Another Seven Towers monthly ‘Last Wednesday Open Mic’ arrives 5 minutes aftet the last one.. or it seems like that! Plenty of talent on displayin the Twisted Pepper Cafe in Dublin. Oran Ryan led off with a new prose piece, followed by Helen Dempsey, Roger Hudson and Steve Conway,  also with new work. Steve’s piece was subtitled ‘All I Learned about Radio I learned by Screwing It Up, but of course he was being modest (?). A very emotive poem from Ann Tannem took us all by surprise, she being usually more understated in her work. But the subject (child abuse) deserved every bit of her direct treatment. Very sharp stuff. Silence followed. Then great applause.

Phil Lynch gave some older poems and some new and Sandra Harris gave a story which (I thought) derailed itself a bit into another story. One was a searing satire on

the seemingly never-ending stream of people who think they can write as as opposed those those who actually can (and do) which was really good, but which then turned into a satire on the X-Facor TV programme, also very good but, to my mind, a different story. More work then from Liam Ryan, Neville Keary and  Bob Shakeshaft. Had to leave after Eileen Keane’s story ‘Boy on a Window Ledge’. (When is Eileen’s story collection coming out? It’s time). Apologies to the rest of the great cast of ‘The July Seven Towers Last Wednesday’. The next one in August will arive in about 10 minutes from now…