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The Seedy Side Of Life In Rural Wales

''A friend is a good egg, even if they are slightly cracked - blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light''

Buy ''Blessed Are The Cracked'' here

Read our review here

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AmeriCymru: Hi Delphine and many thanks for agreeing to talk to AmeriCymru. Care to introduce your recent book in general terms for our readers?

Delphine: My new book Blessed Are The Cracked is the first in a planned series of three set in the fictional west Wales farming community of Llanefa and featuring retired detective Tegwyn Prydderch. It has been described as ''dark crime'' with some disturbing scenes. A reviewer wondered if tourists would think twice about holidaying in west Wales after reading this!

AmeriCymru: 'Blessed Are The Cracked'' consists of a series of five novellas and two short stories. Why did you choose this unusual literary configuration?

Delphine: The novella is making a bit of a comeback by all accounts and this appealed to me as I have enjoyed a few ''shorter'' novels. I read somewhere that people lead such busy lives these days that they don''t want to commit themselves to a very long novel and I thought it was worth trying. However, my courage failed me when I thought about writing a single novella as I''m not convinced that such a work by an unknown writer would hit its mark. I have enjoyed books such as ''A Visit From The Goon Squad'' (Jennifer Egan) and ''Hearts In Atlantis'' (Stephen King), where a series of novellas were combined and inter-linked through characters and over several decades. The more I thought about it, the more apt this seemed for ''Blessed''. I pretty well let the stories set their own length which explains why they range from 10,000 to 22,000 words (for the novellas). Of the two short stories, ''The Family Man'' just seemed right at its length but ''The Perfect Wife'' wanted to run for longer. I decided against it because it is written entirely in dialect and, although I can hear the voice clearly in my head, I wondered if readers would find it difficult to follow if it went on for many more pages.

AmeriCymru: We know that you draw on your experience as a police officer in rural Wales for inspiration. Can we ask if there are any particular cases which are reflected in the stories in ''Blessed''? One shudders to think that the events related in ''Donald''s Cat'' for instance, might have had a basis in fact.

Delphine: Sadly, abuse is common to all police officers, so there is nothing in those stories that I have not dealt with at some time. ''Donald''s Cat'' (Donald is named after my horse, by the way!) is not based entirely on real events but I have had dealings with people becoming trapped in some way - with varying outcomes. As far as the explosives store is concerned, at one point I was involved with going to inspect explosives stores at local privately owned coal mines. They had a regular inspection by police and the security aspect was very rigorous - the earth bank for instance, as mentioned in the story, was a definite guideline. I am a bit claustrophobic and it used to make my hair stand on end every time I saw the explosives store and I used to wonder how awful it would be to become trapped in one.

The story that mimics real life the closest is ''Heatwave (Tegwyn''s Story)'' which was extremely similar to an event I remember as a young teenager. My father worked for the Electrici ty Board and he came home one day and told us about a Meter Reader who had been attacked by a hippy on drugs (though not to the extent it happens in the book). There had also been a murder there that day. It was a big wake-up call to all of us who lived in the area and had never had to lock our doors and cars.

AmeriCymru: ''Blessed Are The Cracked'' is a superb title. How did you come by it?

Delphine: Much as I would love to take the credit for this, ''Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light'' is a quote from Groucho Marx. When I was halfway through writing this book, I had a jokey email from a friend. It showed animals and people doing the daftest things. It contained that quote and then added ''A friend is a good egg, even if they are slightly cracked - blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light''. The email formed part of the story where Kay receives it from her best friend - the reasons becoming apparent as the story continues! It sort of stuck in my mind and I eventually changed the title to its present form. Strangely enough, the first thing people say is how much they love the title - it has convinced me that I made the right decision! I think it also sums up its slightly off-beat tone.

AmeriCymru: You will be visiting the US in the near future. Can you tell us more about your itinerary?

Delphine: Having never been on a plane until 1998, I have found that I love travelling! A major operation prior to that date made it impossible to fly, so when that medical decision was turned around, there was no holding us back. My husband and I have been to the US twice before but I have never been to New York. So, next April, we are going to an event and meeting up with friends at Lancaster, Pennsylvania but going to New York first. I''m hoping that there will be some interest in my book and I will be able to sell/sign a few while there.

AmeriCymru: Do you read crime fiction? If so, who? What other genres or authors currently interest you?

Delphine: I have a fairly varied choice of reading. I love Nicci French, Sophie Hannah, Ruth Rendell (especially Rendell''s non-Wexford novels - she always creates some kind of weirdo that hooks me like a magnet!). I''m reading a Jodi Picoult book at the moment - I came across her books in South Africa three years ago and I am working my way through them. You will not be surprised to hear that I also like Elmore Leonard - thank you for your kind review on that topic! I am also a huge Stephen King fan - will I sound like a stalker if I say I''ve had a photo taken outside his house? (But, hey, he''s welcome to come and have a photo taken outside MY house!)

AmeriCymru: We know that you are currently working on a follow up to ''Blessed Are The Cracked". Care to tell us more?

Delphine: The follow up to Blessed is to be a complete full length novel rather than the series of novellas (unless I am convinced to do otherwise). I am already well into it though as it goes back a year or two before Blessed, I''m constantly checking the timeline - not as easy it sounds - some characters just WANT to be there but when I check, they''ve already been killed off!

The third book (optimism is a fine quality in a writer, don''t you think?), goes forward to events that Tegwyn Prydderch becomes involved with after Blessed. I''m hoping that Blessed continues to sell well enough to make these two ''new'' books a reality. So far, Blessed has reached No 36 in the Amazon Top 100 in its category, but there is a long way to go yet! Check out the link to my author page and details on Cambria Books or Literature Wales and look up Writers'' Database.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Delphine: I think it''s great that a country the size of the US has some affinity with Wales (which is only slightly bigger than New Hampshire, I believe). If American readers are supporting Welsh writers by buying their books, then I feel very humbled and grateful. I also hope that writers can give something back to those who live in the US but are ''missing'' Wales. Diolch i chi gyd.

Delphine Richards.

Terry became a full-time writer after a career in industry and academia. He has more than forty books to his credit, many of them about Wales. Terry has appeared at the North American Festival of Wales in Vancouver and Washington. We spoke to Terry about his writing career and future plans.

Buy Terry''s latest book ''The Physicians Of Myddfai'' here.

More Books by Terry Breverton

For more from Terry Breverton on AmeriCymru check out the links below.

AmeriCymru:  We learn from your biography that you have written more than 40 books on a wide range of topics. How do you pick your subjects?

Terry:   When I returned to Wales to live, I could find no books to tell my children why I felt Welsh – anything to instil pride in them. I tried to stimulate interest in a Welsh encyclopaedia, with no response, so I wrote An A-Z of Wales and the Welsh, which copied extensively by authors in following years. It was a major problem, taking over 4 years to get it published, so it was outdated and also unknowingly bowdlerised. I had been a management consultant in the production industry, and a marketing director of plcs, so I realised that publishing was not rocket science.

Keeping my normal jobs as a university lecturer and management consultant, I also began a small publishing company, Glyndwr Publishing, to publish my books and those of other Welshmen who could not get great non-fiction books upon Wales published. I’m quite proud of what I achieved, but now concentrate upon writing only, as time is running out and there’s so much to write about. I’m 67, and I want to write another 16-17 books, including a definitive one on Arthur, but that is so convoluted that it’ll take at least two years, although I have almost all the materials.
AmeriCymru:  Looking through your titles it would certainly appear that Welsh history and culture have provided your main focus. Would you agree?

Terry:   Definitely – most people do not know that British history was rewritten by Bishop Stubbs to bolster the Hanover dynasty. George I was 58 ^th in line to the throne and was a princeling from a tiny country the size of the Isle of Wight. History was altered to take out the native Christian Britons and define its success as the greatest empire the world has seen as stemming from the pagan Germanic invasion of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes etc.

Today’s history taught in schools and colleges reflects this opinion that there was nothing except the Romans and Anglo-Saxons before the Norman invasion. Even in Wales, there is no history taught about the British, i.e. Welsh people. Much of the scorn for Iolo Morganwg stems from people being taught the Angle, i.e. English version of history. Welsh academics follow an out-dated English propaganda version of history. Our politicians follow the same line – it’s almost as if we should be grateful to the English for ‘civilizing’ us, whereas the reality is the reverse. We had over a thousand saints before they were even Christianised.
AmeriCymru:  In the foreword to ''The Welsh: A Biography'' you state that the book is ''....a deliberate attempt to rewrite our national history''. Why in your opinion has it been necessary to do this?

Terry:   As I noted in your last question, historians are too afraid to upset the apple cart. They are also often not taught to see the big picture. Most academics, whether in engineering, physics, English or history, are specialists in their subject areas, but it normally takes people from outside a specialism to make breakthroughs or see something differently. My book Breverton’s Encyclopaedia of Inventions showed that it was thinkers, not academics, who changed society.

History across the world is written by the conquerors. Colonial nations like Wales are taught to accept a different version of history to the historical truth. France and England have very different historical books upon the relations between those countries. The English people think that they always beat the French in battle but the reverse is true. The French people believe in the myth of the Resistance. The French army we rescued at Dunkirk asked to be sent back home and was repatriated as no threat to the Germans, whereas the Poles who managed to escape fought for Britain throughout the war. The French believe that de Gaulle actually achieved something during the war. History is stranger the more you look into it. If you start by questioning everything, you thankfully get some very different conclusions. It helps that I’m reasonably good at languages and look at events from other nations’ perspectives.
AmeriCymru:  You published ''Breverton''s Complete Herbal'' in 2011. Can you introduce this remarkable resource for our readers?

Terry:   I wanted to find a publisher for my newly translated and unexpurgated ‘The Physicians of Myddfai’, but had no joy and ended up doing it through an associated company of Cambria Magazine. In the research, I discovered that Culpeper’s 17 ^th century Herbal had never been out of print, but also had never been updated. Culpeper was an outsider, and I came to identify with him.

He wanted to demystify medicine, and take it out of the hands of expensive doctors, pharmacists and assorted quacks and give it back to the people. He therefore told people all the plant remedies that were used, and where to find the herbs growing. Herbal remedies have been used for millennia, and those in use had often been developed by the Greeks, Arabs or Romans. It is a fascinating area, and there is an interesting interface with modern drug companies.

Many herbal remedies actually work with no side effects, but some have been attacked in the press following ‘scientific evidence’ from researchers in the pay of the drug multinationals. It was a really, really enjoyable project. Also in the other book on the 12 ^th century Myddfai doctors at the court of Rhys Grug of Dinefwr, I found their descendants still practising medicine, including an oncology professor in Seattle! What other country can boast a line of 800 years of doctors in one family? And the original was expurgated – there are over 1000 remedies, but around 40 dealing with sexual diseases were omitted from the last translation in 1861.
AmeriCymru:  One of your books is a biography of renowned Welsh pirate Black Bart - ''Black Bart Roberts: The Greatest Pirate of Them All''. In what sense was Black Bart the greatest pirate of them all?

Terry:   In researching my 100 Great Welshmen, I came across John Callice of Tintern, who was the most well-known pirate of Elizabethan times, but with friends at court. I knew that in the next century, Admiral Sir Henry Morgan was the most successful privateer in history, but in the following century I came across the most astounding character. When we think of pirates we think of Captain Kidd and Blackbeard, but these were minor league. John Robert, aka Black Bart Roberts of Casnewydd Bach, Pembrokeshire, was captured by a fellow Welshman, the remarkable Howell Davis.

When Davis was killed, Roberts was elected captain by the senior crew, the ‘House of Lords’. He almost brought transatlantic shipping to a halt. He attacked heavily-armed French, Portuguese, English and Spanish naval vessels, whereas other pirate captains would flee. He took the King of Portugal’s treasure ship and dressed in scarlet silks for battle. Black Bart took over 400 ships in his short career. A teetotaller, he was trapped in his role, and he was the first to say ‘a short life and a merry one shall be my motto.’ His crews featured in the greatest pirate trial of all time, and in my researches I found that Israel Hands, one of Blackbeard’s crew, sailed with Black Bart before being hung in chains with the other senior crew members. Roberts was a star, worthy of a film.
AmeriCymru:  You have also compiled a Pirate dictionary. Can you give us a few colourful samples of the vernacular?

Terry:   The version in England is called The Pirate Handbook and is much longer, and is full of colourful nautical terms. There are hundreds of vernacular phrases from the seas in common usage, but the one I most enjoyed discovering was ‘wanker’. Dictionaries tells us that this is a fairly modern term of abuse, but the privateer Basil Ringrose wrote a journal around 1680, saying that Spanish prisoners were known as wankers. I believe that it is because so many of them were named Juan-Carlos, and it was a shortening of those Christian names. Thus the ship’s hold was full of Juan-Carloses, over time becoming wankers. You heard it here first…
AmeriCymru:  You have been to the States a few times in the past to speak at NAFOW. Care to comment on those visits?

Terry:   They are brilliant affairs, but celebrate some sort of myth of what Wales was, rather than how it is now. The nation is on its knees with the lowest socio-economic indicators in Europe. I love the concept of NAFOW, but it is fairly tragic that the overwhelming number of people attending are white-haired like myself.

We have a problem across the Western world in that younger people are less and less literate. They have too many distractions to bother with reading, history, heritage and culture. Of course, I’d be the same if I was their generation, constantly scanning my mobile phone or Facebook or Twitter, reading and sending vacuous messages. People of my age grew up with books as their only major form of entertainment. My parents had a TV when I went to university, and it never featured in my life as a source of entertainment until my 30’s. Now people have the latest electronic gadgets, but I got rid of my mobile phone and have no need of any technology except an old television, a landline, fridge-freezer and a 3-year-old laptop computer. I am thought primitive because I do not wish to replace my car, clothes or equipment when there is nothing wrong with them.

I fear for the culture of Wales here in Wales, let alone in North America. The language is dying – forget what Welsh politicians say, they are completely wrong. I moved from Glamorgan to the Ceredigion-Carmarthen border as it was one of the last bastions of the language, but it’s virtually gone here. It is the same across Wales – you hear more foreign voices than Welsh language or accents. The powers-that-be think that because Welsh is taught in schools, it is being used in real life, but in-migration has seen it off. In my country lane only 6 of 38 inhabitants are Welsh, and it’s the same across Wales. 90% of population growth for many years has been from outside Wales, but no-one will speak out.

The non-Welsh population, if you define being Welsh as having Welsh grandparents, is probably over 50%, and growing. The identity of Wales has been lost in my lifetime – R.S. Thomas saw it coming in his poetry. It is really, really sad. Luckily I can speak out about it because I have no need of honours, political advancement or academic preferment. Unluckily, I am powerless to affect anything.
AmeriCymru:   What are you reading at the moment? Any recommendations?

Terry:   I only read for researching books, so my reading list would be quite boring… I have a load of books on the Plantagenets to work through. My favourite poet is Idris Davies, who was very highly rated by T.S. Eliot – his life and work is an example to everyone. His collected poems are utterly brilliant, and define the Great Depression in the mining valleys. Everyone Welsh should read them. To be honest I enjoy reference books – if I see a different bird or plant or visit a new place, I have to find out about them – I don’t like not knowing about things.
AmeriCymru:  What''s next for Terry Breverton? Any new books in the pipeline?

Terry:    There is a semi-hagiographical process going on since they found Richard III’s bones, with cathedrals squabbling for his relics, presumably to attract tourist income. For some reason he has been moved from the status of ‘black king’ to ‘white king’ by recent historical writers. My book Richard III – the King in the Carpark will put him back where he should be, and incidentally promote the misunderstood Henry Tudor, whose army killed Richard at Bosworth. After that I’m doing a history of Welsh rugby. I played until I was 41, and still miss it, but the modern version is far more savage and less spectator and participant-friendly unfortunately.

I’m really tempted to walk the Offa’s Dyke Path staying at pubs, writing about the history of the area, but it would be too expensive in alcohol costs. Also the route of Henry VII from Pembroke to Bosworth – 200 miles – would be a good walk that could be developed for tourism, but I need to find suitable footpaths.

I’d like to write a book upon the stories of the white Indians – basically because there’s a lot of eye-witness accounts of Welsh-speaking Indians which could just possibly be related to Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd. I’m rewriting my The Book of Welsh Saints and The Journal of Lewellin Penrose as well. The problem is that I live on an old farmhouse in the Teifi Valley and it constantly needs work, along with the garden. There aren’t enough hours in the day.
AmeriCymru:  Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Terry:    Wales is being seriously let down by its elected representatives. Education, health and housing are poor and there are no job prospects in the private sector. No-one speaks for the Welsh people, certainly not Plaid Cymru, or Plaid Gwynt as they have come to be known. Tourism is our only remaining industry, not very successful compared to Scotland or Ireland, and the faceless authorities are even trying to wreck that. I tried to get a version of the following article in the press, with no results, even as a truncated letter:

THE WIND FOLLIES OF WALES

( Click above to read the statement on the AmeriCymru Forum )

Jaime Conrad is a young adult fantasy writer. She is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, but now lives in Cedar Park, Texas.

Jaime has been interested in Wales ever since high school. Two years ago she got the idea for a Welsh-themed trilogy and started looking for a lake that her characters could visit She found Llyn Caerwych and the 'Copper And Cobalt Trilogy' was born.

Books by Jaime Conrad

AmeriCymru: Hi Jaime and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. What inspired you to set the Copper and Cobalt Trilogy in Wales?

Jaime: Thank you so much for interviewing me! I''ve been interested in Wales for a long time and writing my first series seemed to be a great way to explore and use that interest. I had my heart set on a Welsh theme for the trilogy. The beautiful Welsh language and area of Snowdonia the characters visit make the story come alive in an enchanting and unique place. I also feel that we don''t hear very much about Wales here in the US and I find that odd. It''s too interesting a place to not get noticed and talked about more.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about Lake Caerwych ?

Jaime: In Lake Caerwych, best friends Bridget and Celena learn that they share a haunting past in ancient Wales. They feel drawn away from their home in St. Louis, Missouri, to Snowdonia, where they begin to unravel the mystery of a Celtic necklace that Bridget found in a jewelry store. What they find is beyond their imagining when Bridget steps into Bryn Cader Faner, a Bronze Age cairn circle that takes her so far back in time that Welsh wasn''t even spoken yet! She and Celena find themselves in 500 BC speaking a tribal language and threatened by invaders, who they also find are not even their worst enemy – someone very near has discovered their secret and the present becomes more dangerous than the past.

AmeriCymru: Can you tell us more about the area in the Rhinogydd in which it is set?

Jaime: The area in which the story takes place is remote and secluded. The land is hilly and rugged, with many valleys and patches of forest. There is a working sheep farm there which doubles as a bed and breakfast. The lake itself, Llyn Caerwych, is a small body of water that's not very well known, but there are many other lakes nearby. From the farmhouse one can see the Dwyryd Estuary not far away, the mountains all around, ancient woods and rolling moorland.

AmeriCymru: Part Two of the trilogy, The Space Between Worlds is set in the US. How does the plot develop in the sequel?

Jaime: Actually, only some of The Space Between Worlds is set in the US. Much of it is set in Wales – and elsewhere! At this point in the story, the girls are learning to use to portal system more and they are able to “jump” to different places and time periods. In the sequel, we learn why the antagonist in the story seems to have a deep-seated hatred for the main characters, and how a pivotal, shocking incident in the past ties into ancient Wales in a very unexpected way.

AmeriCymru: How has the trilogy been received in Wales?

Jaime: So far the trilogy has been very well received in Wales. I''ve gotten many great comments, encouragement and positive feedback. My most recent Welsh reader lives 6 miles from Llyn Caerwych and he loves the series so far, which is definitely the best compliment I could ever have. The fact that people there are viewing the books favorably has made me feel honored. When I first started writing the trilogy, I figured there would only be two ways it could go: they''d either love it or they''d hate it. So far, it looks like the former is winning, which makes me very happy and proud!

AmeriCymru: What''s next for Jaime Conrad? When is part three due for publication?

Jaime: Right now I''m working on Isle of Apples, book 3, which I plan to publish in late summer of this year. While working on it I will continue promoting the trilogy and possibly look for a traditional publishing house.

AmeriCymru: Where can our readers go online to purchase your work?

Jaime: I'm on Smashwords and Amazon. The books are available in paperback as well as in the various e-reader formats. Smashwords Amazon

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Jaime: Thank you for being here and for letting me be a part of this community!

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

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The Legend of Finndragon’s Curse is the first book in a unique, two book fantasy adventure series and is a fast paced, engaging and thrilling page turner. The story races along with plenty of twists and turns as it heads for the prophesized confrontation between the children and the evil Finndragon himself.

Americymru spoke to author Richard Phillips about the book and his ongoing ''blog tour''.

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AmeriCymru: Hi Richard and many thanks for agreeing to talk to AmeriCymru. How did you become a writer and what attracted you to writing young adult fantasy fiction?

Richard: Diolch. I guess I was always a writer, but didn''t realise it. Well not until my children persuaded me to turn the magical bedtime stories I told them, into a book.

Okay, I wrote a lot of poetry when younger, which gathers dust in the dark recesses of my hard drive. I might take them out one day and see if any are worthy of publication. I also wrote a couple of ''underground'' satirical magazines at work, lampooning my colleagues and their antics. These were great fun, but had a very limited readership.

I actually started writing a sci-fi novel about fifteen years ago, but ran out of steam after just 4,000 words. I don''t think I truly believed in myself back then.

When a very close friend died suddenly aged 42, I wrote some blog posts describing our fantastic (and almost unbelievably true) adventures. These stories are definitely not suitable for younger readers and the blog has long since been removed. However, I think it would be a great to write a work of fiction based on some of the events. If you can imagine something between Twin Town and Grand Slam you''d be on the right lines!

It was my daughter Katie who first started nagging me to write a book about the bedtime stories. These tales always centred around three children named Emma, Megan and Scott, (my kids'' middle names) and their adventures, which usually involved characters ''stolen'' from their favourite TV shows such as Doctor Who. I don''t know quite how, or even when it happened, but the seeds of an idea started to grow. What I did have were the three protagonists. Their characteristics and personalities are based upon my children, albeit older versions.

I wanted the story to be deeply rooted in Wales and also wanted to write about places I knew. That''s where Morlais Castle comes in. It was in my thoughts when describing Castell y Mynydd and is a great starting point for the story. Most importantly, I was writing it for them, so the story had to be suitable for my kids to read. At that time, I didn''t really expect or intend for anyone else to ever read it.

AmeriCymru: Care to introduce the ''Tales of Finndragon'' for our readers?

Richard: Tales of Finndragon is a unique two book fantasy series set firmly in, and under, a fictional 21st century Welsh town named Crafanc y Ddraig. Although written for young adults, the story is suitable for children aged 9 years upwards and has also been very well received by adults who like fantasy books such as Harry Potter.

Book 1, The Legend of Finndragon''s Curse starts with the Davies family, who are still trying to come to terms with the unexplained disappearance of their father and husband.

There is a local legend which has been passed down from generation to generation. It tells of the mighty 6th century, medieval Kingdom of Morgannwg, which was ruled by King Dafydd the Defiant, and his impregnable castle, Castell y Mynydd. Dafydd had a powerful wizard called Finndragon, who cursed the kingdom after being banished and it was swallowed up and sank into the belly of the earth.

One day the siblings, Emma, Megan and Scott discover an ancient scroll and a photograph of the nearby mountains, hidden amongst their dad''s belongings. Realising that these are clues to his disappearance, the children set off to find him and the lost Kingdom of Morgannwg. And that''s where their fantastic adventure begins.

There are many twists and turns over the course of the two books, as the children encounter Finndragon''s terrible demons, magical creatures, and are helped by an inept wizard''s apprentice and by King Dafydd himself. 

AmeriCymru: Where can people go online to find your work?

Richard: The books are currently available for kindle via Amazon and will shortly be available in other ebook formats and in print. You can read the first few chapters of each book for free.

AmeriCymru: You have a ''blog tour'' running until the end of June. Care to explain how this works for our readers? How can people participate?

Richard: A blog tour is a virtual book tour, where an author visits several book blogs rather than bookshops. I decided to plan my own tour in order to promote the release of my second book, Return to Finndragon''s Den on 29th May. I sent countless emails to book bloggers and put together a schedule which started 15th May and runs until the end of June.

There are lots of reviews, interviews, guest posts, free ebooks to win and an ambitious and unusual competition.

You can find the schedule on my blog My Name''s Not Earl . I would be grateful if you could checkout all the blogs, it''s not to late to visit the earlier posts. If you like what you see, please support the bloggers by joining their sites. They have been kind enough to help and support me and I want to return the favour in any way I can. If you want to tweet or share the posts on Facebook or via other social media, you will usually find links after the posts.

AmeriCymru: Apart from your blog tour, how are you promoting your books?

Richard: I recently took my son Jonathan to Morlais Castle for the first time, retracing the steps I first took with my own father as a young boy. I have posted some photographs on the Americymru website.

Looking at the photographs gave me an idea and I created a book trailer, which can be viewed on Youtube and on my Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads pages.

AmeriCymru: What''s next for Richard Phillips? Any new titles in the works?

Richard: I want to continue writing young adult fantasy (or possibly sci-fi) for the foreseeable future. I have a few ideas for stand alone stories, one of which will probably be a short story or novella, and hope to get started once the blog tour is over.

In the longer term, I''d like to write for an older audience (although most of my current readers are adults who love fantasy).

Whichever genre I write, I''m sure to be influenced by the people and places I know and love. 

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Richard: Thank you for taking an interest in me and my books. I''m always delighted to hear what people think about my books, blog, book trailer and anything else for that matter. You can find me on:

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Blog

UK Amazon Author Page

US Amazon Author Page

Americymru: The action in "The Dead of Mametz" is set partly against the backdrop of the WWI battle of Mametz Wood. This, perhaps an unusual choice of location for a crime fiction novel. Care to tell us how/why you chose this location?

Jonathan: I met a fellow military historian in a pub in Swansea about ten years ago. He told me all about the battle for Mametz Wood as I had never heard the story before. I visited the location with my family in 2004. It was a bright, sunny day as we made our way past the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery towards the wood. Quite suddenly the clouds gathered overhead and there was a rumble of thunder. Being a teacher, I told my three sons to stand still, close their eyes and imagine what it must have been like when the battle commenced. With that, a bolt of lightning flashed and it was all too much for my youngest who ran back to the car! Since that strange, ethereal moment Mametz Wood has always held a fascination for me.

Americymru: Members of the Western Front Association have described "The Dead of Mametz" as: ‘... a great mix of an intriguing storyline and superb historical detail.’ How did you go about researching the historical background for the book?

Jonathan: I was a brought up on Hollywood’s version of the Second World War – John Wayne and Audie Murphy films. All I knew about WW1 was the black and white films of men moving far too quickly (because of the film speed) through oceans of mud. But as I grew older I became more interested in finding out about WW1. I spent several years in the middle of the last decade gathering the stories of the men and women from my hometown, Barry, who served during the Great War. I then wrote a book entitled ‘Barry and the Great War’ which contained photographs, newspaper accounts and memories of their service. I also held two exhibitions to raise funds to restore our local memorial.

Americymru: What were the Military Police and what was their role during WWI?

Jonathan: At the start of the War the Military Police was a comparatively small force of just 3 officers and 761 men. By the end of the War this number had risen to over 15000. In France their role mainly included the manning of ''stragglers'' posts'', traffic control, dealing with crime committed by British soldiers, the control of civilians within the battle area, handling prisoners of war and patrolling rear areas and ports. Walking wounded from Regimental Aid Posts were directed to casualty collecting stations for evacuation, and ''stragglers'' were dealt with. This last-named duty involved halting soldiers who were obviously neither casualties, signallers or runners, re-arming and equipping them if necessary, and sending them forward to rejoin their units, individually or in groups.

Americymru: What investigatory tools were available to the Military Police at that time in history? How might a murder investigation at that time be different from today and more difficult?

Jonathan: Information on the Military Police during the Great War is scant. It is, for example, not even certain which cap badge they wore. As part of my research I visited the museum of the Military Police and spent time with the curator who was able to help me with some additional information. A murder investigation of the time would have lacked all of the sophisticated tools and technology that is currently employed at a crime scene, but my detective relies on his experience and deduction to solve the murder.

Americymru: In your research, were you able to find records of actual homicide cases investigated by the Military Police?

Jonathan: Actually the homicide case that I based the novel on was one I found in the service record of a local soldier. He had indeed shot two of his colleagues but I changed the motive for the killing in my novel as well as regiments, dates and names.

Americymru: Are you working on another novel?

Jonathan: The second novel in the series is virtually complete and will be published next Spring. This time events are set at Gallipoli in 1915 and at Passchendaele in the summer of 1917, as well as in south Wales. I have the plot for the third in the series sketched out and will be commencing work on it this summer.

Americymru: Who do you read for pleasure or inspiration? Any recommendations?

Jonathan: To give me the background knowledge that enables me to write on the period, I read factual accounts of the Great War, memoirs and articles on militaria. For pleasure I also read the great contemporary American crime thriller writers – Jeffrey Deaver, Harlan Coben and Robert Crais.

Americymru: Where can our readers go to purchase your book online?

Jonathan: ‘The Dead of Mametz’ can be purchased through Amazon or Waterstones, as well as all good bookshops.

Americymru: You are a long standing supporter of Cardiff F.C. Do you think they''ll ever make it to the Premier League?

Jonathan: I hope so! I have never seen Cardiff play in the top division in my lifetime, although I did attend their three recent visits to Wembley Stadium. My grandparents went to the 1927 FA Cup Final at Wembley when we beat Arsenal to win the cup. My mother was born exactly nine months later….

Americymru: Any final comment for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Jonathan: I am thrilled at having my first novel published by Y Lolfa and the reviews on Amazon and Waterstones have been very complimentary. I hope that people of Welsh descent who live in America will enjoy the novel and its portrayal of the lives of working people in south Wales at the start of the last century and make them think of the principality. I hope they will also think of the novel the next time they pass a war memorial and as they read the list of names, remember that those men and women once had dreams and hopes for the future.

Jonathan Hicks titles on Y Lolfa and Amazon

• The Dead Of Mametz
• Demons Walk Amongst Us
• Barry And The Great War 1914-1918
• A Solemn Mockery

Reviews and Interviews on other sites:

• Crime Fiction Lover - The Dead Of Mametz, Review
• Crime Fiction Lover - Demons Walk Amongst Us - Review

AmeriCymru: Hi Brian, and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. You have been both a field scientist and a Geography lecturer in your time. What inspired you to write fiction?

Brian: It's a great pleasure to talk to you.  I always enjoy chatting about the writing process. You should really have asked "Who inspired you to write fiction?" and the short answer to that would be "My wife Inger." I've been writing books for many years, and now have about 80 to my name, but the majority of these relate to my research specialisms of landscape evolution and the Ice Age. I have a great affection for glaciers, having studied them in Antarctica, Greenland and other parts of the north polar regions. So in my days as a lecturer in Durham University it was natural that I should write textbooks about glaciers and landscape; my big text book on that subject, written with my good friend David Sugden, remained in print for 20 years as a key university text across the world. I also wrote books on the Ice Age for a non-specialist readership, for some of the big mainstream publishers in the US and UK.

On moving back to Wales in 1976, I started my own small publishing business called Greencroft Books, and since then I have written and published one or two books a year, aimed at the Welsh market in general and the Pembrokeshire tourist trade in particular -- with titles on folk tales, joke books, guide books, local history and traditions, walking trails and so forth. But no fiction. I thought that the writing of fiction was something for which I was not suited, given my "academic" background. My wife thought otherwise, and was convinced that I could and should write fiction. And then, in 1999, Mistress Martha Morgan walked into my life, and along came the Angel Mountain Saga. It's difficult enough to resist one strong woman, and quite impossible to resist two!

AmeriCymru: The Angel Mountain novels have been a major critical and commercial success. Care to tell our readers a little more about what inspired them?

Brian: The character of Mistress Martha Morgan (the heroine of all seven books) came out of nowhere, in a rather spooky episode. My wife and I were travelling to Gran Canaria for a short holiday when I suddenly started to feel ill, on the flight from Cardiff. By the time we landed at Las Palmas I was running a high temperature, and felt terrible. We got to the apartment safely enough, and off to bed I went -- to spend the night wide awake and trapped in a sort of delirium. In the darkness I "heard" a female voice talking to me, narrating a life story in considerable detail -- including places, characters, storyline, and even conversations in great detail. In the morning my temperature dropped and I started to feel better. I told my wife about this very strange experience, and she immediately said: "Well, you'd better start writing!" I had my lap-top with me, so I did just that. Intriguingly, the story remained fixed in my mind -- so what I had experienced was certainly not a dream. Whatever it was, I still look on it as some sort of gift.

The story -- and the inspiration -- continued over the writing of the first five novels. When "On Angel Mountain" was published ten years ago, there was such an incredible response from readers that I just had to keep going -- especially since I had only covered a year or so of her life in that first story, and the rest of it was still in my head! So I did not have to "invent" a storyline -- that was there already -- and was able to concentrate on the technicalities of storytelling to the best of my ability. So I wrote and published the other novels very quickly, at the rate of one per year for five years. Since then I have written two further books in the series, one called "Guardian Angel" and the other called "Sacrifice". Very soon sales for the whole series will hit 65,000 copies, so I have to be satisfied with that.

AmeriCymru: The novels are set on and around Carn Ingli. What role does the atmosphere of this unique Welsh landscape play in your creative process?

Brian: The sense of place is hugely important in all of the novels, as it is in most Welsh fiction. We do after all have this wonderful word "hiraeth" which encompasses both longing and belonging -- and ties Welsh people to both a place and a community. Carningli, the little mountain which stands sentinel above the town of Newport in Pembrokeshire, is so important in the stories that it becomes almost a character in its own right. Mistress Martha has a mystical relationship with it, feeling that the mountain is a part of her, and that she is a part of the mountain.

As a geographer by training, I suppose that I feel a sense of place very strongly indeed, and I think that the success of the novels is at least in part related to the fact that readers can also identify very strongly with the little details of the mountain, the cwm, and even the woodlands and streams that are prime locations in one story after another. So they share in Martha's own intimate knowledge of the landscape in which she and her family, friends and enemies live, and love, and die.

AmeriCymru: Iolo Morgannwg, who is something of a hero to many of our readers, makes an appearance in the most recent instalment of the Angel Mountain series ( 'Sacrifice' ). Without giving too much away , can you tell us what role he plays in the novel?

Brian: I have a very soft spot for Iolo! He was a forger and liar, and was probably mad, with a brain scrambled through over-use of laudanum, but I did give him a cameo role in the novel, and tried to portray his character as accurately as possible, having read about him quite widely. I treated him rather sympathetically, as a man who was essentially harmless. I brought him in because of his extraordinary erudition on Welsh cultural matters, thereby creating a link between him and Mistress Martha, as one of the last speakers of the Dimetian Welsh dialect; because of his knowledge of Welsh agriculture (not many people know that for part of his life he was a farmer who wanted to be an agricultural surveyor); and because he might well have known some rather disreputable people during his time in London. In the story, Martha seeks his advice, and gets it, as the story spirals towards its tragic climax.

AmeriCymru: In 'Rebecca And The Angels' Martha becomes involved in the Rebecca Riots. Care to tell our readers a little about the historical background to this episode?

Brian: The Rebecca Riots were key events in the social history of Wales, particularly in the period 1839-1844. The riots arose out of a deep feeling of injustice, centred on the Turnpike Trusts and the manner in which they extracted tolls for all travellers who used the developing road network of west Wales and who had to pass through frequent tollgates. There were too many Turnpike Trusts, and too many tollgates -- and since these were controlled by the local gentry, the poor farmers and labourers who needed to use the highways were charged over and again even for short journeys, and saw most of their tolls going into the deep pockets of those whom they despised, rather than into genuine road-building programmes.

So the riots started with the destruction of a tollgate at Efailwen in Pembrokeshire, and then spread all over West Wales. But the riots were actually quite sophisticated, as riots go! The men who took part in them tried to avoid harm to human life, although they had no qualms about smashing up and burning tollgates and tollgate-keepers' houses. In all the riots they dressed in womens' clothes and blackened their faces, and prior to the destruction of each tollgate they enacted a little charade involving Rebecca and her daughters, based on the Biblical story. They used trumpets and drums, and there was a strong theatrical element in the riots, based upon the old "folk justice" traditions of the "Ceffyl Pren." The army was sent in to quell the riots, but because they were so dispersed, and because the rioters had such an effective underground communications network, the dragoons were made to look stupid and ineffectual. Thanks in part to the extensive coverage of the riots in the Times newspaper, the protestors were ultimately successful, and the Turnpike Trust laws were changed by Act of Parliament, addressing most of the grievances of the rioters.

This was such a colourful -- and important -- episode, involving spies, betrayals and secret meetings (not to mention summary justice) that it was inevitable that Mistress Martha would get sucked into the riots, given her propensity for getting involved in any good cause that might help her to make the world a better place!

AmeriCymru: Will we be hearing more from Martha Morgan? Is there any chance of a television adaptation?

Brian: You will certainly be hearing more from Martha Morgan. She hasn't finished sorting the world out just yet. There's another volume in the pipeline, which will hopefully be published in the spring of 2012. Many of my faithful readers from all over the world have said that there MUST be aTV series or films featuring the different phases of Martha's life and following her battles with a number of seriously unpleasant individuals who lust after her and her little estate on the side of the mountain. The books are action-packed, and I think they have very strong characters, and all of my readers refer to the strong "visual qualities" of the stories.

But as we all know, film and TV adaptations are hugely expensive, and in the field of historical fiction producers and directors are notoriously risk-averse. Sadly, they prefer to make yet another version of "Pride and Prejudice" or "Wuthering Heights" rather than to take a chance on something new. But I live in hope. Everybody to whom I have spoken within the TV and film industry says that there is a powerful "random" element in adaptations for the screen. All it needs is for one influential person from within the industry to fall in love with Mistress Martha as a character, to see the potential of the stories, and to act as an advocate for a film project in the offices of those who make the key decisions. So if anybody out there knows a Hollywood director, feel free to tell him or her that the film rights are still available!

AmeriCymru: You are also a writer of non-fiction. Care to tell us a little about The Bluestone Enigma ?

Brian: Sure. This book arose out of a long-standing interest in the mythology surrounding Stonehenge, and particularly the "mystical" link with the bluestones that have come from the Preseli area of North Pembrokeshire. Since 1921, the myth of long-distance human transport of the bluestones has been promoted by one generation of archaeologists after another, to the extent that it has become one of the favourite tales of the world! We all know and love the story, whether or not we have actually visited Stonehenge. It underpins the nation's tourist promotion work, and it adds huge value to Stonehenge as an iconic structure. The trouble is that there was no evidence to support the human transport myth in 1921, and there is still no evidence today.

In the book I take a hard look at where the evidence (rather than the mythology) leads us -- and this means looking at evidence in the fields of glaciology, geology and geomorphology. Inexorably the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the bluestones (which have come from maybe 30 different sources) are glacial erratics, carried from Pembrokeshire towards Salisbury Plain by a vast glacier known as the Irish sea glacier, maybe 450,000 years ago. i think that the stones were dumped by this glacier not far from Stonehenge, and that in due course they were found by Neolithic tribal groups and built into the Stonehenge monument. Maybe the location of the monument was determined above all else by the accessibility of these stones.

Needless to say, many senior archaeologists (who have based their reputations on variations on the "human transport" theme) are furious about this development. I think it's fair to say that they wish that the book would go away -- but it's been reprinted already, and it's good to know that it has sparked a good debate!

AmeriCymru: What do you read for pleasure? Any recommendations?

Brian: I'm not a great reader of fiction -- my bed-time reading normally consists of background material for whatever I am currently writing. So just now I am scanning the pages of various books on the dress and customs of high society in the Regency Period. In the next novel Martha has to learn how to cope with a number of characters who are insufferably grand!

As for my favourite fiction, up there in my top ten would be Peter Carey's "True History of the Kelly Gang", "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx, Wilkie Collins's "Woman in White" and "A Scots Quire" by Grassic Gibbons. (By the way, I am quite convinced that Dylan Thomas got his idea for "Under Milk Wood" from Grassic Gibbons........ but that's another story.) As far as Welsh fiction is concerned, my favourite is probably Bruce Chatwin's "On the Black Hill", which is dark, claustrophobic and wonderfully evocative. Then I would have to put in the novels of Alexander Cordell. They are not particularly subtle, but Cordell has a fantastic and unique "voice" -- his tales are told in a style that has guts and grime, bravado and anger, and I think he really gets into the soul of Wales.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Brian John?

Brian: I shall continue to write both fiction and non-fiction for as long as I am enjoying myself! When it ceases to be fun, I'll stop and spend more time in the garden. I'm still enjoying the creative process of publishing as well, and the marketing and distribution work that every small publisher has to take seriously. In some ways that's the least enjoyable part of my job as a publisher, but I do value the contacts with the book trade and the feedback from traders and members of the public. I'll continue to work on the sale of film and TV rights for the Angel Mountain tales. And I would love to see my novels take off in the United States and Canada, since i'm convinced that within the Welsh expatriate community there are many folks who have still not even heard of the books. But Mistress Martha is really Mother Wales, or so I am informed by my readers! So maybe that's a line I need to follow as I seek to reach wider markets.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Brian: First of all, thank you to Ceri and his colleagues for the warm welcome to the site! It's colourful, cheerful and friendly -- and as far as I can see it does a great job in explaining what "Welshness" means and in bringing together ex-pats and the descendents of Welsh settlers from across North America! So well done -- keep up the good work!

And for readers who look at the site, please don't forget your roots. It is a sense of belonging that makes us who we are -- and whether we belong to one community or several, we draw our strength and our individuality from the mutual support mechanisms sustained by those around us. It's that "spirit of belonging" which I have tried to capture in the stories of my very imperfect heroine Martha Morgan. She falls from grace over and again, but always her angels pick her up again and reestablish her at the centre of her little world. May the angels of Americymru continue to thrive!

Some links:

About Stonehenge and the bluestones: http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/

The Angel Mountain Saga: http://www.angel-mountain.info/

Interview by Ceri Shaw Home Email

AmeriCymru: Hi Lorraine and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. You have written three highly successful novels to date. At what age did you become aware that you wanted to write?

Lorraine: I suppose that I have always enjoyed it and I liked the idea of being a writer, long before I actually started writing! I wrote a book when I was about 30, but knew as I was writing it that it was pretty hopeless, but I persisted for the practice. I started writing my first published novel, Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons when I was about 32.

AmeriCymru: We learn from your bio that your official writing career started one Sunday morning when you had a hangover. Care to tell us more?

Lorraine: Yes, it was a bit of a killer! I was living in Builth Wells and had a difficult job and was working all hours. I also had a fantastic social life and was never able to refuse an offer to nip out for a pint or to head to the hills at weekend with friends to go walking or mountain biking. I wanted to be a writer and had the story in my head, but never seemed to have the chance to sit down and write it all down.

On that Sunday when I had my hangover, I also had a day out with friends planned and some work to do for a meeting the next morning, and I realised that I would have to put off the writing for another day – yet again. That’s when I had one of those moments in life and thought That’s It! Something has to change – so, I gave myself six months to change everything and I did! I was single at the time, so I just quit my job, rented out my house and bought myself a round-the-world ticket to give myself time to actually write – and I was very lucky as, bar a few adventures, it all worked out in the end!

AmeriCymru: You are originally from Lyme Regis in the south of England. What prompted you to make the move to Mid-Wales? Tell us a little about your background.

Lorraine: I had a great time growing up in rural south west England with my three brothers and two sisters and then went to University in Cardiff to study Town Planning. When I was there I met a Welshman…

I moved to Builth Wells for a job in 1994 intending to stay for a year or so, but had such a good time, I stayed!

AmeriCymru: Your first novel "Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons" was written while back-packing in South America. What can you tell us about your experiences there and how did you come to write a novel during your trip?

Lorraine: The trip was following my moment of clarity mentioned earlier. I decided to go to Patagonia first as I’d been learning Welsh and had this plan of working in a Welsh tea shop, practicing my Welsh, learning some Spanish, getting a bit of sun and writing my book.

Once in Beunos Aires, I wasn’t in a rush so I decided to walk to Patagonia (yeah, now I know it was a bit foolish!) so I would walk from town to town across the Pampas desert, hiding my tent behind a bush at night and trying to forget that there were still wild things out there.

In that little tent that I shared with mice, bugs and once a fox, I wrote my book. I eventually got to Patagonia, by which time my Welsh had merged with my Spanish and I’d become rubbish at both, so I drunk loads of proper tea, ate piles of Welsh cakes and then carried on walking. Eight months later, and after many adventures including a fight with a man with a knife (it’s OK, I won!) I had finished my novel and so I headed home.

AmeriCymru: Your second novel ''Eating Blackbirds'', set in the fictional Welsh village of Cysgod Y Ffynon, has been described as a ''feel-good'' novel. How would you describe the novel for our readers?

Lorraine: It’s about a man who works for the Council and is waiting for early retirement. He is a bit of a tight-fisted git who pinches tea-bags etcetera to save himself money. Through his work, he meets a lady who has a second home and he slowly moves into the empty house, trying to avoid his young niece who has turned up on his doorstep with a baby. However, the woman comes back to the house when he is there and things don’t go quite to plan…

I used to work for the Council and so this is my expose!

AmeriCymru: Your third novel "Cold Enough to Freeze Cows" is set in rural Mid-Wales. What for you is the most interesting or significant feature of the local agricultural lifestyle?

Lorraine: For me, it’s the hard continual work that people have to do day in, day out. It’s the slog that I think that people don’t appreciate when they think of a “rural idyll”. I live in a farming area and there are a number of women farmers (as the women tend to do the animal side of the farming around here) who come to collect their children from school and they are always covered in some sludge or other, depending on what time of year it is! But it’s also so down to earth – it’s hard for people to be pretentious when they have afterbirth on their foot.

AmeriCymru: You have been quoted as saying, ""I don''t write traditional Chicklit - my characters tend not to be chicks, but wellywearing, ruddy-cheeked folks who have adventures!" Care to elaborate?

Lorraine: As an author, I’ve found it difficult trying to tell people why they should buy my book over someone else’s (apart from parading my children in rags). People assume because they are written by a woman and are about “life things” that they are therefore Chicklit – but to me, the Chicklit I’ve read, tends to be about women who spend / want to spend lots of money on shoes and fancy Guy in Accounts, and that’s just not my world. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong about fancying Guy in Accounts, but my books are about farmers wearing three acrylic jumpers to keep out the cold, and 60 year old men who cook supernoodles in thermos flasks. I think that there is a difference, and I am just trying to distinguish between them.

AmeriCymru: Is there such a thing as "chicklit? If so, how would you define it?

Lorraine: I must admit, I do struggle a bit with “Chicklit”, as it does have a slightly dismissive tang. (This isn’t helped by authors shouting, “I don’t mind if people call my books chicklit!” – it reeks a bit of protesting too hard, and if people didn’t mind, they probably wouldn’t feel the need to mention it!) Female authors who write contemporary or commercial fiction are tagged with this dismissive category, whereas male commercial writers aren’t tagged with a dismissive category.

Saying that, it’s a fabulously successful brand, and those that are at the top of it, do really well! I haven’t quite worked out what I think of it: it’s like wanting to be the leader of a gang that you don’t like.

My work was described recently as being a cross between Tom Sharpe and The Vicar of Dibley, and I’m much happier with this description…

AmeriCymru: What''s next for Lorraine Jenkin?

Lorraine: I’m trying very hard to win The People’s Book Prize - the X Factor of the book world as it is decided by the public’s votes. The next round of voting is in June, so I might be back with a small post to ask for help… Other than that, I want to teach our three young girls to pick up their socks, and to clear out our garage which went to the dogs last summer.

Also, I’m part way through my fourth novel and my plan is for it to go global…

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Lorraine: My trip to the Americas had a big impact on my life – not just the adventures, but the lovely people I met there. Now I am self-employed and a mother of three young girls I look back on my time there as a complete luxury in terms of the time I had to myself. I would sit, alone, out in the wilds watching the sun go down over Tierra del Fuego whereas now I read Cinderella seven times a week and scrape at Weetabix that has been welded to the floor. Life is good, but it is very different!

Also, I would like to thank the people of AmeriCymru for their warm welcome to me on the site – it’s been really nice to receive such messages from strangers!

About David Barry :- David Barry (born 30 April 1943) is a Welsh author and actor. He is best known for his role as Frankie Abott, (the gum-chewing mother's boy who was convinced he was extremely tough), in the LWT sitcom Please Sir! and the spin-off series The Fenn Street Gang, He has appeared in several films, notably two TV spin-off movies - Please Sir! and George and Mildred. David is now an author with two novels and an autobiography under his belt, Each Man Kills , Flashback and Willie The Actor. Read an extract from 'Flashback' here . His next novel is about the Micawber family adventures in Australia and is called 'Mr Micawber Down Under'.

AmeriCymru: Hi David. Many thanks for agreeing to talk to AmeriCymru. You became involved in the acting profession at a very early age. Care to tell us how that came about?

David: Having moved from Amlwch, Angelsey, to Richmond, Surrey, my parents were involved in amateur dramatics and were performing in a production of The Corn is Green. A young Welsh speaking boy was needed for the part of Idwal, which was where I came in. Another English boy was playing one of the boys in the classroom, and he attended Corona Academy Stage School. I pestered my parents to send me there, but it was a fee-paying school. But Corona assured my parents that, because I looked younger than my 12 years, they could find enough work for me to cover the fees. Which is what happened.

AmeriCymru: What was it like working with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh?

David: Vivien Leigh spoiled me rotten, and Olivier was a remarkable stage actor. I occasionally witnessed tempestuous domestic arguments between them, and Vivien Leigh reminded me of Scarlet O'Hara.

AmeriCymru: You are best known for your role as Frankie Abbott in 'Please Sir' and 'The Fenn Street Gang'. What is your fondest recollection of working on those two series?

David: Working with a great cast, and hearing wonderful stories and memoirs from the actors who played the staff in Please, Sir! and exploring comedy in Fenn Street Gang, and starting to write scripts myself.

AmeriCymru: What, for you , is the high point of your acting career?

David: Playing First Voice in a tour of Under Milk Wood, which was not only challenging but the imagery of the words is so powerful that much of the text I can recall after more than 15 years.

AmeriCymru: In 'Flashback' you write about your childhood in North Wales, and touring to theaters in Cardiff, Swansea, Porthcawl and Llandudno. Can you tell us a little about your Welsh background?

David: My father was a London Welshman, and both my parents spoke fluent Welsh. I was born in Bangor, and my parents had a newsagent's shop, and then we moved to Amlwch. There were not many theatres around at the time, and my father loved the arts, so much of my acting inspiration came from seeing almost everything the Ritz cinema had to offer. I guess my father missed theatres, museums and galleries, as did my mother, which is why we moved close to London when I was 11.

AmeriCymru: After a long and distinguished career as an actor you decided to take up writing and published your first crime fiction novel ( 'Each Man Kills' ) in 2002. Was this a new departure for you or had you always nurtured an ambition to be a writer?

David: I began attempting to write scripts, and my first broadcast script was an episode of Fenn Street Gang. Up until that time I hadn't considered writing as an option.

AmeriCymru: Your first novel ( 'Each man Kills" 2002 ) is a detective novel set in Swansea. Care to tell us a little more about the book?

David: I was working in a summer season at Aberystwyth, and I heard a story about an armed response unit killing a murderer the previous year. The murderer committed a motiveless crime, killing a relative I was fascinated by the story, and it stayed with me over the years. I eventually considered writing a novel, and I like crime fiction. So I wrote about my antagonist being known from the start of the book, but there being no apparent motive. My protagonist's challenge is to find a motive for the crime, and I suppose the Aberystwyth incident had inspired me..I chose Swansea because of the Dylan Thomas connection, and I love the Gower peninsula and Rhosili Bay.

AmeriCymru: Your second novel ( 'Willie The Actor' 2007 ) is a novel about an ordinary man leading an extraordinary double-life of crime. We learn from the 'product description' that it is loosely based on a true story. Care to expand on that?

David: I read about Willie Sutton in a magazine article. He was a notorious bank robber with a difference - he never fought anyone or fired a shot in his life. I became fascinated by this real-life criminal who was a sympathetic character, who was such a contrast to the violent gangsters around during the prohibition era.

AmeriCymru: What's next for David Barry?

David: I love Charles Dickens's novels, and I've written a spin-off from David Copperfield. My novel is about the Micawber family adventures in Australia and is called Mr Micawber Down Under, and will be published by Robert Hale Ltd next October. I have also been working on another Swansea-based crime novel.

AmeriCymru: Any final messages for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

David: Iechyd da i pawb!

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

Jan Fortune-Wood is a Welsh author and publisher. She has published four novels and is the proprietor of one of Wales' most innovative and dynamic independent publishing houses. AmeriCymru spoke to Jan about her writing and her future plans for Cinnamon Press.

AmeriCymru: You are both an author and a publisher - which came first and did one lead to the other?

Jan: Ive written all my life. My creative writing took a back seat for a long time while I was home educating my children and working (I was a Church of England minister), but I did write books on home education and alternative parenting during this time. About ten years ago i was seriously ill and we moved to North Wales. When I was beginning to recover I went back to writing poetry and had an offer from a small press to publish my first collection. A bit later I did an MA (masters degree) in novel writing and the same publisher took my first novel. By this time Id began to dabble with publishing via a small press poetry magazine and I was also realising that in my MA I particularly had editing skills that I could use so Cinnamon Press was born.

AmeriCymru: Your novel 'Standing Ground' is set in a future time dominated by the despotic E-Government. But it is replete with references to mythical Arthurian characters. Can you tell us a little more about the book?

Jan: Ive written four novels and The Standing Ground was far and away the most fun to write. It was aimed at older teenagers, but seems popular with adults too. The ideas came when home education in the UK was under attack from government moves to dictate more of the content of education at home and have more invasive policies into family life. At the time there were also wider moves to introduce ID cards for everyone which my older children were involved in opposing.

The Standing Ground imagines a not too distant future in which the benefits of technology are magnified, at least for the affluent, but the price of this is an all pervasive controlling government that no longer trusts parents to raise their own children, but instead removes them to pods attached to schools with minimal parental contact and a restricted curriculum, no history or philosophy, for example). One of the main characters is Luke, a fifteen year old who is pushing against the system, partly because he senses that his own father is different and not so tied into the system. Nazir, Lukes father, is a famous artist, but also seems to have privileges that Luke cant quite understand. Despite this connection Lukes freedom is threatened when he begins to ask too many questions and it seems likely that he will be sent to a draconian correctional facility to be made to conform.

Online Luke has met the other main character of the book, Alys. She claims to live outside of E-Government in a corner of Wales (present day Gwynedd) that has resisted and maintained a small population of free people. Luke has no idea if Alys is real or just an online fiction to trap him, but he has decide whether to take drastic action to try to reach Alys in The Standing Ground.

Alyss family have their own problems within The Standing Ground there is a fierce debate as to whether this fragile free area should use their resources to try to communicate with the wider population and break the control of E-Government (Alys and her mysterious maths mentor, Emrys Hughes, have their own project to break government encryptions) or whether they should use the European parliament to gain recognition as an independent state, giving them more security.

Ive always been fascinated by mythology and the archetypes it gives to stories. The Arthurian legends speak of Arthur returning at dark times to bring freedom and living in North Wales. The landscape is steeped in the legends of the Mabinogi, including the stories of Artur (or King Arthur). So in this story the characters slowly emerge as modern representations of those archetypes and their power of maths and technology also contains older powers that converge to stand against the darkness.

AmeriCymru: What are your future writing plans?

Jan: I have a new novel out this month, Coming Home a novel about a man who abandons one family only to later abandon another, returning to Wales to try to pick up his life and written from the perspective of himself and the women in his life.

Im currently working on two new books. The first is a poetry collection centred on a village in the mountains above my home called Cwmorthin. It was once a large slate mine with barracks and houses and chapel and mine workings, a harsh industrial place known as the slaughterhouse because of the high death rate of the miners working there, but also a thriving community with cabans in which the men met daily to discuss politics, religion, philosophy and to sing. Now it is a place of picturesque ruins and utter tranquillity, but the culture has gone. Im examining the emotional landscape of the place through natural landscape and architectural ruins in poetry sequences.

The second is a novel that deals with issues of transformation, centred on three characters who undergo major life changes in traumatic circumstances and whose stories interweave. Its set in England, Wales and Zimbabwe and covers periods from the Zimbabwean bush wars to the present day. Its involved lots of research and lots of getting to know the characters, but Im hoping the writing will come together over the next year and then the editing can begin.

AmeriCymru: When was Cinnamon Press founded and what tempted you into the publishing business?

Jan: Cinnamon Press was five years old in 2010 so were still relatively young. I was looking for a new direction after major illness and life change (I had a series of severe work place assaults in my parish work) and started a magazine to keep my brain ticking over. Then, doing the MA, I realised I had a knack for editing so Cinnamon began as a very small scale tentative project, but the success of early books helped it to snowball. We are still very much a small press and run on a shoestring with a lot of voluntary input, but the books have gone from strength to strength.

AmeriCymru: What does Cinnamon Press look for in a work for publication or an author?

Jan: Our tag line is independent, innovative, international Were really looking for distinctive voices whether in poetry or prose books that have something to say and say it with skill. We put a lot of care into editing, but we dont have the resources to take on books that are really not ready to be published so authors need to be sure the book is of high quality before they submit. In simple terms we want good writing that engages us.

AmeriCymru: In addition to publishing, Cinnamon Press provides a range of services and competitions for aspiring and established writers. Care to tell us a little more about this aspect of your work?

Jan: Its often hard to get started in writing and small presses can be good places to get that first platform. The competitions run twice a year. The novella/novel competition and the poetry collection competition are for first time authors in those genres from anywhere in the world. The competition leads to a full publishing contract for a first collection or first novel/novella and the books that have been published in this way have done very well, including being short listed for some prestigious literary prizes. The short story competition is open to any story writers and the winning story appears in an anthology named after the story along with the best runners up from the story and poetry competitions. Weve also gone on to take single author collections from two of the authors whove done well in the story competitions.

We offer other services to help writers, both beginners and more experienced writers. These include several writing courses that run through the year and a mentoring service that I run with two other Cinnamon Press writers.

AmeriCymru: Cinnamon Press also publishes Envoi magazine, can you tell our readers about that?

Jan: Envoi is the oldest poetry magazine in the UK, now in its 54th year. Its a large format, perfect bound magazine with a good range of poetry from new and established poets, reviews, articles and features such as guest poets or poetry in translation. Envoi receives an enormous amount of submissions so its very competitive to get into, but this means that the quality stays high.

AmeriCymru: Where can people buy Cinnamon Press titles online?

Jan: We have a dedicated website at www.cinnamonpress.com with all of our books available and postage rates for international customers set up there. Books are also available at www.inpressbooks.co.uk an Arts Council site promoting small press books and at the Welsh Books Council site, www.gwales.com The books are on Amazon in the UK and the Book Depository in the UK, but our own site or Gwales or Inpress are the recommended ones.

AmeriCymru: How do you see Cinnamon Press developing over the next few years?

Jan: We started with poetry collections and then added full length fiction. Over the last couple of years weve published some unique and exciting nonfiction of cross genre titles and we will be continuing to develop this area of publishing. Weve also just published our first single author short story collection and will be developing this genre further. Another new area in 2010 was a book combining poetry and imagery I Spy Pinhole Eye by Philip Gross and Simon Denison won the Wales Book of the Year award and this year we have our second imagery and poetry collaboration, a very exciting book that looks at issues of ecology, Where the Air is Rarefied by Pat Gregory and Susan Richardson. With such wonderful books my main development aim is to get the books out into more arenas these books really deserve to be read.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Jan: Welsh publishing generally exists on tiny budgets and our readers really matter. Do support the books in any way you can and if youd like to be added to our monthly mailing list with news of new books and offers send me an email jan@cinnamonpress.com

Thank you for reading and all the best for 2011.

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

Mike Jenkins lives in Merthyr and is a full-time writer and Creative Writing tutor, having spent over 30 years teaching in secondary education. The author of seven previous poetry collections for Seren , he has also published novels and short stories. He has won the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry and Wales Book of the Year, and is former editor of Poetry Wales and founder and co-editor of Red Poets magazine. As well as a blog, he writes regularly for Cardiff City fanzine Watch the Bluebirds Fly and reviews music for the political magazine Celyn. AmeriCymru spoke to Mike about his poetry and his views on some contemporary political issues.

AmeriCymru: Hi Mike.....your most recent anthology Moor Music was published by Seren earlier this year. Care to tell us a little about it?

Mike: I started writing these poems about 10 years ago, before my last book Walking On Waste came out from Carreg Gwalch. The latter consisted of sonnets, haiku, dialect poems and a few others.Moor Music is written entirely in open field, a departure for me. Although this is a new form in recent times, I originally experimented with this at university in Aberystwyth, where I studied American Literature in my first year and was inspired particularly by Charles Olson. I was even pretentious and arrogant enough to answer an exam question on Shakespeare in this form!

I didn't suddenly decide to choose this form. It may have come out of the glaucoma I was diagnosed as having and a desire to spread words as widely as possible. It may have come from sheer creative restlessness (a desire to escape the title of Mr. Oblong, as Welsh poet Peter Finch once dubbed me), as I relished its freedom. It may have derived from the actual fields of the moorland at back of my house, an area of industrial land and pasture long reclaimed by Nature, which we call The Waun locally.

At any rate, there are significant differences between my approach and Olsons, with his many found interjections and grand abstractions. I focus more on music and imagery. Hopefully, there a sense in which these reflect musical compositions.

They represent the confluence ( the aber) between the moors and music. At the time when I began these I was immersed in music : my son was an accomplished cellist, my older daughter played in a fine Welsh language band called Gilespi and I was greatly influenced by many tributaries of sound, from the jazz of the Esbjorn Svensson Trio to the fado singing of the Portuguese Mariza.

While music is a current running throughout the book, it never drowns it. There are poems about Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Albert Einstein and the last miners strike, so it is not a concept book as such.

I love to read from it: the spaced out nature of the language does suit my awkward eye-sight!

AmeriCymru: You have also recently completed a novella entitled 'The Climbing Tree'. What is the theme of this work and where can our readers obtain copies?

Mike: The Climbing Tree is a short novella set in the near future. I originally began it by claiming it was in the Present Future Tense , but the publisher (Pont) werent impressed by this grandiose invention and I rightly cut out that over-complicated phrase!

I first wrote it as a stage play called Waste, which was never put on. Its written in the Present Tense from the viewpoint of a teenage girl called Low, who belongs to a gang called the Commos. Most of their lives are spent up an oak tree (the climbing tree of the title).

This near future is one of terrible floods and many refugees, but Low strives to keep the Commos together against all the odds. She also wants to retain the spirit of the fourth member of the gang , Oz, who mysteriously disappeared a few years before. She often talks to the absent spirit of Oz, her confessor.

I have always been a big fan of Steinbeck (master of the novella) and hope theres something of his overriding concern for humanity in this book. Low becomes embroiled with the opposing gang, the Astros, but there is some hope at the end, which didnt exist in the plays bleak finale.

It is available from the publisher www.gomer.co.uk or the Welsh Books Council at www.gwales.com

AmeriCymru: When did you decide to write and what determined your choice of poetry as your favored medium?

Mike: I began writing when I was about 15 and poetry was, for many years, my most important means of expression (think I wrote more poems than I had conversations!).

My parents were divorced, which was an unusual occurrence in the 1960s and I lived with my mother, who was very enthusiastic about my poetry-writing. She gave me a book called New Poetry, which included the American poets Berryman and Lowell and I related to these much more than the English ones. Then I came across Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn and their work had a lasting effect.

I wrote for the school magazine and won a poetry competition at school on The First Man on the Moon. I still recall the poem, which was very cynical for a teenager, with the phrase and trees still stood being prominent.

Now I write prose almost every day, as Im working on another novel for teenagers. Hopefully, this will also be taken by Pont Books, but I have no promise of publication at the end, so it is precarious.

However, poetry was my first love and will, no doubt, be my last. Lines and images come to me, often when least expected and I relish those epiphanies, which are much more rare when writing fiction.

AmeriCymru: You have worked as a teacher in both Merthyr and Cardiff for more than 20 years. How has your experience in the classroom informed your writing?

Mike: I have taught for over 30 years. I began in N.Ireland, then at a Gymnasium (Grammar School) in W. Germany, after that for 20 years in Merthyr Tydfil and 10 in Cardiff.

My experiences have played an integral part in my writing, both fiction and poetry. Wanting to Belong, which won the Wales Book of the Year in 98, would not have been possible without my background as an English teacher. It comprised ten interlinked stories from teenagers viewpoints and the school scenes owed much to my experience, as did the characters.

My poems and stories in Merthyr dialect were especially influenced by my time in the classroom. I have written two books entirely in this vernacular, Graffiti Narratives and Could Bin Summin (both published by Planet). Some of the poems take the voices of pupils I taught, while others are invented characters based on them. Single phrases would spark poems, such as Ol Shakey does my ead in (or, Shakespeare drives me mad).

The chalk-face has sometimes been very tough, but also a place where the most unlikely pupils can create works of wonder.

AmeriCymru: Much of your writing, particularly the poetry, is passionately political. What role do you feel poetry should play in the political process? How difficult is it to convey a sense of political commitment in verse?

Mike: Poetry and politics have always had a very close relationship for me, though never party politics, as Ive never been a party member for any length of time (2 years in Plaid Cymru and they didnt do much).

The very first poems I had published, engaged with issues I felt very strongly about. There was one in Planet (when John Tripp was poetry editor) about the conflict between boss and worker and based on my time working in garages in Barry. The other was in the Irish Press, a national newspaper in Ireland which, every Saturday, published poetry and stories (David Marcus was the literary editor) : it was called Rat City , dealt with the war in N.Ireland and was inspired by the First World War poet Isaac Rosenberg.

I do believe poetry can change peoples perceptions, often quite radically, just as songs can. However, it isnt going to reach the kind of audience which a lot of music can. While few songwriters have actually responded to our present situation of appalling cuts and deep recession, many poets have sought to show the human cost of greedy banks deregulated by New Labour under Blair and Brown.

Poetry should protest, harangue, satirize and empathize, but must never become propaganda or a simplistic denial of the other side. For example, I have written poems from viewpoints totally opposite to my own: one from the persona of a fascist, based on a pupil I once taught. I am a great admirer of the songs of Randy Newman, who is a master of this.

Though poetry can make a difference, I do wish it had more of an influence. In Wales, in gets short shrift on the media, except on the Welsh language channel S4C. I think its too controversial for Radio and BBC Wales!

AmeriCymru: Many of our readers will have been intrigiued/shocked by the recent 'student riots' in the UK. As a teacher and a politically committed poet, what is your take on this phenomenon? How will these developments affect your future work?

Mike: Student riots is in itself a pejorative phrase taken from the media. Much of the violence was actually caused by the police, especially with their use of kettling, a totally inhumane treatment. However, there is no denying the sheer strength of feeling has driven people to acts of violence, as well as the police brutality.

What has happened already is only the beginning and once the Trade Unions get their act together, the protests will be even larger and, possibly, more explosive. Once the cuts start to affect the majority of people, combined with inflation and unemployment, many will take to the streets and I expect the police response to be draconian.

I am heartened by the fact that university tuition fees were not raised by the Welsh government in Cardiff: yet more proof that devolution does work. We have a very different government here to the right-wing one in Westminster. This was evident under New Labour, but has been accentuated under the ConDem coalition.

Its hard to say how it will affect my future work. I write a blog every week on my website www.mikejenkins.net and it will become more topical and angry for sure. It seemed that most of the media were more concerned with the attacks on Charles and Camillas car than the future plight of higher education, where universities will go bankrupt and close for lack of funds.

AmeriCymru: Your poems reflect a concern with both 'social' and 'national' issues in Welsh politics. How do these two strands of 'radicalism' affect your work? is there, at times, a contradiction between them?

Mike: If I do deal with social and national issues , then it is primarily through the local ; the people and events and landscapes of the town where Ive lived for over 30 years, Merthyr Tydfil.

Merthyr has a proud history of rebellion (the Rising of 1831), of producing great peoples remembrancers like Prof. Gwyn A. Williams and also of its enthusiastic involvement with the Welsh language and fight for self-determination. Our M.P. for many years was S.O. Davies, who was a champion of self-government when few others were espousing it.

I believe that full self-government cannot be achieved without a combination of socialism and anarchism. S.Ireland has been proof of this: a country ruled by successive neo-liberal regimes and dependent on outside investment and regressive taxation. Without the control of our resources and industries how can we have any claims to independence? For far too long we have been a cheap labour economy, prone to the vagaries of the global market and abandoned by multi-national companies.

I am not a radical, that term was applied to Thatcher. I am a revolutionary. I believe in non-violent revolutionary change into a society shaped by sharing and sustainability, where people come before profit every time.

My ideals necessarily inform my work, but people are always at the centre, with all their contradictions.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about your work with the 'Red Poets"?.

Mike: The Red Poets have been going for 16 years. We can be found on the website www. RedPoets.org , where youll get a sense of our performances and also our history. We produce an annual magazine of leftist poetry and a few articles and translations. We have featured a few poets from the States such as David Lloyd, who is a Professor of Creative Writing in Syracuse and whose family came to the USA from Wales.

Red Poets used to be a collective based as much on performance as publication, but there are fewer gigs nowadays. We publish work by Welsh Nats, Trots, Commies, anarchists and even left Labourites. We are genuinely inclusive and also very open to humorous verse.

We were born out of Cymru Goch (the Welsh Socialists) and, in fact, a number of the original members of that political group remain regular contributors, such as myself, Tim Richards and Alun Rees.

I believe we are unique and the result of an amazingly high number of committed left-wing writers in Wales. We are very much in the tradition of John Tripp, Harri Webb and , of course, Idris Davies. There is no other group anywhere else that Im aware of, not even in Scotland.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Mike Jenkins?

Mike: Next up will be my collaboration with the excellent Merthyr painter Gus Payne (check out his website under Michael Gustavius Payne).

During 2011 and 2012, Gus will be exhibiting his work at various galleries throughout Wales, together with phrases and lines from my texts and an accompanying booklet of my prose-poems and micro-fiction. The artwork and texts are all based on Welsh idioms, phrases and occasional place-names and the overall title will be Dim Gobaith Caneri, an idiom meaning no hope, like a canary.

Our collaboration has been interesting because I didnt write in response to his images , nor did he seek to illustrate my words. What we did was to consider the same idioms, often coming up with different interpretations.

However, Gus and I do share many things. Politically, we have similar ideals; we are both learning Welsh and are both inspired, directly or indirectly, by the people, town and surroundings of Merthyr.

I am very excited about this and hope that my texts are a match for his startling and evocative paintings.

AmeriCymru: Any further message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Mike: I would like to say thanks for the messages of support for my long poem Journey Of The Taf which appeared on the ameriCymru website. Its a great encouragement to know that people so far away are taking so much interest.

As the Super Furry Animals have inferred, we are making rings around the world.

Interview by ... Ceri Shaw ... Email