Sinéad Morrissey was born in 1972 and grew up in Belfast. She read English and German at Trinity College, Dublin, from which she took her PhD in 2003. Her four collections are There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There (2002), The State of the Prisons (2005) and Through the Square Window (2009), all of which are published by Carcanet Press. She has lived in Germany, Japan and New Zealand and now lectures in creative writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast.

Sinead's most recent award is the Irish Times Poetry Now award for her 2009 collection Through a Square Window (March 2010)

Olive Broderick is originally from Co. Cork and lives in Downpatrick. Poems most recently published in Abridged, Stinging Fly, Sunday Tribune & Ulla's Nib.She read at the Poetry Introductions Series 2009 and is working towards her first collection. Olive attends the Queen's Writers' Group and is a new member of the Word of Mouth poetry collective. She is an active member of the Write! Down collective which organises a range of literary events in Down District including the Wild Geese Festival. She is also Voluntary Arts Ireland's Information Officer.

Olive received the Hennessy X.O / Sunday Tribune Literary Award in the emerging poetry category (April 2010)

Dave Lordan is a 33 year old Irish writer from Clonakilty. His debut collection of poetry The Boy in the Ring (Salmon 2007) won The Patrick Kavanagh Award in manuscript form in 2005, and in 2008 won the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award for best first collection and was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award, whose previous winners include Derek Mahon and Seamus Heaney. It was named as a book of the year by RTE Radio 1's Arena show in 2009. His first play Jo Bangles,starring Mary Mcevoy, enjoyed a sell out run in Dundrum's Mill Theatre in February 2010. He reviews for The Stinging Fly, Southword and RTE Arena.
He will be reading from his forthcoming collection Invitation to a Sacrifice.

Elaine Feeney was born in Galway in 1979. She is a writer and an English teacher. In 2006 she won the North Beach Nights Poetry Grand Slam and in 2008 she won the Cuirt Festival Poetry Slam. Her first short collection was published by Maverick Press in 2007. She has read her work widely including The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Electric Picnic, The Vilencia Literature Festival and The Cuirt Festival. She is a keen performance and page poet. She has just finished her first drama Playing With Women. ELaine's first long collection of her work, Where's Katie? by Salmon Publishing will be launched in July. Elaine lives with her partner Ray and two sons, Jack and Finn.

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland.
He has published three collections of poems The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008) and Frightening New Furniture (2010) all published by Salmon Poetry. His work also features in Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe 2010).

Susan Millar DuMars was born in Philadelphia in 1966 to a Belfast-born mother. She holds an MA in Writing from the University of San Francisco. Her poems and short stories have been published widely in the US, UK and Ireland. Susan's stories have been short-listed for many awards, and in 2005 she received an Irish Arts Council Bursary for her fiction. American Girls, a volume of her short stories, was published by Lapwing in 2007. Susan lives in Galway, Ireland. Since 2003, Susan and her husband Kevin Higgins have organised the successful Over the Edge reading series, showcasing new writers. Susan teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute, Galway Arts Centre, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology and on the Brothers of Charity Away With Words programme. Big Pink Umbrella (Salmon Poetry, 2008) is the first full collection of her poetry. One of her poems has been chosen by editor, Mathew Sweeney, for inclusion in Best of Irish Poetry 2010 (Southword Editions). Several of her poems will feature in Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland, edited by Eva Bourke (Dedalus Press, March 2010). Her second collection of poems, Dreams for Breakfast, is just published by Salmon Poetry.