse. Her debut pamphlet Silver Hare Tales is imminent with Blood Moon Poetry.

Follow Lauren on Twitter at https://twitter.com/laurenmywrites and Instagram @thoughtsofmanythings

Find out more about Lauren on her website laurenkthomas.co.uk

For Silver Hare Tales check out https://www.bloodmoonpoetry.com/print

Nathanael O’Reilly

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian poet who lives in Texas. His books include Boulevard (Beir Bua Press, 2021); (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020); Preparations for Departure (UWAP, 2017); and Distance (Ginninderra Press, 2015). His poetry has appeared in journals & anthologies published in fourteen countries, including Anthropocene, Bealtaine, Beir Bua, Cordite, Headstuff, Mascara, Skylight 47 and Westerly. He is the poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

Follow Nathanael on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nathanael_o

Find out more about Nathanael via his website: https://www.nathanaeloreilly.net/

To buy Boulevard: https://beirbuapress.com/2021/09/14/boulevard-by-nathanael-oreilly/

To Buy (Un)Belonging: https://recentworkpress.com/product/unbelonging/

Fidel Hogan Walsh

Fidel Hogan Walsh a native of Dublin now living in Cavan has written and performed her poetry to a wide audience. Fidel’s first collection of poems ‘Living with Love’ was launched on the 8th February 2020. Her second collection of poetry ‘Time‘ in collaboration with conceptual photographer Julie Corcoran, launched on Culture Night 2020 on the 18th September from Bailieborough Courthouse. Time was named in the top 10 non-fiction of 2020 by Dublin City Libraries.

Appearences: Her poem ‘2020, Memories’ was published 12th May 2020 Pendemic.ie online literary magazine. Two of Fidel’s poems have been selected for ‘Poetry Town — Pocket Poems’ booklet 2021 September 2021 Guest poet at Poetry Town – Poetry Ireland, Bailieborough. 29th April 2021 guest poet on The Artist Room, Iontas Theatre, Monaghan. Guest poet on Eat the Storms Podcast for National Poetry Day October 2020, the Christmas Special, December 2020 and Valentine’s Special 13th February 2021 for Season 2. 16th October 2020 – Inaugural Winner of the Enlighten Prize by Hambly & Hambly, Enniskillen with her poem ‘What Peace Feels Like’, and again in September 2021 with her poem ‘for you’. She has performed at Intercollective (Dublin), during Poetry Day Ireland 2019, Heritage Week, The Next Chapter, Monaghan Arts Network, Culture Night and at ‘A Haunting’, a theatrical event organised by Bailieborough Creative Hub of which Fidel is a founding member. Imagine: Arts Unlocked at Hambly & Hambly Dunbar House, Enniskillen and ‘Culture by Candlelight’ with Fermanagh Omagh Arts Office.

She has also been involved in two Cross Border Peace IV Projects and has written poems for both, ‘Peaceful Photography’ August 2019 Bailieborough Development Association and Dungannon & Cookstown Camera Club funded by Peace IV and SEUBP and ‘Empowering Women’, Next Chapter.

Follow Fidel on Twitter https://twitter.com/dragonslayerma and Instagram at @dragonslayerma

Fidel is on Facebook at fidelhoganwalsh

You can buy both Living with Love and Time here http://eprint.ie/shop/Time

Marcelle Newbold

Marcelle Newbold’s poetry explores place and inheritance.  Pushcart Prize nominated and winner of the Poetry in the Arcades competition in 2020, her poems have been published in online and print magazines, and in recent anthologies by Black Bough Poetry, Maytree Press, and Indigo Dreams. She is managing editor of Rare Swan Press, editor for Nightingale & Sparrow, and Infinity Books UK. Marcelle lives in Cardiff, Wales where she trained as an architect.

Follow Marcelle on Twitter at https://twitter.com/marcellenewbold and Instagram: @marcellenewbold

On Linktree at https://linktr.ee/marcellenewbold and Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/user-871748758

Find out more about Marcelle at her website http://poems.sketch31.co.uk/

Ryan Gibbs

Ryan Gibbs is an English professor who lives in London, Canada. His poems have appeared in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. His children’s poetry has been included in the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness.

Follow Ryan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RyanGibbsWriter

Patricia M Osborne

Patricia M Osborne is married with grown-up children and grandchildren. In 2019 she graduated with an MA in Creative Writing (University of Brighton). Patricia is a published novelist, poet, and short fiction writer. She has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. Patricia has three poetry pamphlets published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, Taxus Baccata, The Montefiore Bride and Sherry & Sparkly, the latter, co-authored with Maureen Cullen. Future publications with The Hedgehog Poetry Press include ‘Symbiosis’, a poetry conversation co-authored with Brian McManus, and a mythical nature poetry collection titled, ‘Spirit Mother’. When she isn’t working on her own writing, she enjoys sharing her knowledge, acting as a mentor to fellow writers.

Follow Patricia on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PMOsborneWriter and Facebook at @triciaosbornewriter

Find out more about Patricia on her website    whitewingsbooks.com

Beth Brooke

Beth Brooke is a retired teacher. Born in the Middle East, she now lives on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast with her husband and cat. The cat is in charge. Her debut collection, A Landscape With Birds will be published by Hedgehog Press in 2022. She has recently had poems published in Obsessed With Pipework, Marble, Dreich and Poetry Bus.

Follow Beth on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BethBrooke8

Mari Maxwell

Mari Maxwell’s work featured in the Poetry Jukebox STARS Curation as part of the 2021 Belfast International Arts Festival, ‘Branching Out’ with Brilliant Flash Fiction and is forthcoming in Inkroci Magazine. Her work has featured in Northern Ireland’s Light Theatre Company’s Dickens Festival 2020; Live Encounters Poetry & Writing; Pendemic.ie; Headstuff.org; Her Other Language, an anthology with Women’s Aid Northern Ireland; Libartes.net (translated to Serbian); Healing Words Exhibition, London, and University College Dublin’s Poetry Wall in 2018 and 2019. She received a 2020/21 Professional Development Award with the Arts Council of Ireland and a 2019/2020 Words Ireland, Mayo County Council Mentorship.

Follow Mari on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MariMaxwell17

https://www.mayo.ie/arts/NoteWaves

Mari is absolutely thrilled to be a part of this amazing Deck the Halls party. Massive thanks to Dami for the invite and the honour. So happy to be among an amazing line up of wonderful voices and friends I treasure. All the very best to everyone for 2022. 

Andy Breckenridge

Andy Breckenridge lives in Brighton but is originally from Oban, Argyll. His pamphlet, The Liquid Air is published by Dreich, and he has had poems in Green Ink, Nutmeg Magazine, Acid Bath, Kristin Anderson’s poetry blog on The Common Breath,  The Poetry Map of Scotland, the Shoreham Wordfest Anthology 2020 as well as the Summer Anywhere and Zoo anthologies from Dreich. He is currently looking for a home for his first collection and writing poems about fish, music and other humans. The Chris Riddell illustrated version of The Liquid Air in the offing, also from Dreich.

Follow Andy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/drbafc

You can buy The Liquid Air here https://hybriddreich.co.uk/product/andy-breckenridge-the-liquid-air/

Margaret Royall

Margaret Royall’s work has featured in publications such as Hedgehog Poetry, Impspired, Dreich, Black Bough Poetry and the acclaimed Gloucestershire Pandemic Poetry Anthology. She has five books of poetry to her name. She won Hedgehog Press’ full  fat collection competition in July 2020 and ‘Where Flora Sings’ was nominated for the Laurel Prize. Her popular childhood memoir ‘The Road To Cleethorpes Pier’ was published by Crumps Barn Studio in May 2020. She has been s/listed in several competitions and published widely online. Her new collection ‘Immersed in Blue’, from Impspired, is out on 5^th December 2021 and will be officially launched on 9^th January at a poetry party evening hosted by Damien B Donnelly and featuring guests readers. Margaret is a regular performer at open mic events and leads a Nottinghamshire poetry group. She is currently writing a first novel.

Read about poet Margaret Royall’s six books, including her latest publication ‘Immersed in Blue’ from Impspired Press and pick up your invitation to her free January launch party by visiting her website: https://margaretroyall.com/

Follow Margaret on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RoyallMargaret and Instagram at meggiepoet and on Facebook at margaretbrowningroyall

Mairead Carroll

Mairead Carroll is a Singer/songwriter, Fiddle player and poet. She is currently working on her first Ep and poetry collection. You can follow her on Instagram @maireadcarroll12 and twitter https://twitter.com/MauneyCarroll and she would love to share her journey with you there.

Vic Pickup

Vic Pickup has won the Café Writers and Cupid’s Arrow Competitions, and been shortlisted for the National Poetry Day #speakyourtruth prize on YouTube. Lost & Found is Vic’s debut pamphlet and features Pushcart-nominated poem ‘Social Distancing’. She has a micro-pamphlet ‘What colour is my brain?’ due out in January. For more info or to buy Lost & Found complete with ribbons and wax seals 🙂

Follow Vic on Twitter at https://twitter.com/VicPickup

Find out more about Vic at her website www.vicpickup.com where you can also buy Lost & Found complete with ribbons and wax seals.

Brian McManus

Brian McManus is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet from a small town just to the north of Glasgow. Happily married with children and grandchildren he has now stepped away from a long career in public service and spends his time writing, reading and researching. He has three volumes of poetry published and a forth volume forthcoming.

Follow Brian on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BrianOpenWorld

Sue Burge

Sue Burge is a poet, freelance creative writing tutor, mentor and editor based in North Norfolk.  Her poems appears in a range of publications including The North, Mslexia, Magma, Under the Radar, Strix, Tears in the Fence, The Interpreter’s House, The Ekphrastic Review, Lighthouse and Poetry News as well as in themed anthologies on science fiction, modern Gothic, illness, Britishness, endangered birds, WWI and the pandemic.  Sue’s four poetry collections are: In the Kingdom of Shadows (Live Canon 2018), Lumière (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2018), The Saltwater Diaries (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2020) and Confetti Dancers (Live Canon 2021).  She is currently working on a new collection which explores the alter ego she left in Paris three decades ago.  

Find out more about Sue by following her website www.sueburge.uk  

For information about Sue and her books click here http://www.sueburge.uk/books/

Ankh Spice

Ankh Spice is a queer-identified, sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (New Zealand). His work has appeared in a range of online and print publications over the last year and a half, with nearly 100 publications to date, and two of his poems nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and two nominated for Best of the Net. His poetry is rooted in the natural, and finds its heart exploring the deeply personal relationship between humans and their external and internal environments, examining mental health and identity, climate change, colonialism, and the constantly-evolving puzzle of how to navigate through the anthropocene as a decent human animal. He co-edits at Ice Floe Press and is a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. His debut collection The Water Engine was published by Femme Salve Books from Animal Heart Press

Follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/SeaGoatScreams 
Facebook:@AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry
Soundcloud poetry readings: https://soundcloud.com/user-448322296
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/SeaGoatScreamsPoetry

To buy a copy of The Water Engine go to Femme Salve Books  https://femmesalvebooks.net/the-water-engine-by-ankh-spice/

Amy Barry

Amy  Barry writes poems and short stories. She is published globally including Southword, The Blue Nib, Sunday Tribune, Paris Lit Up, The Poets’ Republic, Silver Apples and Live Encounters. Her poems have been translated into many languages including Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Azerbaijani, French, Romanian, and Persian. She is featured on the Radio and TV in Ireland, Italy, Canada, Australia and UK. Her poems have been Shortlisted, Longlisted, and Highly Commended and won local and international awards. Nominated for the Pushcart 2021 Poetry Prize. Amy is an Honorary member of the Neruda Association, Italy, and founder of Global Writers. Amy loves to travel, trips to Mumbai, Paris, Beijing, Falkenberg, Strasbourg, Bali have all infused her work. She has been awarded literature bursaries from The Arts Council Ireland and Words Ireland. Amy has performed her work in Ireland and internationally.

Follow Amy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmyBarry12 and on Facebook at Amy Barry

Merril D Smith

Merril D. Smith lives in southern New Jersey near Philadelphia, where she watches birds and planes fly over the Delaware River–usually during an early morning walk. She is a historian, and is the author/editor of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published most recently in Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer, Dead Skunk, Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. She hopes to have a full-length poetry collection published in the spring of 2022, and she has other collections in progress. Or this could be her imagination. Stay tuned and see.

Follow Merril on Twitter https://twitter.com/merril_mds and Instagram: mdsmithnj

Find out more about Merril on her website  https://merrildsmith.wordpress.com/

Lucy Holme Roberts

Lucy Holme Roberts is a poet and mother from Kent, living in Cork, Ireland. Her poems have featured in The Liminal Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Re-Side, Southword, An Capall Dorcha and Marble Poetry, and are forthcoming in Poetry Bus, The Waxed Lemon and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. In April 2021 she was a recipient of a Munster Literature Centre Mentoring Fellowship with the poet Grace Wells and she is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at UCC. Her debut chapbook, Temporary Stasis, which was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in August 2022. 

Follow Lucy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lucy_holme and and her website https://poethead.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/cipher-and-other-poems-by-lucy-holme/

Mary Fold Neal

Mary Ford Neal is an academic specialising in Law and Healthcare Ethics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. She lives in her native Renfrewshire with her young son and has been publishing poetry since 2020. Her poems have been published in a range of print and online journals and have been Pushcart nominated. Her debut collection, ‘Dawning’, was published by Indigo Dreams in August 2021, and her second collection will be published in summer 2022. Mary is assistant editor of Nine Pens Press and 192 magazine.

She is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/maryfordneal

You can find the links to Mary’s work on Linktree https://linktr.ee/maryfordneal

You can find 192 Magazine at https://poetsdirectory.co.uk/192

And find out more about Nine Poems Press https://ninepens.co.uk/

 Catherine Ann Cullen

Catherine Ann Cullen is the inaugural Poet in Residence at Poetry Ireland. Her term finishes at the end of the month. She is an award-winning poet, children’s author and songwriter and will publish her seventh and eighth books in 2022. Her three poetry collections include The Other Now: New and Selected Poems (Dedalus 2016). She has also written three children’s books including The Magical, Mystical, Marvellous Coat (Little, Brown, 2001) which won a gold award for poetry and folklore from the American Parents Association. She was shortlisted for Irish Poem of the Year 2020. Catherine Ann holds a PhD in Public Works from Middlesex University on creative writing and ballads, and an M. Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin. She was born in Drogheda, Co Louth, and lives in Dublin. 

Follow Catherine Ann on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tarryathome

and on her website at https://catherineanncullen.wordpress.com/

Upcoming Events

Christmas & Winter Edition Vol 2 is now available at your nearest and friendliest Amazon published by Black Bough Poetry and you can find out more about Black Bough here https://www.blackboughpoetry.com/about-3

Damien B Donnelly, Producer, Host and Poet

Damien B Donnelly returned to Ireland in 2019 after 23 years in Paris, London and Amsterdam, working in the fashion industry as a pattern maker for various brands including Calvin Klein, & Other Stories, Pepe Jeans, Reiss and G-Star. His writing focuses on identity, fragility and connection. His interests revolve around falling over and learning how to get back up while baking delicious cakes. His work had been published in numerous journals online and in print including Black Bough Poetry, Barren Magazine, Anti Hereon Chic, Icefloe Press and The Bangor Literary Journal. His debut poetry pamphlet Eat the Storms, which was featured on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21 and his Stickleback micro collection Considering Canvases with Boys were both published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. His next collection with be a conversation pamphlet he co-wrote with fellow Irish poet Eilín de Paor called In the Jitterfritz of Neon arriving on the 17th Jan 2022 which will be followed by his first full collection documenting his love affair with Paris called Enough!

He is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/deuxiemepeau and instagram at @damiboy

You can follow him and buy his Eat the Storms debut pamphlet and his Stickleback micro collection at is 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…