March 21, 2017, reading at Boston College, and visiting Prof. Jim Smith’s READING IRISH CHILDHOOD class.
August 1st, 2016 Irish news site The Journal publishes Connie’s article ‘One way of healing yourself is to own your own story’: Growing up in an abusive home
April 19, 2016 Emmanuel Touhey reviews Little Witness for Irish Central.
April, 2016 Connie was selected as the Exceptional Offaly Person of the Year 2016. She will be presented with her award at the Tullamore Show on August 14th, 2016.
April 12, 2016 Emmanuel Touhey reviewed Little Witness in the Irish Times: “Connie Roberts, a poetic witness who will not be silenced”.
April 7, 2016 Little Witness was reviewed by Brian F. McCabe in the Notre Dame Irish Studies journal Breac: “A call to bear witness, brazen”
March 5, 2016 Rick O’Shea interviewed Connie for the RTE Radio One Poetry Programme.
January 2016 she was the recipient of the 2016 Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship Award, worth 8,000 euros.
January 2016 Little Witness was shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Poetry Award at the Mountains to Sea dlr Book Festival, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin.
October 31, 2015 John McAuliffe reviewed Little Witness in the Irish Times.
September 10, 2015 The New York Times published a profile of Connie: “A Poet Shaped By a Bleak Childhood in Ireland”.
May 2016 Arlen House, Ireland published Connie’s debut poetry collection, Little Witness. There were book launches at Listowel Writers’ Week, Kerry and Pearse Street Library, Dublin. There was also a New York City launch at the Cell Theater, hosted by Artists Without Walls.
April 17, 2015 The Bogman’s Cannon website published the poem “Inheritance”.
November 8, 2014 Connie was a featured poet—along with poets Terrence Winch and Sean Nevin—at the Annual American Irish Teachers Association’s 2014 National Conference, NYC: Well Versed: A Celebration of Poetry from Ireland and America Once again she collaborated with the premier uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan and the Irish singer/songwriter, and Artists Without Walls co-founder, Niamh Hyland.
October 2014 the poem “The Potato Picker and the TV Rental Man” was shortlisted for the Allingham Arts Festival Poetry Competition. Donegal, Ireland. Judge: Monica Corish.
September 2014 the poem “Wounds” was shortlisted for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award. Galway, Ireland. Judge: Eleanor Hooker.
August 2014 the poem “The Cardigan” was longlisted for the Dermot Healy International Poetry Competition. Leitrim, Ireland. Judge: Paula Meehan.
July 2014 the poem “Seeing” won the Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition. Roscommon, Ireland. Judge: Michael O’Dea.
July 2014 the poem “Oasis” received the Highly Commended Award in the International iYeats Poetry Competition. Sligo, Ireland. Judges: Peter Sirr and Catherine Phil McCarthy.
January 2014 the poem “Pallas Lake” was shortlisted for the North West Words Poetry Prize. Donegal, Ireland. Judge: Kate Newmann.
Summer 2013 a three-poem manuscript was shortlisted for the Fermoy International Poetry Competition. Cork, Ireland. Judge: Noel King.
Summer 2013 the poem “The Cardigan” received the Highly Commended Award in the International iYeats Poetry Competition. Sligo, Ireland. Judges: James Harpur and Katie Donovan.
Spring 2013 the poem “Seeing” was longlisted for the Fish International Poetry Competition. Cork, Ireland. Judge: Paul Durcan.
January 2013 two poems were shortlisted for the North West Words Poetry Prize. Donegal, Ireland. Judge: Kate Newmann.
The manuscript Omphalos won the 2013 Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Award. Kerry, Ireland. Judge: Moya Cannon.
Fall 2012 the poem “Altar” was cited in the doctoral dissertation “A Discourse Analysis of the Ryan Report: The Construction of Children in Care in Irish Social Policy”, Cullen, Caroline, Cork University, Ireland.
Summer 2012 the manuscript Good-for-Nothing Irish Blues was shortlisted for the Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Award. Judge: Moya Cannon.
March 2012 the Irish Echo—the USA’s most widely read Irish-American newspaper—published: Survivor Roberts is Prize-winning Poet, March 14-20, 2012, Vol. 85, No. 11.
August 2011/12 Connie served as judge for the annual Tullamore Show Poetry Competition, Ireland. Offaly, Ireland.
September 2011 she was selected—along with former New York Governor David Patterson—as a recipient of the George M. Estabrook Distinguished Service Award at Hofstra University.
March 2011 she was nominated for the Hofstra “Making Herstory” Award.
March 2011 the Irish Arts Council awarded her a Literature Bursary Award.
December 2010 The Irish Times, New York Newsday and The Westmeath Independent published articles about her Patrick Kavanagh Award win.
December 20, 2010 she was a guest on BBC Radio Ulster’s Arts Extra program.
November 2010 the book-length manuscript Not the Delft School won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Monaghan, Ireland. Judge: Brian Lynch.
October 2010 she won first prize in the Dromineer Literary Festival Poetry Competition. Tipperary, Ireland. Judge: Dave Lordan.
June 2010 she was shortlisted for the Swift Satire Contest. County Meath, Ireland.
May 2010 she was awarded a space in the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. Dublin, Ireland.
2008 she was nominated for the Hennessy X.O. Literary Awards. Dublin, Ireland.
Spring 2007 she received the Mid-Island Jewish Community Center Poetry Award. Plainview, New York.
November 2007 her manuscript Not the Delft School placed second in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award Competition. Monaghan, Ireland. Judges: Theo Dorgan and Paula Meehan.
2003 a 10-page manuscript earned the distinction of being a finalist in the Dana Awards. North Carolina, USA.
2002 she secured a spot at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Vermont.
Spring 2002 a 10-page manuscript was selected as a semi-finalist in the “Discovery”/The Nation contest. New York. Judges: Paul Muldoon, Carolyn Forche, and Catherine Bowman.
2002 a manuscript was in the “top 5% of 1,500 poets” in the International Davoren Hanna Poetry Competition. Dublin, Ireland. Judge: Charles Simic.
Spring 2001 she was a finalist in the Strokestown International Poetry Competition. Roscommon, Ireland. Judges: Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, P.J. Kavanagh, and Robert Welch.
Spring 2000 a 10-page poetry manuscript was selected as a semi-finalist in the “Discovery”/The Nation poetry contest. New York. Judges: Mark Doty, Marie Howe, and Susan Mitchell.
READINGS
Throughout the years, Connie has read her work at many venues, including the Irish Writers’ Centre, Dublin, the 92nd St. Y, NYC, Hofstra University, the Cell Theatre, NYC, Strokestown Park House, and the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, Monaghan.
Four years in a row (2000 – 2003), she was invited by the poet-in-residence of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, Molly Peacock, to read a canto of Dante’s “Inferno” at the Annual Marathon Reading on Maundy Thursday.
June 2003 she was invited to read Molly Bloom’s monologue from Joyce’s Ulysses at the Annual Bloomsday Celebration at The Roger Smith Hotel in New York City.
Spring 2010 she collaborated with America’s premier uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan in The Poet & the Piper concert at the Cultural Center Theater, Hofstra Univesity, as part of Hofstra’s Irish Studies Program.
April 2010—and again in Spring 2013—she coordinated and participated in an evening dedicated to Seamus Heaney at Hofstra: “Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous”.
Site by Eileen McKenna
Connie Roberts Poet 