Our latest Featured Artist for April – Anne Walsh Donnelly

Wildlings!
Our latest Featured Artist is an exceptionally talented poet and writer from Ireland. Welcome, Anne Walsh Donnelly!

“a poet of exceptional bravery”
Anne is a single mother of two teenagers. Originally from Carlow in the south-east of Ireland she moved to Mayo in the west of Ireland, twenty-four years ago, where she now lives. She works as a student services officer in a third-level college and writes in her spare time.
She says, “writing is my playground. I experiment, take risks, run wild on the page, always hoping that my work will resonate with the reader. I write my emotional truth and bring my whole-self to my writing.”

She has been described by the Irish poet, Kevin Higgins as “a poet of exceptional bravery, a pretty sensational original voice. I hope the poetry world doesn’t tame her, though no doubt it will try.”

She has been published widely and was shortlisted for the 2019 Hennessy Literary Award for her poetry.  She was also selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2019 and will read at the International Festival of Literature Dublin in May 2019.

Her debut chapbook The Woman With An Owl Tattoo will be launched in May 2019 and can now be pre-ordered at the Fly on the Wall poetry press website https://www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/
You can connect with Anne on Twitter, and through her website annewalshdonnelly.com

Writing this collection was both a liberating and terrifying experience for Anne, who says:
“I wrote these poems at a time when I was exploring my sexual identity. I dug deep within myself and this is reflected very much in the collection. I hope the poems will resonate with others and even help those who are currently exploring their own identity. It’s the type of book I would have loved to have read when I first began to question my sexuality and that’s partly the reason why I wrote it. I’ve taken the risk to lay myself bare and write my emotional truth and I am delighted that Fly on the Wall Press could see what I was trying to do and are publishing it.”