Banshee Lit

27/07/2025

Some exciting news: FILLY, Rosamund Taylor's beautiful forthcoming novel-in-verse, is now available for pre-order from Waterstones.com at 25% off RRP. This offer is available until midnight on 31 July. Just enter the code SUMMER25 at checkout!

https://www.waterstones.com/book/filly/rosamund-taylor/9781739397982

23/07/2025

First look: the gorgeous cover of FILLY, Rosamund Taylor's stunning novel-in-verse, coming from Banshee Press in October 2025. Cover photography by Oana Stoian, with design by Jack Smyth ✨

Though ten years have passed
since I swayed on the musty train
on the way to school,
as sun broke its yolk over the strand,

my stomach tenses when I stand there,
metal pole in my hand, and I hear
an echo of Mrs Wall’s voice
saying the two syllables of my name –

Orla – as sharp as the rush
of salt air when the doors open
at Booterstown.

11/07/2025

'the air tastes like bronze. A slow procession
of soft wool ties, red, greet her along the tracks
under Arts et Métiers. Herein lies the entire history
of gold, dancing in her irises.'

From issue 8 (spring/summer 2019) – poetry by Ingrid Casey 👑

the air tastes like bronze. A slow procession of soft wool ties, red, greet her along the tracks under Arts et Métiers . Herein lies the entire history of gold, dancing in her irises. Her mouth teems with flakes, both Paleolithic caves and Celtic tiger-fish. Some talked about Havilah and this is w

05/07/2025

'The jewellery set arrives on your thirteenth birthday, the official transition from playing with dolls to planning what to name your children.'

From issue 18 (autumn/winter 2024) – flash fiction by Anita Goveas 💎

The jewellery set arrives on your thirteenth birthday, the official transition from playing with dolls to planning what to name your children. Your nana is so traditional, Mother says laughingly, no one in this country will ask for dowry. It’s made of sparkles and stones that look like fire, and y...

26/06/2025

Harbour Doubts by Bebe Ashley launches in the Seamus Heaney Centre this evening! We’re excited to celebrate this beautiful book in Belfast; all are welcome to join us from 6pm 🎊

Harbour Doubts is available now in all good bookshops or from our website:
https://bansheepress.org/shop/p/harbour-doubts-by-bebe-ashley

17/06/2025

Bebe Ashley reads from and talks about Harbour Doubts on last Sunday's episode of Poetry People on RTE Radio 1:

This Father's Day, Poetry People with Rachael Hegarty celebrates dads everywhere with heartfelt poems by Thomas McCarthy and Ross Thompson who talk about their new collections.

12/06/2025

'I have layered you onto the canvas,
full magentas and yellows and pinks,
then scraped you away – pared

back to some essential silence.'

From issue 7 (autumn/winter 2018), poetry by Jane Robinson:

I’ve carried you down into the hall and painted you again on a six-foot canvas, your right toe testing the waters of a pool in blues so dense they’ve hollowed a place on the linen threads, carved out a bottomless pond. By sheep-bitten grass and bog cotton, a hinted road stretches, empty.

12/06/2025

Listen to this brilliant interview with Mary Morrissy about and Bloomsday on The Bookshelf on ABC Australia:

A guide to James Joyce from Irish writer Mary Morrissy, ahead of Bloomsday (16 June); New Zealand writer Becky Manawatu continues to explore howls of pain and compassion in her second novel, Kataraina; and magic realism in the boundaries between life and death, and Eastern Europe, in Helen Marshall'...

06/06/2025

We hope you can join us for the launch of Bebe Ashley's stunning second collection of poems, HARBOUR DOUBTS, on Thursday 26 June at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Belfast! It starts at 6pm with the excellent Dawn Watson introducing Bebe's reading. All are welcome! ✨

Join us for a celebration of Bebe Ashley's second poetry collection published by Banshee Press which explores sign language and longing.

30/05/2025

'You begin without a story, a blank slate intaking the world with gulping eyes. For a moment, you are nameless. There’s a time where you don’t know the colour of your hair or the moles on your skin. Your body feels blank, unimportant, it’s not yet yours to customize.'

From issue 18 (now sold out), 'New Game / Options / Quit', a personal essay by Claire Watson about gaming, the body, and adolescence:

There is nothing. It’s the body without being, and being without a body the nothing is limitless. Flesh turned to pixels, being is malleable. You can begin by forgetting yourself. Discard the name, the feel of blood around bones under skin, the sound of your voice still lingering on your lips. We....

27/05/2025

Congratulations to Gustav Parker Hibbett on their latest triumph: High Jump as Icarus Story has been shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize for a First Collection! We're so proud of the incredible impact that this book has made. Many thanks to the Seamus Heaney Centre and the judges for including Parker on this wonderful shortlist ✨

The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize, supported by Atlantic Philanthropies.