Jessica Casey and Other Works is the first poetry and fiction anthology from Away With Words, an innovative arts project for people with learning difficulties in Galway, celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2012.
‘Jessica Casey’ brings us into the funny, phantasmagorical world of a young woman on the verge of adulthood. It is the story of how the future is made, one mistake at a time: tracking Jessica’s adventures as she gets a job on a working farm, attempts to earn a living and learn to drive, and her struggle to make her dream of a trip to Australia a reality. The Other Works, mainly poems, reveal gentle observations of lived details and imagined worlds, and a bracing emotional depth that reminds us of the human value of poetry in our lives.
Includes a DVD with an animated short by visual artist Aideen Barry.
Mary Madec was born in the west of Ireland, and studied at NUI, Galway. In 2007 she was chosen for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series, and in 2008 she won the Hennessy XO Award for Emerging Poetry. Her first collection, In Other Words, was published by Salmon in 2010. She is currently Director of the Villanova Study Abroad Program in Galway.