Banshee Press: Live Reading & Discussion Panel
Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies Initiative, in partnership with Solas Nua, presents:
Banshee Press: Indie, Innovative, and Irish
Join GIS and Solas Nua for a series of eclectic readings by three acclaimed Irish writers from Banshee Press, Ireland’s award-winning independent publisher. After the readings, Dr. Cóilín Parsons (Director of Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies and Solas Nua Board Member) will moderate a panel discussion.
This event will take place on Thursday, May 21 from 7:30 – 9:00 pm at the Madhatter pub (1319 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036). This event is open to all that are 21 and older.
About the writers
Bebe Ashley‘s Harbour Doubts was featured as part of Solas Nua’s Irish Book Day, and has been described as “a feeling-full exploration of language as a poultice, if not an entire remedy, to loneliness.”
Eimear Ryan‘s award-winning memoir The Grass Ceiling brings the reader into the world of camogie, and was hailed as “A book which will very soon be acknowledged as a classic of Irish sportswriting.”
Jessica Trayor‘s New Arcana, praised as “inventive and visceral” and “desperately tender” is a hymn to the loss of a friend told through the lens of Tarot and Tim Burton, and is currently shortlisted for the Pigott Prize.
Each of these writers are connected by their work with Banshee Press, an innovative Irish Indie Press publishing the best in new Irish writing. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain an up to the minute insight into the Irish literary scene.
About Banshee Press
Banshee Press is a small independent Irish publisher, founded in 2015 and currently run by award-winning writers Eimear Ryan and Jessica Traynor. To date the press has published ten books of fiction. Our authors include Bebe Ashley, Dylan Brennan, Lucy Sweeney Byrne, Gustav Parker Hibbett, Claire-Lise Kieffer, Tim MacGabhann, Mary Morrissy, Billy Ramsell, Deirdre Sullivan, Rosamund Taylor and David Toms. We have recently celebrated our tenth anniversary, and the 20th issue of our diverse literary journal Banshee, which published flash fiction, poetry, flash fiction and essays.
In 2024 and 2025, Banshee Press was selected as the island of Ireland winner in the Small Press of the Year Award at the Nibbies, The Bookseller’s annual publishing awards. Banshee Press authors have recently been listed for or won such awards as the Edge Hill Prize, the Kate O’Brien Award, the Butler Literary Award, the John McGahern Annual Book Prize, the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize, the Polari First Book Prize, the Ivan Juritz Prize, the Laurel Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the John Pollard International Poetry Prize.
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