Third issue of New Isles Press: Border Mairch Teorainn will be launched as part of EastSide Arts Festival in partnership with The Thomas Carnduff Appreciation Society Summer Yard Sessions event on Thursday 25th July (Booking). Issue three is edited by author Dr Rosemary Jenkinson Dr Frank Ferguson, Linda Ervine MBE our featured novelist and author is Billy O'Callaghan. New Isles Press anthology is a celebration of our shared language traditions, Irish, Ulster Scots and Scots Gaelic, Welsh all in English translation. Contributing authors featuring in New Isles Press are.
David Atkinson
David Atkinson, Pushcart Prize nominated Belfast & Coleraine poet, published nationally and internationally, including two collections, Thomas (2005) and Black-eyed Peace (2014). Winner of Bangor Poetry Journal “40 Words Competition” and twice long-listed for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. He is a MA student (Creative Writing) at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Alex Barr
Alex Barr’s short story fiction is in the Fence, The Lampeter Review, The Interpreter’s House, New Welsh Reader, The Last Line Journal, Otherwise Engaged Journal, Sixfold Fiction, Mechanics Institute Review, Litro Magazine, Reflex Press, Streetlight Magazine, and Willesden Herald. His collection ‘My Life With Eva’ is published by Parthian.
Kieran Beville
Kieran Beville is the author of Write Now – A Guide to Becoming a Writer – a comprehensive course on creative writing (Limerick Writers’ Centre, 2019). He has five collections of poetry published by Revival Press. Beville has had a substantial number of articles and poems published in various newspapers, journals and magazines.
Tony Black
Tony Black is from Carnlough and lives in West Belfast. Over forty of his short stories and flash fictions have appeared in literary journals and print anthologies. His work has featured in The Irish Times and on BBC Radio Ulster, and he has twice been runner-up in the Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award. Tony’s debut short story collection will be published by Yellow House Publishing Ltd in 2025.
David Butler
David Butler’s novel City of Dis (New Island) was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, 2015. Arlen House published his second story collection, Fugitive, in 2021. His latest novel, Jabberwock, was published under pen-name Dara Kavanagh by Dedalus Books in 2023. Awards for the short story include the Maria Edgeworth (twice), Benedict Kiely, Colm Tóibín, ChipLit Fest, ITT/Redline and Fish International.
Neil Brosnan
Neil Brosnan is from Listowel Co Kerry. His stories have appeared in print and digital anthologies and magazines in Ireland, Britain, Europe, Australia, India, the USA and Canada. A Pushcart nominee, he has won The Bryan MacMahon, The Maurice Walsh, and Ireland’s Own short story awards, and has published two short story collections.
Stiofán Carson
Stiofán Carson started learning Irish in 2015 and achieved a degree in Irish in 2024. He has been involved with Turas on the Newtownards Road for eight years and he has been working as Resource Development Coordinator for a year.
Annika Chadwick
Annika Chadwick’s poetry concerns itself with the link between the tangible and the intangible human experience, often drawing on visceral images of the human body, anatomy, animals, and natural life. Her work explores themes of sensuality, sexuality, and queer identity.
Eddie Currie
Eddie Currie is from East Belfast and moved to Newtownards. After retiring from the Health Service, he has had more time to write poetry. His influence is his Christian Faith and community history. Eddie’s first work appeared in New Isles Press Issue 1 and he is a regular contributor to Yard Sessions writers open mic.
Mark Czanik
Mark Czanik was born in the sweet borderlands of Herefordshire. His poems, stories, and artwork have appeared most recently in Pennine Platform, The Forge, Atrium, The High Window, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Waxed Lemo, 3AM, Riptide, Obsessed with Pipework, The Interpreter’s House, Orbis, Third Wednesday, The Frogmore Papers, MIR and Southword. He lives in Bath where he enjoys searching charity shops for old films.
Rody Gorman
Rody Gorman was born in Dublin in 1960 and lives in Skye. He has published collections of poetry in English, Irish and Scottish Gaelic including Fax (1996), Flora From Lusitania (2005) and Zonda? Khamsin? Sharaav? Camanchaca? (2006) and Bear tan Briste/Burst broken shroud loom deeds (2011). His most recent collections are Cuala, Dothra (2021), Lorg Eile/Final Call (2022) and Sa Chnoc (2023). His version of Buile Shuibhne, Sweeney: an Intertonguing was published by Francis Boutle Publishers in March 2024.
Angela Graham
Angela Graham’s debut poetry collection Sanctuary There Must Be Somewhere was published in 2020. Her short story collection A City Burning (2022) is published by Seren Books. She won the Poetry Prize in the Linen Hall Ulster-Scots Writing Competition, 2021. Her poetry collection Star will be launched in July 2024 from Culture and Democracy Press.
Lucia Kenny
Lucia Kenny was born in Larne Co. Antrim. Lucia is a member of two writing groups and has had her poetry published in magazines and anthologies, including The Dawn Treader and Poetry Ireland Review.
Angeline King
Angeline King was writer in residence of Ulster University from 2020 to 2023, during which time she completed a PhD in English. Angeline's latest novel, The Secret Diary of Stephanie Agnew, explores identity, language and family history.
Stephen Knox
Stephen Knox’s writing reflects his Christian faith, his interest in the concept of the lived place, his deep appreciation of nature and fascination with ordinary, everyday occurrences. Love for Cregagh Glen and his immediate environs resonates in several of his poems published in New Isles Press. Stephen’s debut poetry collection Sensing Wonder will be published by Yellow House Publishing Ltd in autumn 2024.
Mary Lee
Mary Lee’s poems have been widely published in anthologies nationally and internationally, including among other publications: Skylight 47, Orbis, Crannόg, Poems for Patience competition (short listed twice), Face Up to the Sun, Manchester Cathedral Competition, (highly commended), the Galway Review, Euoia Review, Spirituality and on a number of websites. Her work has been broadcast on RTE Radio 1. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Bloom and Everyday Epiphanies.
Robert Lowther Boyd
Robert Boyd is a recent retiree. He began his journey with the Irish language by taking a Complete Beginner’s course with Turas in East Belfast in September 2023 and recently gained his Cúpla Focal.
Rory Milhench
Rory Milhench grew up in Belfast. His fiction has been published in A New Ulster, Books Ireland Magazine, The Madrigal Press, An Áitiúil Anthology and the University of Ulster's New Worlds, New Voices: A Books Beyond Northern Ireland Anthology and is forthcoming in the Belfast Review. He was a 2024 participant of the Irish Writers Centre Northern Soul Roadshow.
Aodán “Jaff” Mac Séafraidh
Aodán “Jaff” Mac Séafraidh, originally from Carrickfergus, has had an interest in traditional music and culture and a life-long interest in the Irish Language despite not having learned Irish at school. After attending classes organised by the Workers’ Education Association and later An Cumann Chluain Ard, Aodán became fluent in the language and soon became a teacher of adults, later completing a Master’s degree in Irish at Queen’s University Belfast. Aodán now teaches and works as an Education Officer at Turas in east Belfast and is working part-time as a storyteller. Jaff has previously had short stories published in the Irish Language publication, Feasta.
Karen Mooney
Karen Mooney’s writing has been published in several anthologies. She co-wrote Penned in with poet Gaynor Kane in 2020. Her debut poetry pamphlet Missing Pieces was published in 2021 and her most recent pamphlet Pivot Points & Portals was co-written with Caroline Johnston in 2022.
Billy O’Callaghan
Billy O’Callaghan is an Irish short fiction writer and novelist. His short-story collection, The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind, was awarded the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards for short-story in 2013 and his widely-translated My Coney Island Baby was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award. The editorial team at Yellow House Publishing Ltd are honoured in having Billy O’Callaghan as the featured author for Issue 3 New Isles Press: Border Teorainn Mairch anthology.
Malachi O'Doherty
Malachi O'Doherty is the author of several works of memoir and nonfiction, including, most recently, How To Fix Northern Ireland (Atlantic) and Can Ireland Be One? (Merrion). His published books include the novel Terry Brankin Has A Gun (Merrion). His short stories have been published in Ostrich, The Hindustan Times, The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Honest Ulsterman and The Erotic Review. He is a regular storyteller at Tenx9.
Mary Ringland
Mary E. Ringland is a poet based in Larne Co. Antrim. Her poems have been published in Belfast Community Arts Partnership anthologies, Bangor Literary Journal, Live Encounters and The Storm Journal. She is in the process of completing an MA in Creative Writing at the Open University.
Heather Robinson
Heather is an Irish language learner at Turas in East Belfast. Heather began writing short stories and poems in Irish with the support of Turas’ own story-telling group. She has found a very simple style while writing in such a poetic language and, considering herself very much a learner, Heather brings together her creativity and learning in this writing process. She told a story in public for the first time in November 2023 and was delighted to have a story published in this edition of New Isles Press.
Colm Scully
Colm Scully, from Cork, is a poet and poetry film maker. He won the Cúirt New Writing Prize in 2014 and his poems have most recently been published in Cyphers, Poetry Ireland Review, Crannog and The Friday Poem.
Shahminee Selvakannu
Shahminee Selvakannu is from Malaysia and holds a PHD in creative writing awarded by Queen’s University of Belfast. Her works have been featured in The Honest Ulsterman, Full House Literary. Her stories centre on the diasporic experiences of the Indian Community living in Malaysia and abroad. She now lives in Belfast.
Sue Steging
Sue Steging lives in Northern Ireland. Having had work published in national and international journals and anthologies, she received The Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing in 2023.
Alan Weadick
Alan Weadick is Dublin author. He has had short stories published in The Honest Ulsterman, the Culture Matters anthology From the Plough to the Stars and has been shortlisted three times for the RTE/Francis Mc Manus short story competition.