Rita Ann Higgins


Rita Ann Higgins is an Irish poet and playwright.

Early life

A native of Ballybrit, Galway, Higgins was one of thirteen children in a working-class household. She went to Briarhill National School, and Sisters of Mercy Convent, Galway. She married in 1973 but following the birth of her second child in 1977, contracted tuberculosis, forcing her to spend an extended period in a sanatorium.
While confined, she began reading, and took to composing poems. She joined the Galway Writers' Workshop in 1982. Jessie Lendennie, editor of Salmon Publishing, encouraged Higgins and oversaw the publication of her first five collections.

Career

Higgins was Galway County's Writer-in-Residence in 1987, Writer in Residence at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 1994–95, Writer in Residence for Offaly County Council in 1998–99. She was Green Honors Professor at Texas Christian University, in October 2000. Other awards include a Peadar O'Donnell Award in 1989, several Arts Council bursaries 'Sunny Side Plucked' was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She was made an honorary fellow at Hong Kong Baptist University November 2006.

Personal life

Higgins is a member of Aosdána, though the group turned her down five times previously. She cites the feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the Irish Republican, Mary MacSwiney, as role models. She lives in Galway and An Spidéal

Poetry