Kerry Hardie (Ireland) read the 2019 John Hewitt Society International Summer School in Armagh, alongside Sarah Clancy. Previously, she read with Dennis O’Driscoll and Frank Ormsby for the 2011 John Hewitt Birthday Reading, and with Glenn Patterson for a John Hewitt Society event at the 2011 Banbridge Arts Festival.  Kerry is a poet and novelist. […]

Gail McConnell (Ireland) read alongside Noel Monaghan for an event organised by the John Hewitt Society and City Chapters (Armagh) to celebrate 2019 National Poetry Day. Gail lives in Belfast and is a Senior Lecturer in English at Queen’s University Belfast where she is also the convenor of the MA in Poetry: Creativity and Criticism […]

Rita Ann Higgins (Ireland) read at the 2016 John Hewitt International Summer School, alongside Grace Wells.  Rita Ann Higgins was born in Galway. Her first five collections were published by Salmon Press: Goddess on the Mervue Bus (1986), Witch in the Bushes (1988), Goddess and Witch (1990), Philomena's Revenge (1992), and Higher Purchase (1996). Bloodaxe […]

Kate Newmann Reads Poetry For The John Hewitt Society.

Kate was born in Dromore, Co. Down and lives in Kilcar, Donegal. She co-founded Summer Palace Press in 1999. She holds an MA in English from King’s College, Cambridge and was a Junior Fellow at the Institute for Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, during which time she edited and compiled The Dictionary of Ulster Biography (1993).

Stephen Sexton (Ireland) read for the 2015 Hewitt’s Carnlough Spring Festival, alongside Ciaran Carson, and at the 2017 John Hewitt Birthday Reading (Belfast Festival) alongside Sasha Dugdale and Vona Groarke. He had been scheduled to read at the 2020 Hewitt International Summer School. Stephen first attended the Summer School as a bursary student while studying […]

Scott McKendry read for the Lifeboat Press event at the 2019 John Hewitt International Summer School, alongside Caitlin Newby.  Scott worked for seven years as an electrician before returning to higher education and now holds a MA and PhD from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. Sinéad Morrissey and Stephen Connolly included him in The […]