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The 1st episode of Season 9 aired on Saturday 12th October 2024. It is produced and hosted by Damien B. Donnelly. Below are details and links to the guest stars…

Saraswati Nagpal

Saraswati Nagpal is an Indian poet, writer of myth & fantasy, and a classical dancer. Her graphic novels are feminist retellings of epic Indian myths. She is published in The Atlantic, Atlanta Review, Acropolis Journal, Dust & various anthologies. Saraswati has a forthcoming chapbook with Black Bough Poetry, Wales.

Follow Saraswati on X

For more information on Saraswati on Linktree

Sophia Conway

Sophia Conway is originally from Westport, Co. Mayo, and now lives on Vancouver Island (from one West Coast to another!) with her husband and infant son. During her son’s nap times, she enjoys creating mixed media pieces, eating cinnamon buns with her husband, and walking the beach. Her mini chapbook ‘Crumbs & Constellations’ is about to be published by the Origami Poems Project and her upcoming poetry book ‘Someday Somewhere Beautiful’ will be published by Alabaster Leaves Publishing in 2025. Her haiku (Japanese short-form poetry) has been published in several places, and she has done spoken-word performances and led haiku poetry workshops at the Sakura Days Fair in Vancouver this Spring.

Find out more about Sophia on her website

Paula Werdnik

Paula Werdnik (1999) is a copywriter by day and a poet by night. Her writing is informed by her academic background in Arts & Culture Studies (BA) and English Literature (MA). With a German and Lithuanian heritage, and having grown up across various countries, her work draws upon her personal life experiences as a third-culture kid. In her work she explores themes such as identity, belonging, in-betweenness, human connection, grief, and personal healing. She is currently based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her work has been featured in the 2023 Dichtober digital poetry bundle, TendernessPress, RevUU Magazine, Raffia Magazine, The Ghoulish Gazette, and The Carried Away blog.

Follow Paula on Instagram

Behind the Storms

Rita Ann Higgins, featured guest

Rita Ann Higgins’s frank, wry poems often look squarely at economic and gender-based inequalities. Calling hers a “smart, sassy, unabashed, female working class voice in Irish writing” in a 2011 Irish Times review of Ireland Is Changing Mother, Fintan O’Toole observes that “the anger in her work is transmuted into invention and absurdity, and it rubs shoulders with other deliciously deadly sins, like lust and pride.”

Higgins is the author of numerous collections, including Tongulish (2016), Ireland Is Changing Mother (2011), Sunny Side Plucked: New & Selected Poems (1996),  Philomena’s Revenge (1992), and Goddess on the Mervue Bus (1986). She has also written many plays, including The Colossal Longing of Julie Connors (2014), The Empty Frame (2008), Down all the Roundabouts or (no one is entitled to a view) (1999) and Face Licker Come Home (1991), which was staged by Punchbag. Higgins has edited the anthologies Word and Image: A Collection of Poems from Sunderland Women’s Centre and Washington Bridge Centre (2000) and Out the Clara Road: The Offaly Anthology (1999). Her honors include the Peadar O’Donnell Award, several arts council grants, and residencies granted by National University of Ireland-Galway, Offaly County Council and Galway City Library. A member of Aosdána, Higgins has taught at Texas Christian University. She lives in Galway.

Rita Ann Higgins’ poetry became a national salve during the pandemic, uniquely capturing the mood of the country as read live on radio from RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor Show. This collection of poetry, containing the bank holiday poems heard on the show and many others, sets a tone for all seasons. From bank holidays to saints’ days and many other annual celebrations on the Irish calendar year, they are at times uplifting, at times nostalgic, always reflective of real life. With poems such as Lúnasa, I Thought Saw St. Brigit Today, My Mother Loved Me in Red, The Púca, Visiting My Father at Christmas and All Souls’ Day, The Long Weekend leaves no question that Rita Ann Higgins is the people’s poet.

The Long Weekend is available from Gill Books

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 2^nd full collection Back from Away was published on the 8th May 2024 with Turas Press

The Storms journal is available here

Follow Damien is on X and instagram

You can purchase his pamphlets and collections at his website

Backing music for Eat the Storms is from Purple Planet Royalty Free Music

You can find us on many platforms including Spotify and here is the link…