Martina Evans reading at the White House, Limerick, Ireland

Martina Evans (née Cotter) is a poet and novelist. She grew up in County Cork in a country pub, shop and petrol station. After studying sciences for two years at University College Cork, she studied for a radiography degree at St Vincent’s Hospital Dublin and worked for fifteen years as a radiographer, moving to London in 1988, where she also completed a degree in English and Philosophy at the Open University.

Martina began writing in 1990 and has published three books of poetry and three novels. Her first novel, Midnight Feast, won a Betty Trask Award in 1995 and her third novel, No Drinking No Dancing No Doctors (Bloomsbury, 2000), won an Arts Council England Award in 1999. Her fourth poetry collection, Facing the Public, is due to be published by Anvil Press in September 2009 and has won bursary awards from both the Irish Arts Council (An Chomhairle Eiraíon) and Arts Council England.

Her poetry has appeared in many magazines and newspapers both in the UK as well as Ireland and the US. She is a popular performer of her work and has done many readings in Ireland and the UK. She has frequently spoken and performed on BBC radio as well as on Irish radio.

Martina has judged the London Arts Board Awards, the London Metropolitan Creative Writing Competition for two years as well as the Listowel Irish Post Short Story Competition for three consecutive years. She has written for The Irish Post, The Irish Times and The Guardian and she has been children's books reviewer for the Irish Post since 2000.

She has been Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London from 2003-2007. She has also designed and directed a creative writing summer school at London Metropolitan University and run workshops at various literary festivals and the National Film School. She has taught at the University of East London and Centreprise Literature Development Project. Currently, she teaches creative writing at the City Literary Institute and recently she directed the Advanced Poetry Workshop at Listowel Writer’s Week.

  Info: Dominic Taylor 087 2996409 or Barney Sheehan 086 8657494 Blog  http://whitehousepoets.blogspot.com