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Seren News May 2014

AmeriCymru » Blog » Blogging » Seren News May 2014

2015-12-02
By: Ceri Shaw
Posted in: Blogging

We have Hay fever! And not the runny nose, red eyed kind! May can only mean one thing: The annual Hay literature festival.

Seren Authors At Hay

This years festival promises to be a scorcher, with plenty of Seren authors discussing their fantastic books. Tiffany Murray gives us a fright with her new ghost story Sugar Hall , Shani Rhys James talks art and poetry with Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke and Francesca Rhydderch and Jim Saunders tells us a little more about the festival town of Hay.

Sat 24^th May, Emma Healey and Tiffany Murray – Fictions Memory Tiffany Murray and Emma Healey talk about the disturbance of the past in Fictions Memory. Tiffany's chilling new novel, Sugar Hall, sees Lilia Sugar and her children uncover a past hidden deep within the red gardens of Sugar Hall. Based on the stories of the slave boy that surround Littledean Hall in the Forest of Dean, this is a truly spooky tale.
10 AM GOOD ENERGY STAGE £5
Tues 27^th May, Tishani Doshi, Owen Sheers and Fflur Dafydd – The Women in the Mabinogion Doshi, Sheers and Dafydd talk about the leading ladies in their Mabinogion re-tellings.
5.30 PM GOOD ENERGY STAGE £5

Wednesday 28^th May, Shani Rhys James, Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke and Francesca Rhydderch – Florilingua A celebration of art and poetry. Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke read work that responds to the characteristic wild wallpapers and menacing chandeliers of Rhys James’ new touring exhibition of paintings.
8.30PM STARLIGHT STAGE £7

Saturday 31^st May, Jim Saunders – Hay: Landscape, Literature and the Town of Books Jim Saunders has lived and worked for 25 years in the border country around Hay. In this, his third book, he homes in on the town itself, along with the landscapes, literature and people of this most beautiful part of Britain.
9AM OXFAM MOOT £6

Sunday 1^st June, Matthew Francis and Rhian Elizabeth – Deeply Unreliable Narrators Rhian elizabeth and Matthew Francis talk unreliable narrators. In her debut novel, Six Pounds Eight Ounces , Rhian opens up Hannah King's Diary on to her crazy world of glitter and glam rock, candy-floss and serial killers, but beware, not all of Hannah's stories are strictly true...
4PM THE CUBE £5

In addition, Patrick McGuinness, Cynan Jones, Peter Finch, Horatio Clare, Rhian Edwards and Damian Walford-Davies will all be at this year's festival.

To see the full program or to book tickets visit www.hayfestival.com

Sleeping With Rivers by Cath Drake is the PBS Spring pamphlet choice.

Cath Drake's prize winning pamphlet, Sleeping with Rivers has been chosen as the Poetry Book Society's Spring pamphlet choice. Sleeping with Rivers , inspired by the poet's native Australia, has already picked up the Mslexia pamphlet prize, with judge Amy Wack saying "The manuscript that kept sifting to the top, Sleeping with Rivers by Cath Drake, is simply full of gorgeous poems... I started to love these poems from the very first line of the first poem".
Cath will be reading alongside Pascale Petit and Mimi Kahlvati on 7th June, 3-5pm at The Betsey Trotwood pub in Clerkenwell, London.
Sleeping With Rivers is available to order from our website.

Featured Fiction

Six Pounds Eight Ounces

Rhian Elizabeth £8.99 Hannah King is a liar, so everyone says. That means her stories of growing up in the Rhondda, as told in Six Pounds Eight Ounces , must be treated with caution. Debut novelist Rhian Elizabeth opens Hannah’s notebook up on her own little world of crazy friends and crazy family, and a crazy school with crazy teachers who aren’t always what they seem. From dolls and sherbet lemons, to a bright student who drops out of school in favour of drink, drugs and glam rock up on an estate which feels like another planet, Hannah, it seems, has always been trouble.

Seren Tip: Don't miss the launch , 16th May, 7pm, Chapter Arts Center, Cardiff

Featured Poetry

Boom!

Carolyne Jess-Cooke £9.99 Boom! charts the rollercoaster journey of motherhood from conception, throughout pregnancy, birth, and parenthood. It explores the effects of each of these experiences on the female body, on a woman’s psychology, character, spirituality, political views and the way she regards the female in society. It also charts the impact of motherhood on the relationship between the parents, freighted as it is by new responsibility and by two people who are no longer the same, changed forever by the birth.

Coming Soon

The Hitting Game Graham Clifford
May 2014 £9.99 The Hitting Game is the first collection of poems by Graham Clifford. These are poems full of unexpected dramas and fresh enchantments, they provoke as well as delight.

Sugar Hall Tiffany Murray
May 2014 £14.99 Hardback On the very edge of the English/Welsh border, the red gardens of Sugar Hall hold a secret, and as Britain prepares for its last hanging, Lilia and her children must confront a history that has been buried but not forgotten.

The Girl Who Lived on Air Stephen Wade
May 2014 £9.99 The mysterious story of the Welsh fasting girl. Sarah Jacob seems to live without food, astounding doctors, the church and a news-hungry society. What is the truth behind her fascinating and moving story?

Events

Graham Clifford, The Hitting Game launch, 13th May, London Join Graham Clifford for the launch of his fantastic debut collection, The Hitting Game on 13th May at the William Morris Gallery in London. The Hitting Game is the first collection of poems by the London-based poet. The vibrancy of the voice and the immediacy of his claims upon our attention are clear. These are poems full of unexpected dramas and fresh enchantments, they provoke as well as delight.
The event is free to attend, although space is limited. Email sarahdavies@serenbooks.com to reserve your place.
Rhian Elizabeth, Six Pounds Eight Ounces launch 16th May, Cardiff Rhian Elizabeth opens Hannah King' diary on to her crazy life of glitter, glam rock, candy-floss and lies as told in Six Pounds Eight Ounces. Friday 16th May, 7.00pm. Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Cardiff. The event is free to attend and everyone is welcome.
Tiffany Murray, Sugar Hall launch, 22nd May, London Tiffany Murray unearths the secrets buried deep within the red gardens of Sugar Hall on 22nd May, 6:30pm at Daunt Books, Holland Park Avenue, London. Based on the stories of the slave boy that surround Littledean Hall in the Forest of Dean, this book will send a shiver up your spine. Pillows for hiding behind not included.
RSVP: sarahdavies@serenbooks.com

Poem of the Month

This month's poem comes from The Hitting Game , by Graham Clifford. Don't miss his launch on the 13th May!
The Oxygen Thieves
When she teaches about tenths
or silt in the slow-bending Severn
it is to the space above each
as if the adults they will be are there,
grown up phantoms
stood behind their earlier selves
and she can see the future ghosts
so addresses them
not the oxygen thieves
yawning like cats in front of her.
She tells me that sometimes they come back.
She laughs and says how, usually
the very worst slope in vapid
with the fatigue of work, or of no work,
and apologise, eyebrows high, and promise
that if they ever get anything
they’ll leave it to her in their will
and if they could only have it all over
they would – they swear on their lives – sit still.

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