Stephen Byrne was born in north Dublin and now lives in Chicago. He is an award winning writer and won the RL Poetry Award, 2016 in the international category, selected by Vinita Agrawal, and a Finalist in the Poetry category of the 2018 “International Book Awards” He is also a Pushcart-nominated author 2020.
He is a Chef with over 20 years experience and has worked in Galway, Australia and Canada and lived in San Francisco. His poetry, food writings and articles have appeared in many journals and magazines worldwide in print or online including The Indian Review, The Poetry Bus, Galway Review, The Blue Hour, Boyne Berries, RædLeafPoetry-India and many more.
His work has also been translated into Russian for the Nasha Gazeta journal and newspaper, Dublin edition, and into Italian for Inkroci Magazine Italy.
He was runner up in the 2016 ‘Over the Edge’ poetry competition, he was also shortlisted for The Redline Book Festival Poetry Competition 2014 as well as shortlisted 2011/2016 and longlisted 2014 for ‘Over the Edge’ Poetry competition, and recently selected for the TCK Productions competition in London.
In 2012 he collaborated with 6 Galway based poets known collectively as ‘The Tuesday Knights’ on an poetry anthology called Wayword Tuesdays including a local based artist and photographer. The book was short listed for Writing Magazines Writers’ Circle Anthology Award.
Stephen has participated in workshops with Kevin Higgins, Karen Solie, Simon Armitage, Maggie Queeney, Stephen Murray, Jane Hirshfield, Marvin Bell and Robert Hass and has studied ‘How Writers Write Poetry’ with The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program 2014 as well as 2015 and also ‘Modern & Contemporary American Poetry’ by University of Pennsylvania.
He has read at many venues throughout Ireland including Ó Bhéal, The Long Valley Bar, Cork, Over the Edge in Galway, The Playhouse Derry, Northwest Words in Donegal, The Redline Book Festival Dublin, Cuirt Literature Festival in the Roisin Dubh and recently Rhino Reads, Kafein on Chicago Avenue, Evanston, US.
Stephen has also guest edited for Scissors & Spackle and Emerge Literary Journal under the careful guidance and patience of Ariana D. Den Bleyker. He was also an Associate editor with ELJ Publications.
Recently, he has started contributing recipes and food articles to the popular This is Galway website.
He has also recently set up his own Personal Chef business, house calls, works shops and classes. Check out his website at Odes of Food.com
His award winning poetry collection ‘Somewhere but not Here’ was published in 2017 by the RædLeaf Foundation for Poetry & Allied Arts and is available here.
You can contact him here or in many of the usual social media hangouts you can see up above.