Poet Nessa O'Mahony in Residence at UB
March 27, 2015
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Dublin-based poet Nessa O'Mahony will spend April at the University of Baltimore as a poet-in-residence, visiting classes, talking about her work and that of other Irish writers and artists, and, on Monday, April 20, a public reading as part of the Spotlight UB live performance series. The reading will take place at 7 p.m. in the UB Student Center's Wright Theater, 21 W. Mt. Royal Ave. This event is free and open to the public.
O'Mahony, winner of the National Women's Poetry Competition in 1997 and shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and Hennessy Literature Awards, will visit various classes at the University, including an Irish culture class, a class on arts and ideas, and a class on modern poetry. She is traveling to the U.S. on a grant from Culture Ireland, which supports and promotes the presentation of Irish arts internationally. In addition to her work at UB, she also will perform readings in Washington, D.C. at Busboys and Poets and at Catholic University.
O'Mahony was born and lives in Dublin. Her poetry has appeared in a number of Irish, United Kingdom and North American periodicals, and has been translated into several European languages. Her second poetry collection, Trapping a Ghost, was published in 2005. A verse novel, In Sight of Home, was released in 2009, while a third poetry collection, Her Father's Daughter, came out last year. She was awarded an Irish Arts Council literature bursary in 2004 and 2011. She completed a Ph.D. in creative and critical writing at the University of Wales, Bangor, in 2007.
O'Mahony's relationship with the University of Baltimore began as a partnership with faculty members Kimberley Lynne and Joan Weber during Armagh Project 2012, a month-long writing residency in which O'Mahony mentored UB students and taught workshops during the John Hewitt International Creative Writing Festival. She has since joined the Armagh Project as an instructor and mentor for its following two years, and will again this July as six more University of Baltimore students take part in the residency and perform at the Hewitt Festival.
Learn more about Spotlight UB.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.