Paul Muldoon: Patrons Picks

Join Paul Muldoon, one of Ireland’s most celebrated poets, as he introduces us to the rising stars of tomorrow. 

As a Belfast Book Festival Patron, Paul has picked three Northern Irish writers to introduce us to; Matthew Rice, Andrew Comiskey and Sacha White. 

Come along for a celebration of Irish writing and what is sure to be a thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking conversation with some of the most exciting voices in writing today.

Matthew Rice was born in Belfast. Poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Asheville Poetry Review, The Dark Horse, The Tangerine, and in the anthology The Best New British and Irish Poets 2017 (Eyewear), Hold Open the Door: A Commemorative Anthology from The Ireland Chair of Poetry (UCD Press / University of Chicago Press), and The Forward Book of Poetry 2022 (Faber). He was awarded runner-up for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2017, and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series the same year. He holds an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University, Belfast, and is currently undertaking a Northern Bridge AHRC funded PhD at The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s. His debut collection, The Last Weather Observer (Summer Palace Press), was published in 2021 to critical acclaim, was Highly Commended for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and was included in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s top ten books of the year.

Andrew Comiskey is a short story writer from Armagh. He previously worked in corporate law in London. Some of his work has been published in The Honest Ulsterman, and BBC Radio Ulster commissioned a short story, Rather Be Parochial, which was read by Ross White and broadcast in February 2022.

Sacha White is a poet from County Fermanagh who lives in Belfast. She recently featured in the Anthology Queering the Green: Post-2000 Queer Irish Poetry, edited by Paul Maddern and published by The Lifeboat Press. She was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions in 2021. Her poems have been published in The Honest Ulsterman. She is a contributing editor for The Tangerine.

Paul Muldoon is a poet, lyricist, librettist, translator, critic, editor and literary great born in County Armagh and lives in New York. He was a radio and television producer for the BBC in Belfast in the 1970s and 80s, and his long association with the city is most recently celebrated in ‘Belfast Hymn’, his poem commissioned for the Grand Central Hotel. Muldoon has been poetry editor of and president of the UK Poetry Society. He teaches at Princeton University. Paul’s fourteenth collection of poems, Howdie-Skelp, was published by Faber in 2021. Sure Thing is his second pamphlet with The Lifeboat Press.