Kate Newmann to judge the 2024 Allingham Poetry Competition

Poet and publisher Kate Newmann will judge the entries to the 2024 Allingham Festival Poetry Competition.

The winner of the Competition will also be declared the winner of the annual Francis Harvey Award. Kate Newmann was Poetry Ireland Poet Laureate for Ballycastle, County Antrim. She is Co-Director of Summer Palace Press, which has published 56 collections of poetry since 1999. She read English at King's College Cambridge, and has served as Director of the Belmullet Writers' Festival. She has judged many poetry competitions, including Northwest Words and Concern Worldwide. She is the author of five collections of poetry, and her next collection will be published in 2025.

The Francis Harvey Poetry Award, first awarded in 2023, was created in memory of the Donegal poet whose writings have been compared to those of Norman MacCaig, RS Thomas, and the Japanese haiku master Basho. The name of the 2024 winner will be inscribed on a glass sculpture that symbolises the Francis Harvey poem “Heron” which won the World Wildlife Fund poetry competition.

The 2024 Allingham Poetry Competition is currently open for entries, with a deadline of 29 September. In addition to the Francis Harvey Poetry Award, the winning poet will win a €300 prize. The First-, Second- and Third-Place winners will read their work at the Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 9 November, along with the winners of the Allingham Flash Fiction Competition. Full details and entry forms for the competitions are posted online.

The 2024 Allingham Festival will take place in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, from 6-10 November. Headline events will include a keynote speech by broadcaster Richard Curran and a concert featuring delta-blues prodigy Muireann Bradley.