No Alibis Bookstore is delighted to announce an evening with Milena Williamson as we launch her debut poetry collection ‘Into the Night that Flies So Fast’. Join us for what is sure to be an unforgettable event.

Book your FREE ticket here

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/no-alibis-bookstore-ltd/t-vvkajdv

In Into the Night that Flies So Fast, the debut
collection of poems from Belfast-based Milena
Williamson, the speaker journeys to the small County
Tipperary village of Ballyvadlea, to investigate the life
and death of Bridget Cleary, in 1895 burned to death
by her family on suspicion of being a fairy changeling.
Fusing docupoetry and true crime, travelogue and
drama, the book introduces a compelling cast of
characters as the ill-fated Bridget, her family and
members of her community all come onstage to give
their versions of events. In the ‘Interval’ of this play for
voices, the speaker herself draws back from Bridget’s
story to reflect on her own new life in Ireland, on the
relationships and journey that have brought her to
this interrogation of one of the darkest episodes in
Ireland’s past.

“In this shape-shifting narrative, not only do we meet Bridget Cleary, the woman inside the poet’s head, but we are also given a startling glimpse of how aspects of Cleary’s story reverberate into today; of other voices that will always be an absence. A brilliant debut.”—Moyra Donaldson

“A lyrical gymnast… ” —Rosamund Taylor

Milena Williamson is from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and has lived in
Belfast since 2017. She has a PhD in poetry from the Seamus Heaney
Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. A recipient of the Eric
Gregory Award, she published her debut pamphlet Charm for
Catching a Train in 2022 (Green Bottle Press). Her writing about
Bridget Cleary has been supported by the Arts Council of Northern
Ireland and the Ireland Chair of Poetry.