Published in 2005 by Scallta Media, Paul coordinated and designed this collection of new writings from County Wexford, Ireland.
This publication grew quite naturally from the many Launch Pad nights that have place at various venues in Enniscorthy between 2003 and the present. Launch Pad’s mission is to provide a platform for aspiring writers in the area where they can meet to play their songs and tunes, read their poems, stories, and memoirs. It is essential that we provide venues for artists where they can gather and allow their work out into the world. Failure to do this may push them under-the-radar: all of us believe that what we write should be heard and read. It is a triumph of Launch Pad that it has managed to provide not just a series of places where people can gather to listen and perform, but also places of such warm ambience and understated style. Also, Launch Pad evenings, despite their serious intentions, are fun and full of moments of wild humour where everyone can feel comfortable. Aspiring artists, unlike sportsmen and women, are not confined by age and in this way those that have appeared at the events, and are part of this collection, truly reflect the community’s demographics. Another feature of our evenings has been the time given to the project by writers who have already been widely published and this has helped Launch Pad develop. For this publication, I have gathered together submissions from many who took part in the evenings, from those who participated in the July 2004 poetry and fiction workshops, and from others who will read with us at the launch of this publication for the first time. Our writers have their fingers on the pulses of both our history and our present, let us hear and read what it is they have to say today.
Eamonn Wall