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 episode aired first on Saturday 11th Feb 2023, produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details and links to the guest stars…

Dianne McPhelim

Dianne McPhelim lives in Co. Monaghan. A final-year Creative Writing and Literature student at Sligo ATU, her poetry and short stories have appeared in the Sligo Weekender, Scrimshaw Journal and Spectrum, an anthology printed by Renard Press (UK).  

Follow Dianne on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thiswrittenlife/

Craig Cox

Craig Cox is a sound artist, producer for radio and writer currently based between North Leitrim and Dublin. He has been the recipient of numerous funding awards and residencies, the most recent being a bursary from Dublin City Council. In 2022 he had multiple works featured on the Monthly Diatribe show on Dublin Digital Radio and had an experimental documentary, “HAM”, broadcast as part of the Five Lamps Festival.

Follow Craig via his website at https://craigcox.ie/

Find out more about Craig at Bandcamp https://craigcox.bandcamp.com/

Niki Strange

Niki Strange rediscovered poetry when undergoing treatment for breast cancer in 2019 and is passionate about poetry’s power to support health and wellbeing. She won Arts Council funding in 2020 to create work as poet in residence at Macmillan’s Horizon Centre in Brighton, also devising and delivering 16 poetry workshops for people affected by cancer. She’s since read at Sussex Poetry Festival, Dragonflies, Second Light and Cheltenham, won a couple of second prizes (Sussex 2019 and Second Light 2021) and been published in Artemis, Flights and Lighthouse journals. In 2022 Niki won a micro pamphlet competition with Hedgehog Poetry Press, resulting in Stickleback XXXI.  Her first collection, Body Talk, was published by Flight of the Dragonfly Press in October 2022. She lives in Brighton.

Follow Niki in Twitter at https://twitter.com/NikiStrange

Body Talk is available at the Flight of the Dragonfly shop https://flightofthedragonfly.com/shop/

Champion Things

Champion Things is a group based around Gordon Hewitt (guitar, lyrics and vocals) and Wallace Gibson (Electronic and Acoustic Saxophone) creating groove based music, overlain with songs, spoken word, and chants. Hewitt and Gibson are accompanied by a floating line-up of musicians. The group’s home is Belfast, Northern Ireland.  With six albums to date all available to listen to on Spotify and Bandcamp they include the new Ride of the Valkyries, Spun from a Suffragettes Ribbons, Deep within the Slum Kitchen, the Isle of Plagues, Heading down to Hoovertown, and Decline of the Adventure Playground. Their new album was recorded at Earth Music Studios in Belfast during November, December 2022 and January 2023. Gordon Hewitt wrote and performed the narratives. Michael McKinney played Bass. Vic Bronzini Fulton composed the music and engineered, produced, mixed and mastered the recording. The subject matter for this recording regards the mistreatment of children. This subject matter cannot be considered easy listening.

Listen to Champion Things on Bandcamp at https://championthings.bandcamp.com/

or on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/artist/3VmNCFVmtWhg5FUCBvimoT?si=ozx4-cRhRbuOyIwIQ61RHQ&nd=1

Damien B Donnelly, Producer, Host and Poet

Damien B Donnelly is a 47-year-old Irish, adopted, gay, writer and podcast producer who spent 23 years living in Paris, Amsterdam, and London, returning to Dublin in 2019. In 2020, his debut pamphlet Eat the Storms appeared on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21 and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize followed by a Stickleback collection, and second Pushcart Prize nomination, in Jan 2021, both published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. He produces and hosts the poetry podcast Eat the Storms, now in its 6th season with 375+ international guests on over 12 platforms. In the Jitterfritz of Neon, a poetry pamphlet co-written with Eilin de Paor, was published in Jan 2022 followed by his first full collection Enough! on 29th August 2022, for which he was awarded an Agility Award by Arts Council, Ireland. The Fingal Arts have funded his next collection Back from Away. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, both online and in print. He is the editor-in-chief of The Storms, a journal of poetry, prose and visual art.

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…