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This final episode of Season 7 aired first on Saturday 27th May 2023, produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details and links to the guest stars…

Richard-Yves Sitoski

Richard-Yves Sitoski (he/him) is a songwriter, performance poet and the 2019-2023 Poet Laureate of Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. He is also the Artistic Director of the Words Aloud poetry festival. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Arc, Prairie Fire, Train, The Fiddlehead, The Maynard, and elsewhere. BOTN nominee 2021, 2021 John Newlove Award winner, 2022 Don Gutteridge Award winner (2nd place). His most recent works are No Sleep ‘til Eden (Ginger Press, 2020), an augmented reality collection of poems on the environment, and the pamphlet How to Be Human (Bywords.ca, 2022). He is co-editor, with Penn Kemp, of Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine (Pendas Productions/Laughing Raven Press, 2021), profits from which will go to displaced Ukrainian cultural workers. He has two books forthcoming in 2023: Wait, What? from Wet Ink Books, and A Current Through the Flesh from Mansfield Press. His one-person fringe show, Butterfly Tongue, hits the stage in June 2023.

Follow Richard on Twitter at https://twitter.com/r_sitoski

Find out more about Richard via his website https://www.rsitoski.com/

For all details on Words Aloud check out https://wordsaloud.ca/

Doreen Duffy

Doreen Duffy MA in Creative Writing at DCU, she also studied creative writing and poetry at NUIM, UCD and at Oxford online. She has been published in The Storms Journal Issue 1, Poetry Ireland Review by Eavan Boland, Washing Windows Too, Arlen House, Washing Windows Three, Arlen House, Beyond Words Literary Magazine (Germany), The Galway Review, Flash Fiction (USA), Live Encounters (Indonesia), The Woman’s Way and The Irish Times. She won The Jonathan Swift Award and was presented with The Deirdre Purcell Cup at the Maria Edgeworth Literary Festival. Shortlisted in The RTE Short Story Competition (in memory of Francis MacManus) and her story ‘Tattoo’ was broadcast on RTE Radio One

Follow Doreen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/doreen_duffy13

Find out more about Doreen via her website at http://doreenduffy.blogspot.com/

Nigel Kent

Collection of the Week – Benchwarmers

Nigel Kent is a four times Pushcart Prize nominated poet and reviewer who lives in rural Worcestershire. He is an active member of the Open University Poetry Society, managing its website and occasionally editing its workshop magazine. He has been shortlisted for several national competitions and his poetry has appeared in a wide range of anthologies and magazines. Some of his work has been translated by Mariana Zavati Gardner for the Romanian literary journals, Banchetful, Pro Saeculum and Atenua. He is the author of two collections, and four pamphlets: Unmuted (Hedgehog Press, 2021);  Saudade (Hedgehog Press, 2019);  Psychopathogen, (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2020), which was nominated for the 2020 Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets and made the Poetry Book Society’s Winter List, 2020 and two poetry conversations with Sarah Thomson, Thinking You Home and A Hostile Environment, Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2018. In 2021 and 2022he was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Reviewer of Literature. Benchwarmers is his latest pamphlet, published in April of this year by Hedgehog Poetry Press and as joint winner ofits ‘Wee Collection Challenge in 2022.

Follow Nigel on Twitter at https://twitter.com/kent_nj

Find out more about Nigel and read his reviews at https://nigelkentpoet.wordpress.com/

Benchwarmers is available at https://nigelkentpoet.wordpress.com/benchwarmers/

Lizzie Eldridge

Lizzie Eldridge is a writer, actor and human rights activist from Glasgow. She’s written 2 published novels – Duende (Amazon 2014) and Vandalism (Merlin Publishers 2015). Vandalism was shortlisted for a National Book Prize in Malta where she lived for 12 years and was selected as one of the Best Books 2017 by a Glasgow branch of Waterstones. Lizzie has also had short stories, flash fiction and poetry published in PENning, Declarations on Freedom for Readers and Writers (Scotland St Press 2020), The Edwin Morgan Centenary Collection (Speculative Boos 2020), Epoch, Story Nook, Paragraph Planet, Free Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction North and Swim Press.

Follow Lizzie on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizzie_eldridge

Find out more about Lizzie at https://lizzieeldridge.wordpress.com/

Ann Condon / The Vagabond Queen

The Vagabond Queen is an independent Spoken Word Artist and Noir Writer who haunts the streets of Dublin for a living. Paving her own poetic path, she leaves her stories of strength and resilience in the hearts and minds of those she encounters along the way. Her powerful performances have seen her grow from the Dublin stages to Electric Picnic and Spoken Word Paris in just under two years. So, allow The Vagabond Queen to take you from the neon lights to the dimly lit bars as she takes you on a journey through the strange mystery of human nature. 

Follow the Vagabond Queen on Instagram at @vagabond__queen

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 forking in the fashion industry, returning to Dublin at the end of 2019. 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 2^nd full collection is due out on 2024.

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…