Moyra Donaldson (Ireland) read for the 2009 John Hewitt International Summer School as part of a Lagan Press Showcase, alongside Maria McManus and Myra Vennard. In 2012, Moyra took part in a reading to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Hewitt’s death, along with Sinéad Morrisey, Damian Smyth & Frank Ormsby. At the 2015 Summer School, she exhibited poems alongside photographs by Victoria J Dean, and at the 2019 School she read at the launch an exhibition of drawings by Paddy Lennon that accompanied her limited-edition book, “Blood Horses”. Moyra also read for the 2019 John Hewitt Birthday Reading, alongside Maureen Boyle and Damian Smyth.
Moyra was born in, Newtownards, County Down and attended Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster. Her first collection, Snakeskin Stilettoes (Lagan Press), was published in 1998 to wide critical acclaim. Other collections are: Beneath The Ice (Lagan, 2001), The Horse's Nest (Lagan, 2006), Miracle Fruit (Lagan, 2010), Selected Poems (Liberties, 2012), The Goose Tree (Liberties, 2014), Blood Horses (Caesura, 2018) and Carnivorous (Doire, 2019).
Moyra has won the Women’s National Poetry Competition, The Allingham Award, Cúirt New Writing Award, North West Words Poetry Award and the Belfast Year of the Writer Award. She has received four awards from ACNI, including the ACES award in its inaugural year. She is widely published in magazines, journals and anthologies in both Europe, Australia and the USA. Her poems have featured on BBC radio and television and on American national radio and television. She has read at festivals in Europe, Canada and America and is an experienced creative writing tutor, working with individuals and groups in the literary, community and health care sectors. She has edited a number of anthologies and was literary editor for Fortnight magazine.
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