Writers celebrate National Poetry Day

Moira Donaldson, Pamela Greene and Myra Vennard will each read from their latest collections. Student Eve Gardener (formerly Ballycastle School of Speech & Drama) will also perform as well as harpist Katie Sands from the McLean school of Music. Myra Vennard has now retired to Ballycastle. She has published two books of poetry, Easter Saturday (2009) and Blind Angel (2013), both from Lagan Press. In 2010 she won the Belfast Telegraph’s Woman of the Year in Arts Award. Her poetry pamphlet, Heartland, was published by Lapwing Press in 1998 and her first poetry collection, Tattoo Me, was published by Summer Palace Press in 2002. Since then she has been pursuing her interest in the visual arts and completed a HND in Fine Arts in 2012. She works with warm glass, painting, and photography and her current interest is to interpret her poetry through glasswork and painting. Moyra Donaldson is the author of four collections of poetry, Snakeskin Stilettos, Beneath the Ice, The Horse’s Nest and Miracle Fruit, from Lagan Press, Belfast and an American edition of Snakeskin Stilettos was published in 2002 from CavanKerry Press, New Jersey and short listed for a Foreword Book of the Year Award. Her Selected Poems was published in 2012 by Liberties Press, Dublin and a new collection, The Goose Tree, was published in June 2014, also from Liberties Press. More online! She is published internationally and has read at festivals in Europe, Canada and the USA. The evening kicks off at 7 30 admission is free. Coffeeand cakes will be available and BYBO is also an option. A spokesperson for the Writers Group said they are delighted to be celebrating National Day of Poetry in their home town and that having poets of this calibre reading in Ballycastle is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate with the rest of the literary world.