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Irish Poetry Salon from New York Comes to the Union Pacific Railroad Museum

On Saturday, June 1, Irish American Writers and Artists, Inc. (IAW&A) will participate in the Union Pacific Railroad Museum’s The Irish in America: Program & Poetry Salon.

The event, part of the 150th anniversary of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad, will celebrate the thousands of Irish immigrants who helped to build the railroad and the achievements of Irish American writers and artists.

“Six to eight authors will read work on Irish and Irish American themes as a celebration of our unique literary culture,” said Eamonn Wall, an IAW&A director. “Also, we will highlight some aspects of roles played by the Irish in creating the intercontinental railroad. It brought many Irish to Iowa.”

The IAW&A holds salons throughout the country with twice-monthly salons in New York City and “on the road” salons in states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Chicago, and more. After hosting a salon at the Bookworm in Omaha last year, the IAW&A were invited to perform at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum.

The Saturday salon is free and open to the public. It will take place on the first floor of the museum.

Wall hopes that by the end of the event, guests leave with “a sense of the contribution that Irish Americans have made to the railroad and to America.”

Salon Performers & Bios

Bob Churchill is a Vietnam combat veteran (1969-70) who recently retired as Assistant Professor Emeritus of English after thirty-eight years at Creighton University. In May, 2017, he graduated from Creighton’s MFA program.  He has published poems in Shadows, Saltillo Review, Broadside, and most recently in Concrete and River.

Adrian Koesters is an Irish-American poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer who holds degrees from Creighton University, Pacific Lutheran University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her two books of poetry, Many Parishes (2013) and Three Days with the Long Moon (2017) were published by Baltimore's BrickHouse Books, and her first novel, Union Square, was published in Oct. 2018 by Apprentice House Press. She lives in Omaha.

Felicity White has an MFA from Creighton University. Her poems have appeared in The Tishman Review and at The Sunlight Press. She also writes creative nonfiction and is currently drafting a middle-grade novel in verse. Felicity lives in Omaha with her husband and children. Although she hasn't fully explored her Irish heritage, her mother has often said their people came over after the potato famine.

Drucilla Wall is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Omaha and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she received her Ph.D. She is co-editor of Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time (Nebraska, 2017) and author of The Geese at the Gates (Salmon Poetry, 2011). She is working on a new collection of poetry. She teaches writing and literature at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Maggie Smith Hurt was born and raised in Iowa. In 1993 she moved to New York City where she received her MFA at Hunter College. In 2003 she moved to Dublin, Ireland where she taught writing at University College in Dublin and The Irish Writers Center and was a founding partner and teacher at Big Smoke Writing Factory. She moved back to Omaha in 2012 where she is now a freelance writer, an instructor at University of Nebraska-Omaha and Metro Community college and a mother to her daughter Lyla Jane, dog Ollie, and three crabby cats. Maggie has published poems in the U.K., Ireland, and the U.S. in publications such as Prole, Iota, and Burnt District.

Eamonn Wall’s recent books include From Oven Lane to Sun Prairie: In Search of Irish America (Arlen House/Syracuse UP, 2019), and Junction City: New & Selected Poems 1990-2015 (Salmon Poetry). A native of Ireland, Eamonn Wall has lived in the USA since 1982, including eight years in Omaha. He serves on the board of Irish American Writers & Artists Inc. and is a professor of International Studies and English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Theodore Wheeler is the author of three books, including the novels Kings of Broken Things and In Our Other Lives, which will be released in Spring 2020. His fiction has been featured in Best New American Voices, New Writing from the Midwest, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Narrative, Boulevard, and others. A descendant of the Houlihans, he is co-director of Omaha Lit Fest and helps operate the Dundee Book Company bookcart, one of the world's smallest bookstores.

 

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