Ceiling Fan Launch

On Saturday, March 12th 2022, Rare Swan Press presented Kari Flickinger’s new collection Ceiling Fan at an online launch hosted by the inimitable Damien Donnelly, with readings by invited guests. Please take an hour or so to relax, and enjoy.

LIVE LAUNCH with host Damien Donnelly and Guests

Damien Donnelly Ceiling Fan Launch Host

Damien is a 46-year-old Irish, adopted, gay, writer and podcast producer who spent 23 years living in Paris, Amsterdam, and London, returning to Dublin in 2019. In 2020, his debut pamphlet Eat the Storms appeared on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21 and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize followed by a Stickleback collection, and second Pushcart Prize nomination, in Jan 2021, both published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. He produces and hosts the poetry podcast Eat the Storms, now in its 5th season with 300+ international guests on over 12 platforms. In the Jitterfritz of Neon, a poetry pamphlet co-written with Eilin de Paor, was published in Jan 2022 which will be followed by his first full collection Enough! in March 2022, for which he was awarded an Agility Award by Arts Council, Ireland. The Fingal Arts have funded his next collection Back from Away, due in 2023. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, both online and in print.

Marcelle Newbold Ceiling Fan Launch Facilitator

Marcelle Newbold’s writing explores place and inheritance. She has been Pushcart Prize nominated, shortlisted in the Walk.Listen.Create writing competition, and won the Poetry in the Arcades competition in 2020. Her poems have been published online by Ink Sweat & Tears, Iamb poet, and The Ekphrastic Review and in recent print anthologies by Black Bough Poetry, Maytree Press, Wild Pressed Books, Icefloe Press, and Indigo Dreams. She is managing editor of Nightingale & Sparrow literary press, and coordinator for Gloucester Poetry Festival. Marcelle lives in Cardiff, Wales where she trained as an architect. linktree / instagram / Poems.Sketch

Kari Flickinger Poet Ceiling Fan. Guest of Honour

Kari Ann, author of The Gull and the Bell Tower (Femme Salvé Books). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the SFPA Rhysling Award. She was an alumna of UC Berkeley.

Jude Marr Poet in Pyjamas. Guest Reader

Jude Marr (they, them) is a Pushcart-nominated nonbinary poet. Jude’s full-length collection, We Know Each Other By Our Wounds, came out from Animal Heart Press in 2020 and they also have a chapbook, Breakfast for the Birds, published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. Their work has appeared in many journals in the US, the UK, and beyond. A native Scot, Jude recently returned to live in the UK after 10 years of teaching, writing, and learning in the US. The transatlantic connection remains strong, though. Jude is currently on the masthead at Animal Heart Press, and they are also delighted to be a Poet in Pajamas for Sundress Press in June 2022. Twitter: @JudeMarr1 Website: judemarr.com

Amanda McLoed Managing Editor Animal Heart Press. Video Messenger

Amanda McLeod is a creative based in Canberra, Australia. Her catalogue of written work includes fiction, poetry, and book reviews; and she also works in a number of visual media. Her debut flash fiction collection Animal Behaviour was released in 2020 by Chaffinch Press. Amanda is the Managing Editor at Animal Heart Press, where she finds great satisfaction in helping authors bring their books to life, and is also the Art Editor and designer of FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art. She is an avid lover of wild places (especially if there’s water), thinker, dreamer, questioner. Amanda is currently intrigued by the natural world, our place in and relationship with it, and is looking forward to exploring these concepts further in her creative practice. Author of Heartbreak Autopsy (Animal Heart Press, 2021) and Animal Behaviour (Chaffinch Press, 2020. Follow her Twitter and Instagram @AmandaMWrites. AmandaMcLeodWrites.com https://linktr.ee/AmandaMcLeod

Matthew M C Smith Publisher Black Bough Poetry. Guest Reader

Matthew is a writer from Swansea, Wales. He writes about myth, history, landscape, cosmos and the human condition. He is published in presses, such as Anti-Heroin Chic, Seventh Quarry Press, Re-side, Broken Spine, Wales Haiku Journal, Back Story and Other Terrain. He is editor of Black Bough Poetry. Twitter: @MatthewMCSmith @BlackBoughpoems FB: @MattMCSmith @BlackBoughpoetry

Ankh Spice Poet. Guest Reader

Ankh Spice is a queer, sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. His poetry has been nominated for multiple Pushcarts/BotN and appears in the Poetry Archive as a competition winner. His debut full collection, The Water Engine, is available from Femme Salvé Books: https://femmesalvebooks.net/the-water-engine-by-ankh-spiceWebsite: www.ankhspice-seagoatscreamspoetry.com
Twitter: @SeaGoatScreamsPoetry. Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

Robert Frede Kenter Publisher Ice Floe Press. Guest Reader

Robert Frede Kenter is a writer, editor, visual artist, performer and the EIC/Publisher of Ice Floe Press (www.icefloepress.net). The VISPO collection, EDEN was published in 2021 by Floodlight Editions, Toronto. A Pushcart nominee and multiple-grant recipient, Robert has published work in a wide variety of print and on-line journals, most recently: Visual Verse, Scissors and Spackle, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Talking About Strawberries, Black Bough, Cough, The Failure Baler & Watch Your Head. Work is forthcoming in the anthology, The Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, UK, 2022). Robert was a feature reader at the U.K. Cheltenham Poetry Festival in 2020, and has read at many venues including Knife/Fork/Book in Toronto and The Knitting Factory in New York City.

Twitter: @frede_kenter IG: @r.f.k.vispocityshuffle. The collaborative hybrid work, Audacity of Form (with Cathy Daley and Julia Skop) is available for purchase at: Audacity Of Form by Robert Frede Kenter – IceFloe Press

With Much gratitude and Appreciation from Rare Swan Press

Thank you to our guests and attendees.

Artworks