Orla Fay: Lonely Voice at The Irish Writers Centre - July

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Lonely Voice at The Irish Writers Centre - July

So I took up the sword and here I am on the steps to the reading room in The Irish Writers' Centre with Paddy Smith and Michael Farry from The Boyne Writers' Group. I have to say thanks to them for coming to hear me read and to a couple of my friends who came too. The judge Leo Cullen liked the imagery in my story and I am happy about that as creating imagery is for me a huge part of being a poet and I do tend to see my writing in a strong visual way. It was, as has been mentioned in Michael's blog, and by the judge, a bold piece, it said something anyway. I think now that I need to give more concentration to stories and to perhaps something, dare I say, longer, while still working on my poetry.

I attended a Boyne Writers' meeting on Thursday night and there is great excitement about the forthcoming Boyne Berries 10. I also saw the reclaimed Battle of the Books trophy. It seemed to glitter in the dimmed light of the Castle Arch Hotel.

Congratulations to the other three writers who shared the experience of The Lonely Voice: Short Story Introductions with me; Guy Barriscale, Deirdre McClay and Sarah Gimartin. We are pictured below.

1 comment:

FrankJuly 10, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Dimmed in the glitter of yesteryear....
Congrats on the reading.
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"Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea."

"When the heart weeps for what it has lost the spirit laughs for what it has found."

"(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"

Orla Fay is a member of Boyne Writers Group. In 2001 she won the Meath Chronicle/Bookwise Short Story Competition and in 2003 the Drogheda Creative Writers Adult Poetry Competition. In 2004 she had a poem commended in the Golden Pen Poetry Competition and in 2005 she was awarded 3rd place in the Dunlavin Poetry Competition and published in the 23rd Dunlavin Festival of Arts Annual. She has been published in the Meath Chronicle, New Poems of Oriel (2006), Boyne Berries Magazine, Crannog Magazine, Revival Poetry Journal, The Sharp Review, Ropes 2010, NUIG's Writers' Society's Writers' Exchange Chapbook, Riposte, Wordlegs, The Linnet's Wings, The Stony Thursday Book 2011 & 2013, thefirstcut, Shot Glass Journal, Census 3, Silver Blade Magazine, HeadSpace, Outburst, The Galway Review, The Artistic Atlas of Galway, Shamrock Haiku Journal, Carillon, The Poetry Porch, Three Drops from a Cauldron, The Ofi Press, Headstuff, Abridged, Amaryllis, The Pickled Body, A New Ulster, Tales from the Forest, The Honest Ulsterman, Lagan Online, An Anthology of Reactions, The Rose Magazine, Orbis and The Ogham Stone 2017. In 2008 she was a finalist in the Meath County Library Eist Poetry Competition. In 2009 she had a poem commended in the Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Award. In 2010 she had a poem highly commended in the Windows Publications Cavan Crystal Poetry Award. In 2011 she had a story selected for The Lonely Voice: Short Story Introductions in The Irish Writers' Centre. In June 2012 she published her poetry chapbook Drawn to the Light. She was a featured reader at O'Bheal in Cork in March 2013. She was highly commended for poetry in The Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Awards in October 2013 and long-listed in the WOW fiction Awards 2014. She was longlisted for poetry in The Anthony Cronin International Poetry Prize 2017, The Fish Poetry Prize 2017 and The Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Competition 2017 and shortlisted in The Rush Poetry Competition 2017, The Dermot Healy Poetry Award 2017 and The Red Line Book Festival Poetry Competition 2017.