POETRY WORKSHOP:

Poetry Workshop

The 2008 Poetry Workshop will be led by the poet Rita Ann Higgins over the first week-end of the Summer School Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd August..

This is an option for students, and costs an additional €100 (payable at the time of booking). Numbers are limited, so early booking is advisable. It should be noted that those who opt for the Poetry Workshop are not free to go on the trip to Coole Park and Thoor Ballylee on the Saturday, nor on the Boat Trip on the Sunday.

Rita Ann Higgins

Rita Ann Higgins was born in 1955 in Galway , Ireland , and still lives there. She published her first five collections with Salmon in Ireland, Goddess & Witch (1990), which combines Goddess on the Mervue Bus (1986) and Witch in the Bushes (1988), Philomena's Revenge (1992) and Higher Purchase (1996), followed by Sunny Side Plucked: New & Selected Poems (1996) and her latest collection An Awful Racket (2001) from Bloodaxe. Her plays include Face Licker Come Home (1991), God of the Hatch Man (1992), Colie Lally Doesn't Live in a Bucket (1993) and Down All the Roundabouts (1999).

She has edited Out the Clara Road: The Offaly Anthology and (with Gráinne Sweeney ) Word and Image: a collection of poems from Sunderland Women's Centre and Washington Bridge Centre.

She was Galway County 's Writer-in-Residence in 1987, Writer in Residence at the National University of Ireland, Galway , in 1994-95, and Writer in Residence for Offaly County Council in 1998-99. In October 2000 she was Green Honors Professor at Texas Christian University . Her many awards include a Peadar O'Donnell Award in 1989 and several Arts Council bursaries. Sunny Side Plucked was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She is a member of Aosdána.