Doire Press: Karen J McDonnell & John O’Donnell

Tidal is the second poetry collection by west of Ireland poet Karen J McDonnell. Her poems explore the tropes and roles we impose on memory and history: what we commemorate, what we choose to remember, how age affects viewpoints. Karen is interested in how form — and also erasure and found poems — can be used in approaching historical events and biographical themes; excavating both universal and personal responses to our tiny, huge, lonely, ugly, beautiful world. 

Mr Hoo & Other Stories is the latest short story collection from award-winning writer John O’Donnell. Loneliness, vengeance, sorrow, and desire are among the themes featuring in these compelling stories of schemers and survivors: a gullible bird-lover, a woman seeking revenge against an author, a brooding survivor of the Titanic, a young murderer trying to cheat the gallows. Here are almost-winners and not-quite losers, a grieving father and a desperate mother, an unhappy judge, and a troubled client. Love and loss, redemption and remorse, yearning and heartbreak; in clear, incisive language these exhilarating stories movingly examine the human condition. 

This event is supported by Doire Press