In this final episode of the podcast for this academic semester, we are joined by the poet Nidhi Zak/ Aria Eipe. Her first poetry collection, Auguries of a Minor God(2021), was selected as a Book of the Year by The Irish Times and The Irish Independent and was shortlisted for major poetry prizes such as the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Butler Literary Award. She is a Global Peace Ambassador with the Institute for Economics and Peace, and a recipient of the Next Generation Artist Award in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland. Born in India, Nidhi has lived across The Middle East, Europe and North America, an upbringing that has informed the variety of styles and forms that she works within. During the episode, she discusses a workshop on ekphrastic poetry that she ran at SETU Waterford thanks to funding from the Strategic Alignment for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) from the National Forum. The session used ekphrastic poetry as a way of asking participants to reconsider their perspectives on the world around them, and Nidhi discusses the role of her own poetry in asking questions (rather than offering answers) in times of personal, social and political upheaval.

In this episode of the podcast, we are joined by poet and essayist Gustav Parker Hibbett whose debut poetry collection, High Jump As Icarus Story was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the 2025 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize. Nominated for numerous other prizes and published in a wide range of literary magazines, they hold a BA in English from Stanford University and are currently pursuing a PhD in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin, where they are an Early Career Research Fellow at the Long Room Hub. Parker gave a talk on their poetry at SETU in March and was interviewed by two final year English students, Chika Dike and Naoise Murphy, who also join the discussion in studio along with Dr Christa de Brún who organised the event.

This event was made possible through funding from the National Forum’s Strategic Alignment of Teaching Learning Enhancement.

This episode of the podcast follows on from a visit by the author Jan Carson to Waterford as part of the Creative Ireland Shared Island initiative. This project is a collaboration between Mid and East Antrim Borough Councils and Waterford City and County Council who are aiming to develop and enhance a shared sense of community through various means, one of which is creativity and literature. Jan gave a talk at SETU, entitled, “Untangling the Knots of Northern Identity” which explored her identity as a Northern Protestant who identifies as an Irish writer.

Jan’s novel The Raptures was published in 2022 and was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year award and the Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her novel The Fire Starters won the 2019 EU Prize for Literature for Ireland. She has written a number of short story collections, and her writing has been featured on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and on RTÉ. She has most recently worked alongside Duke Special in adapting The Velveteen Rabbit for the stage and the run begins this month at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. Her next novel, Few and Far Between, will be released next year.

The episode also features Katherine Collins, the Creative Ireland Coordinator in Waterford who discusses the value of the Shared Island project and the power of the arts in helping us to understand one another better.

In this episode, Jenny is joined by Dr Hazel Farrell and Dr Don O’Neill of the Sustainability in the Arts Festival to talk about winning the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) Impact Award and to offer an overview of this year’s festival, which will take place from 7th – 11th April. The SATLE Impact prize money of €25,000 will help to expand the work of the previous two festivals which involved multidisciplinary collaborations between undergraduate and postgraduate students from a variety of disciplines across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities such as Music, Visual Art, Graphic Design, Culinary Arts, Languages and Internationalisation. The aim of the festival is for students to explore the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the event will take place across all SETU campuses in Waterford, Carlow and Wexford.

This very special episode features members of the English and Theatre Studies teaching team at SETU who share their innovative approaches to teaching and research. In studio with Jenny are Dr Kate McCarthy, Dr Christa de Brún, Dr Úna Kealy, Dr Helena Walsh-Kiely and Deirdre Grant who each bring a variety of skills and to their roles. During the episode, we discuss approaches to teaching and learning, the team’s ongoing research and creative work, and what we love about our jobs and our students!

Every year, we try to do an episode in which staff from various departments within SETU give us their recommendations for good Christmas reads and activities, and this year is no different! In this episode, Jenny is joined by Neill Wylie, a Learning Technologist from the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning, Dr Caroline McGarry from the School of Education and Dr Felicity Kelliher, a Professor of Management Practice and Academic Lead at the RIKON Centre. Featuring books by Irish authors, and events, activities and products for you to savour during the festive season, this is a must-listen for anyone looking for gift inspiration and some Christmas cheer!

Recently featured in The Sunday Times’ Christmas gift guide, The World Between the Rain is a new children’s book by debut author Susan Cahill. A story that plays out themes of grief and resilience within a swirling, watery adventure set in another world, it has at its centre a quiet girl called Marina who can’t shake the feeling that there is magic in the air around her. Susan herself couldn’t quite shake this story that rattled around in her head as she became more and more successful in the world of academia, ultimately reaching a tenured position as Associate Professor of Irish Studies in Concordia University, Montreal. In the episode, she talks about leaving this permanent position behind in order to pursue writing full-time, the long process of writing the book and her own podcast, Storyshaped, which focuses on the stories that shape the people we become.

In this episode of the podcast, Jenny chats to Dr Renée Hulan, a Professor of English Language and Literature at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. She was the Craig Dobbin Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies at University College Dublin in 2020-2021 and has written several books that bring together her interests in climate fiction, Canadian heritage and indigenous communities. She has also edited collections on these themes and recently gave a fascinating online lecture at South East Technological University, entitled “To bring the breathing world close: Reading Cli-Fi from Canada” which was run in conjunction with the Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies at SETU.