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This episode of Season 7 aired first on Saturday 16th September 2023, produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details and links to the guest stars…

Linda Drattell

Linda Drattell is a poet and writer who lives in Northern California and Barcelona. She has also lived and worked in three world capitals on three continents and draws from her lifetime of experiences to inform her writing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an MBA from the American University in Washington, D.C. Deafened in her thirties, she relearned how to navigate social, professional, and family relationships, and has chronicled this process through articles in newsletters, magazines, and in a poetry anthology. She has worked in peer support services, community relations, and as an advocate for the deaf and hard of hearing. Her poems have been published online and in print with various anthologies and literary magazines, including Prompt for the Press, Bubble Literary Magazine, Viewless Wings Publisher, six Wingless Dreamer anthologies, two Las Positas College anthologies, two California Writers Club anthologies, Bad Dreams Good Dreams andMark Drolsbaugh’s On the Fence: The Hidden World of the Hard of Hearing anthologies. Her poetry collection, Remember This Day, was published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press. A second poetry collection, The Lighter Side of Horse Manure, will be published in 2024, also by Finishing Line Press. She also co-wrote the children’s book Who Wants to be Friends With a Dragon? which was published in 2023 by Dorrance Publishing Company. An excerpt from her unpublished adult novel is an Embark finalist, and a flash fiction piece was short-listed for the Loft Books 2023 prize.

Follow Linda on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LindaDrattell

Find out more about Linda at https://lindadrattell.com/

Remember This Day is available at Finishing Line Press https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/remember-this-day-by-linda-drattell/

Vic Pickup

Collection of the Week

Vic Pickup is a previous winner of the Café Writers and Cupid’s Arrow competitions and was shortlisted for the National Poetry Day #speakyourtruth competition. Vic’s debut pamphlet Lost & Found was published by Hedgehog Press in 2020, and her Micro-pamphlet What Colour is My Brain? (co-written with Jules Whiting) followed in 2022. Her debut collection The Omniscient Tooth Fairy has been published by Indigo Dreams Press this year, featuring poems written over the course of a decade. Vic co-runs Reading’s Poets’ Café and Poets’ Café Online, as well as the town’s Stanza group. By day, she is a postgraduate researcher, exploring the Mills & Boon archives held in Reading University’s Special Collections.

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

For more about Vic check out https://vicpickup.com/

The Omniscient Tooth Fairy is available at https://vicpickup.com/?p=1156

Mickey Cullen

Mikey Cullen is a Dublin born and reared Historian, Teacher, Poet and spoken
word Artist. Mikey is currently teaching History and English at secondary school
level. He has been writing since his childhood as a means of self expression and
understanding of both himself and the world around him. He has had a number of
poems published in anthologies such as ‘Drawn to the light’, ‘Peace, Land and
Bread’ and ‘Void magazine’. He has performed his spoken word pieces all over
Dublin and at a number of festivals around Ireland including Otherside festival. He is
a regular collaborator with ‘Seanoiche’. Videos of Michael performing his spoken
word pieces have amassed over half a million views in total on social media
platforms including his piece titled ‘Home’ at an event called ‘Seanchoiche’ going
viral and gaining views in many countries worldwide.

Follow Mikey on Instagram at mikey____1997

For all things Seahoiche check out https://www.seanchoiche.com/

Pratibha Castle

Pratibha Castle, Irish born and living in West Sussex, is widely published in journals and anthologies including Agenda, Spelt, The Storms, Drawn to the Light, Lime Square Poets, Tears In The Fence, London Grip, Orbis, One Hand Clapping, High Window, Fly on the Wall Press, and forthcoming in Stand. Short and longlisted, highly commended and given special mentionin numerous competitions including Bridport Prize, Binsted Arts, Bray Festival and Welsh Poetry Competition, her award-winning debut pamphlet A Triptych of Birds & A Few Loose Feathers (Hedgehog Press 2022) is now joined by a second pamphlet Miniskirts in The Wasteland (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2023). Miniskirts is a Poetry Book Society winter selection 2023.

Follow Pratibha on Twitter at https://twitter.com/pratibhacastle

Follow Pratibha via her website at https://www.pratibhacastlepoetry.com/

Nuala McEvoy

Nuala McEvoy was born in North West England to an Irish Mum and an English Dad, but has lived abroad for many years.  She currently finds herself in Germany.  She is lucky enough to have called many other places home, including  the UK, Romania, Turkey, North Africa and many parts of Spain.  The pandemic era gave Nuala the time to experiment with writing poetry and  painting scenery, both of which she continues to do. She is happy to have had some of her poems published in Lighten Up Online, Funny Pearls UK, Tap into Poetry and Little Old Lady Comedy.  She has recently read one of her poems for Coalition for Digital Narratives. 

Follow Samuel on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mcevoy_nuala

John Buckley McQuaid

Born in Dublin and based in Denmark, John Buckley McQuaid has been a professional musician since 1979, performing at countless Clubs, Libraries, Art Museums, Theatres, Schools, Prisons and Festivals all over Europe. He has travelled extensively from New York to Tokyo, from Madrid to Berlin and is quite prolific, writing daily in the backroom of a quiet café in Aarhus, Denmark, where he lives. Much of his writing contains social comment, challenging the prevalent general malaise. In 2021 he released his sixth album, “This Is where I keep My Dreams”, a collection of 12 original songs about Ireland, addressing such issues as Magdalene Laundries, Vulture Funds and Diaspora to name but a few. The songs are based on his Irish roots, steeped in tradition with a generous dollop of wicked black humour. At the beginning of 2022, he released the single, Homeless Hotels, which is dedicated to the homeless and abused everywhere and Ireland, in particular.

RELEASES: Recorded Pain (Vinyl) 1979 Thanks (McQuaid & Thuesen) (Vinyl) 1980 Stations In The Sky (Vinyl – fold out cover with fairy tale &12 songs)1985 Call It Love (Vinyl) 1990 No Heroes EP (CD) 1998 Valentine’s Days 2017 (E-book containing 29 songs & 29 videos) This Is Where I Keep My Dreams (12 songs – Digital Release) 2021 Homeless Hotels (Single – Digital Release) 2022

Follow John on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/johnbuckleymcquaid

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 in Spring 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…