AmeriCymru: Hi Craig and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Can you tell us a little about your forthcoming visit to the US and in particular your headline performance at NAFOW 2014 in Minneapolis?

Craig: We are really looking forward to coming over to the US. We have been a few times before, but only to New York and Washington DC, so we cant wait to see other parts of America. We are performing 5 times on our tour, firstly we have a reception at the British Consulate in Chicago, then we have a concert in Algona, Iowa, we then perform twice at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and last but certainly not least we finish at the NAFOW in Minneapolis.

AmeriCymru: What can attendees expect from Only Men Aloud at the Festival? Can you give us any sneak previews of your program for this performance?

Craig: As with every concert Only Men Aloud do, there will be a wide variety in styles of music. We will be singing traditional Welsh hymns and folksongs all the way through to some pop favourites and music theatre numbers, all done with our unique Only Men Aloud twist.

AmeriCymru: How did the choir come to be formed and where are you based?

Craig: Only Men Aloud was formed in the year 2000, when Tim wanted to start a new group to inject some new blood in to the male voice choir tradition. He wanted to make it more appealing to a wider audience and make it younger and fresher - ensuring that this great tradition continues for many years to come. We are based in and around Cardiff in South Wales, but have performed all over the world.

AmeriCymru: The choir has been through some changes over the years. Can you describe its current composition and repertoire?

Craig: It has indeed. When we one BBC Last Choir Standing in 2008, there we 19 members of the choir. In September 2013 we saw a complete reinvention of the group, as the choir became a "honed and toned 8-piece vocal ensemble.  This has enabled us to put sound like at the absolute core of the group. We needed to keep things fresh and be the very best we could. It has enabled us to take on more opportunities that we would have otherwise had to turn down with a larger number of singers - but we hope the quality of our performance has not changed and hopefully it is even better.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about your performance at the 2012 Olympic Games? That must have been a momentous occasion.

Craig: Singing at the Olympic Games opening ceremony was an incredible experience. We were singing at the very moment that the olympic flame - or the cauldron as it was called in London - was lit. We were stood on the hill side or Tor, surrounded by the flags of every nation, looking down into the stadium with was crammed full with every competitor of the games. We had the best seats in the house, and once we were finished, we remained on the fake hillside to watch the most amazing firework display we had ever seen.

AmeriCymru: What would you say has been the choirs proudest moment or most outstanding achievement to date?

Craig: I don't think we would be doing what we are doing now without us winning BBC's Last Choir Standing. It was an intense summer back in 2008 as it completely took over our lives, but what has followed in the subsequent years has been all down to that success. Tours, an album deal and winning a Classical Brit award have all happened due to our hard work that summer.

AmeriCymru: You also run The Aloud Charity. Can you tell us something of your organisation's work? What unique opportunities does it offer for Welsh youngsters?

Craig: When Tim registered the name Only Men Aloud, he also registered the name Only Boys Aloud, in the hope that one day we could set up a choir for teenage boys. Just over four years ago, this became a reality and since then it has gone from strength to strength. We now have ten choirs across south Wales and have 180, 14-19 year olds on our books. Along side this, three years ago, we started Only Kids Aloud. This is to work with boys and girls from the ages of 4 up to 14. Through this we have given numerous school workshops for teachers and pupils, set up a pan-Wales Choir that has visited Russia and South Africa and worked with hundreds of local school kids to perform in the National Eisteddfod. Just over a year ago, we set up and registered The Aloud Charity and now this looks after all of the work we do with the Boys and the Kids.  

AmeriCymru: Can you tell us a little about your most recent album 'Only Men Aloud Unplugged'?

Craig: Only Men Aloud Unplugged is our fourth album and is something slightly different. The album is just us eight singers, in a room with a piano and no amplification. It has given a more intimate style and we hope you enjoy the stripped back approach we have gone for. We have put some beautiful music on there, that ranges from Welsh songs like Pantyfedwen and Hiraeth to classics such as Lennon and McCartney's Blackbird. The album will be exclusively on sale after our live performances in America and on our tour in the UK.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Only Men Aloud? New recordings, performances?

Craig: We have a busy few months ahead of us after we get back from the US. We have a 12 date UK wide Christmas Tour in December, we are hoping to make a TV programme in the autumn and then launch and make our fifth album in the new year. There will also be a Spring Tour in Wales in March.

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

Craig: We would like to thank you all for your support of Only Men Aloud over the years and we hope some of you are getting to see us on our trip to the States. We wouldn't be doing what we do without the support of our fans, right across the world.

AmeriCymru spoke to Welsh legend Max Boyce - " I have another big concert tour starting in October until December following a very successful TV programme celebrating my 70th Birthday which was actually had the highest viewing ratings that year! I am also in the process of writing my autobiography for publication when I finally finish it! "

.....

AmeriCymru:  Hi Max and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. I read in a previous interview that you have "always loved folk music and poetry". Are there any particular musicians or poets who influenced or inspired you?

Max: I would probably say Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie & Ewan MacColl.

AmeriCymru:   You worked as a coal miner in the 1960's. How and to what extent did this influence your music?

Max: I did indeed and this influenced my music massively.  To write accurately about your subject matter you have to experience it personally. For me, it was that special camaraderie and sharing the same dangers that really enabled me to write my songs with first-hand experience and which ultimately has given my songs their poignancy. All great works, whether they be paintings or songs are at their best when created from personal experience.

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about the night your Live in Treorchy album ( 1974 ) was recorded?

Max: Well it was put together very hastily so not foreseen at all! Initially I was selling my tickets for 50p just to get an audience for my show as I needed them for my chorus songs!  I was in fact giving them away and think people only came to see me out of sympathy!  It was the audience’s spontaneous reactions that made this album the success that it was. I made a conscious decision to choose a place where I had never been before so I got a fresh reaction and it went fantastically well!

Max Boyce Live At Treorchy

AmeriCymru:  How did it feel to go straight to number 1. in the charts with your second album 'We All Had Doctors Papers'?

Max: Unbelievable! I still find it strange when I think back. Wherever I was in the country I would always buy a copy of The Melody Maker and The New Music Express just to see if I was still up there!  I remember seeing my name on the list ABOVE Rod Stewart and The Beatles! Totally amazing.

AmeriCymru:  Did you ever think that your song 'Hymns And Arias' would become anthemic? How did that song come to be written?

Max: No I didn’t. No-one could foresee that. It became a song of the people which just cannot be manufactured.  Funnily enough the Irish and Scottish anthemic folk songs ‘Fields of Anthenry’ and ‘Flower of Scotland’ were actually written at a very similar time to when I wrote ‘Hymns and Arias’. I had just been to Twickenham and was writing topical songs. So I basically wrote about my memories  of the whole trip and probably did it in about 2 hours!  I wish I could change a line or two today but obviously cannot!

AmeriCymru:  You have performed all over the world. What was your most memorable performance and why?

Max: Probably Wembley before the Wales vs England game. It was a home game and should have been in Cardiff but they were building the stadium for the World Cup. Such an iconic venue with 80,000 people singing along..wonderful.

AmeriCymru:  You toured Australia in 2003 during the rugby World Cup. Any memories you would like to share?

Max: Performing at Sydney Opera House was tremendous and I had Katherine Jenkins as my guest. She performed one song and then was very quickly signed up after that!

Hymns and Arias

AmeriCymru:  You have visited and performed in the States in the past. How did you enjoy your time in the US?

Max: I absolutely loved it and I loved the different culture.  Also what a privilege afforded to very few, if any, to play for 2.5 months with The Dallas Cowboys. To be picked by Coach Landry to play offence in the first game in the Texas Stadium against the Green Bay Packers is something I will never ever forget.  Following on from the success of that, I was then also asked to ride bulls in the rodeo and again, was very touched by the similar camaraderie that they had, as we did in coal mining, in sharing the same dangers.  Bull riding is America’s truest sport I think and an experience that I will treasure always.

AmeriCymru:  What's next for Max Boyce? Tours? Recordings?

Max: I have another big concert tour starting in October until December following a very successful TV programme celebrating my 70th Birthday which was actually had the highest viewing ratings that year! I am also in the process of writing my autobiography for publication when I finally finish it!

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

Max: Please carry on with the missionary work and come back and see us soon – we miss you!

AmeriCymru spoke to Welsh musician and Taran founder Gerard KilBride about the recent S4C series 'Ffwrnes Gerdd' .

"The programme, an original idea by Gerard KilBride and produced by ffilmiau’r ffwrnes, continues the tunechain series and features a wide variety of styles and performances by different performers in the beguiling atmosphere of the Ffwrn café and restaurant at Fishguard, Pembrokeshire."

AmeriCymru: Hi Gerard and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. What is Ffwrnes Gerdd and what was your involvement with it?

Gerard:   I am the ideas originator, Producer, Musical director, tea boy and general dogs body.

Ffwrnes Gerdd is the first ever co-production between Arts Council Wales and S4C, and continues a series of short films I made in  2012 with Rhodri Smith, supported by trac  called Tunechain/ Clustfeiniau.

These short films start with Robert Evans who discusses how he became involved in Welsh folk music and then he plays a tune he learnt from me. It then continues to follow the chain  from musician to musician, a journey around Wales, discovering the aural tradition. They are absolutely beautiful but very low budget filmed and recorded on iphones.

They were a great success, but limited by their low technology approach,  so I approached ACW to make another set of films, using Welsh fiddlers, playing Welsh music on Welsh made violins. We also had help from Gethin Scourfield, another fiddler from the 80's band Penderyn and a legend in Welsh TV, producer of Welsh language hit Hinterland. He is working on the next series as I write this. So we approached S4C with the same idea but with Welsh singers. When S4C and ACW  heard that we were working on two different projects they asked if they could co-produce and share some of the content? At the same time Theatr Mwldan, Aberteifi, and I had been planning to tour the Songchain/Cylchcanu  idea using 10 artists from the films, touring Welsh arts centres and theatres.

This has just finished and was a great success - a game changer for Welsh music in Welsh theatres. We intend to tour again next year, with big plans for a collaborative project in Patagonia next year.

AmeriCymru: How many other Welsh musicians were involved with the project?

Gerard: In total  33 Welsh musicians, all masters of their crafts and touring.

AmeriCymru: Where can readers go online to view the programs or excerpts from them?

Gerard: We did a re-edit of all the tunechain clips for Lorient Interceltic 2013 and they are here in one programme :

Tunechain Clips

Ffwrnes Gerdd, the two main programmes are on s4c's clic channel:

Program 1

and

Program 2

A ll links will always be at www.pibgyrn.com and http://www.trac-cymru.org/

AmeriCymru: When did you first become interested in Welsh traditional music? What are your musical influences?

Gerard: Both my parents played music and were instrumental in the Welsh music revival back in the 60-70s here in south Wales, so they were my first influences.  They ran a dance band called Juice of Barley for thirty years so we all grew up with music all around us, my brothers and I learnt via osmosis.

Bernard is one of the fiddlers included in the films, a great fiddler and Dan who also played a big part in Taran, is currently the director of trac, Wales' Folk Development organisation.

My dad was a Ship's Captain who used to bring back tunes and whiskey from all over the world, we laugh thinking that a fiddle playing ship's Captain brings new meaning to the Mari Celeste.

My early Welsh influences were bands like Yr Hwntws who I was very proud to play the fiddle with, Pedwar yn y bar and Plethyn .  Bob Evans who starts the tunechain and was also on the songchain tour, was a huge influence on my fiddle playing, he taught me there was "no such thing as a bad tune."  But many great musicians passed through our doors all leaving a tune or two behind,  it wasn't all plain sailing as we all rebelled and formed a punk rock band, but gradually our parents won us back with the offer of steady paid work in their dance band.

I learnt the fiddle when I was about 18 and after trying to make one, being a carpenter and joiner, decided I would learn to repair and make them. So I went to Newark School of Violin Making where I met  the amazing Shetland fiddle player Ewan Thompson, who to this day is my biggest musical influence. He is a living legend, and a thoroughly lovely bloke.

AmeriCymru: Would you agree that Welsh folk and traditional music suffers by comparison with Scottish and Irish music in terms of international exposure? If so what do you think are the reasons for that?

Gerard: Not really, it is nowhere near as popular, which isn't a bad thing, but I think it's one of Wales's best kept secrets. If it was hugely popular it wouldn't be as special. History played a huge part. Ireland and Scotland almost lost their language but kept their music, in Wales it was the opposite. Wales as a nation has not promoted or supported its traditional music, comparing Welsh music to Irish and Scottish is also I feel, like comparing different fruits, an orange will never be an apple, sorry if that's obscure?
 
AmeriCymru: Is Welsh traditional music currently undergoing a renaissance?

Gerard: There are lots of young talented people, taking up instruments and putting the spirit into it and a lot of classical musicians joining in, which I have some mixed feelings about. I don't feel written music is the way to learn traditional music, but I could go on about that for hours. L et's not make it too popular

Welsh Pibgyrn By Coppop (Own work) [ CC-BY-SA-3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

AmeriCymru: Your site,  www.pibgyrn.com  contains a wealth of information about the oldest of Welsh instruments, the pibgyrn. What advice would you give people who are seeking to become acquainted with it? Where would you acquire a pibgyrn?

Gerard: Many people think the pibgorn is a simple instrument, and feel that if they play the recorder or whistle then this instrument will be an easy transition.....not many who come from this route persist.

At first it is the most frustrating instrument to learn and to keep in playing condition. Moisture/ spit and condensation are the enemies and new players rarely understand how to manage this moisture.

It was for this  reason that I made www.pibgyrn.com. As a professional instrument maker in Wales I found there was a huge myth and lack of decent information on the pibgorn. Those who knew how to play it were not keen to pass it on. This has changed now and the site is set up to dispel many of those myths.

Most of the players worldwide input into the facebook group here with lots of good advice,

https://www.facebook.com/groups/162020927154723/

The best advice I have heard so far is, until you understand fully how to adjust a pibgorn reed "do not touch or alter that reed!". Also moisture is your enemy. Learn to circular breath, and cross finger to save air, as they do with the Basque alboka.

The finest maker of Pibgyrn is Jonathan Shorland, his horn carving is second to none and like a fine porcelain, they are generally louder than most other makers instruments. He can be tracked down on the internet, he doesn't advertise, look for the band Celtech.

Gafin Morgan also a member of the band Taran, has made a pre cast plastic Pibgorn which works. It is available here www.pibgorn.co.uk . He again is a lovely man who has spent years trying to promote the instrument and  through his efforts will continue to improve the manufacturing techniques.

AmeriCymru: You are the leading light and founding member of Welsh Celtic band Taran. For the benefit of any of our readers who are not familiar with it can you tell us a little about the 'Hotel Rex' album released in 2011?

Gerard: Hotel Rex, was a huge undertaking, with 26 performers from 3 different countries, and took just over two years to make. I am very proud of the outcome although it was not to the general publics taste. It is still Available on itunes and CD baby.

It starts with a sample of Jimmy Hendrix and ends with Dylan Thomas reading " and death shall have no dominion".  It was the second CD for the band Taran, who mixed samples of ancient poetry, bagpipes and  beats to Welsh traditional music.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Gerard Kilbride and Taran? Any new recordings or tours in the pipeline?

Gerard: We will be touring the Songchain/Cylchcanu project again next year, and I would like to continue to make short films about music. I have big ideas to include more English speaking Welsh artists and do some more collaborative work. Patagonia for the Mimosa's 150th landing celebration would be exciting. Members of Taran continue to work together in different outfits and if a project came up that interests us we would be back together in a shot. I am busy making and restoring fiddles and run several web e-commerce solutions for high end violin dealers. I am also trying my best to bring up a young family.

I would love to do more recording and playing, but no longer have the time to commit to something as large and all consuming as Taran.

Also I have another long term research project on violin bridges www.violinbridges.co.uk

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

Gerard: Thanks for your interest and I hope you enjoy some of these projects. I would love to come back to the States sometime as I was blown away by the sheer scale and beauty of the place.

AmeriCymru:  Hi David and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. What can you tell us about your recent book Britannia's Dragon: A Naval History Of Wales ?  

David: Thanks for giving me the chance to talk about the book! It's the first full length study of the part played by Wales and the Welsh in naval history, beginning in the Roman period, going through the age of the independent kingdoms and the conquest right the way up to the present day. It's based on several years of detailed research, including a great deal of work on original sources and my own fieldwork in different parts of the country. The book's been very well received, and was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Mountbatten Literary Award.    ...

AmeriCymru:  How significant was the Welsh contribution to British naval history?  

David: Enormous! For example, Nelson's navy couldn't have been as successful as it was without Welsh copper, mined at Parys Mountain on Anglesey and smelted in Greenfield, Swansea and elsewhere: because it reduced the frequency of major refits, coppering effectively increased the size of the operational fleet by a third, giving it a huge advantage over Napoleon's navy. The Victorian Royal Navy depended entirely on Welsh coal, and so, too, did the navies of many European states before 1914, including Russia and France. And Wales always provided large numbers of men for the Royal Navy. For example, in the book I make the pretty controversial, but thoroughly documented, claim that at the Battle of Trafalgar, the proportion of Welshmen in the fleet - relative to size of population - was much greater than that for the Scots or Irish, and if you count seamen alone, even slightly larger than the English contribution, again relatively speaking. The book also discusses famous Welsh naval men, such as Sir Thomas Foley (Nelson's right hand man), Henry James Raby (the first man ever to actually wear the Victoria Cross) and Commander Tubby Linton, one of the most brilliant submarine commanders of World War 2. It also looks at the history of Pembroke's royal dockyard, which built over 250 ships for the Royal Navy - including many famous battleships, five royal yachts, and Sir John Franklin's Erebus , the wreck of which has recently been rediscovered in the Arctic.  

AmeriCymru:  Does the book examine the Welsh contribution to the history of piracy?  

David: To an extent, yes, although I was aware of the fact that there are already several books in print about Welsh pirates, so I deliberately decided to focus on the much less well known story of the Welsh role in 'official' state navies. But it would have been impossible not to mention the likes of Sir Henry Morgan and Black Bart Roberts, so they do feature in it!

AmeriCymru:  The book includes a chapter on Welshmen in non British navies. Does the US Navy feature here? Any significant names?  

David: Yes, I've included a lot about the Welshmen who served in the United States Navy, and in the Confederate Navy, too. Probably the most significant name is that of Joshua Humphreys, the Philadelphia shipwright responsible for the US Navy's famous 'six frigates', including the USS Constitution . There were Welshmen aboard both the Monitor and the Merrimac/Virginia , and the likely remains of one of them were interred with full military honors at Arlington just last year . The book also includes a substantial and in some ways quite controversial section on the almost unknown naval context behind the survival of the Welsh colony in Patagonia.

AmeriCymru:  You have also written a series of novels set in the 17th century featuring Captain Matthew Quinton. Care to tell us more about the captain and his adventures?  

David:  I loved Patrick O'Brian's books, but I was very aware of the fact that the vast majority of the naval historical fiction genre was set within what might be called 'the age of Nelson', from about 1750 to 1815. Seventeenth century naval history had been neglected in comparison, and I wanted to rectify that, especially as I'd been working on the period as a historian for many years and had published two non-fiction books about it. It's a fascinating age, with spectacular events like the Great Fire of London, larger than life characters like King Charles II and Samuel Pepys, and a series of very hard fought Anglo-Dutch wars , which form the focus of my books. My hero, too, is different to the likes of Hornblower or O'Brian's Jack Aubrey, who go to sea as boys and are therefore highly skilled and experienced seamen when they take command. Captain Matthew Quinton is typical of the 'gentlemen captains' of the Restoration period - young Cavaliers who were given commands despite having next to no experience at sea. Matthew's first command is wrecked due to his inexperience, but he's given a second chance, and this leads him into all sorts of adventures during the course of the series, from the north of Scotland to the Baltic and the River Gambia! In a future book, I hope to take him to the Caribbean, too. At the moment there are five books published in the series: Gentleman Captain, The Mountain of Gold, The Blast That Tears The Skies, The Lion of Midnight , and The Battle of All The Ages.  

AmeriCymru:  Any new books in the pipeline?  

David: I'm currently finishing the sixth Quinton book, which is going to be a little bit different to its predecessors - although I can't really say any more than that at this stage! I also have a couple of non-fiction projects in the pipeline, too. 

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

David:  I think it's really tremendous that there's such a strong and active American network devoted to Welsh heritage! I'm originally from Llanelli, and part of my mother's family emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1890s; my mother still remembers the return visit one of them paid, a few years before I was born, and I have a copy of the diary that he made of his trip back to Britain, so I've always been fascinated by the Welsh diaspora. I hope that if any members of that diaspora have a look at Britannia's Dragon, you'll thoroughly enjoy it!

AmeriCymru: Hi Brendan and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. How would you describe 'Dark September'?

Brendan: Dark September is a fast paced alternate history thriller set in Wales during WW2. It touches on the desperation and raw fear of ordinary people trying to survive against odds that are definitely not in their favour.

In the story Germany invades the UK. Soldiers pour ashore from warships in the Severn Channel, determined to secure the steelworks and the coal mines of South Wales.

Irishman Danny O’Shea is on his way to work in Newport Docks. His house is bombed and his wife is killed. His young son Adam, who nearly drowned when he was a baby, has severe learning difficulties. Terrified of what the Nazis will do to him, O’Shea resolves to take him to neutral Ireland.

Penniless and desperate, they head for Fishguard. But on an isolated Welsh road they witness an attack on a German convoy carrying the blueprints for an awesome new weapon that was discovered in a secret laboratory near Brecon.

German Captain Eric Weiss, responsible for the blueprint’s safe transfer to Berlin, knows that his job - even his life - depends on him getting it back.

But, following a major disagreement amongst the insurgents, the blueprint disappears. Then O’Shea goes to the aid of a dying woman - and both the Germans and the insurgents believe she’s told him where the blueprints are.

Suddenly O’Shea is separated from his son and catapulted into a world of betrayal and brutal double-cross. Pursued by both the Germans and the insurgents, his only concern is to find Adam and get him to safety.

One reviewer did think that the violence was too sudden and disturbing, but it only reflects the horror of the times and is not deliberately gratuitous.

AmeriCymru: How did you come to write the book and what is the story behind the new edition?

Brendan: The germ of the story has been in my head since the time I was in the Navy and we did exercises in the Brecon Beacons. I wondered what it would really be like to be running for your life through such inhospitable terrain with the bad guys determined to do you a serious injury if they caught you. But why would my character be running from anyone? What year should it be set in?

Later on I saw some disturbing footage of Nazis guards disposing of people with special need, and I felt tremendous sympathy for their families. How would I have react if I was in that position and Germany invaded the UK? Where would I take my child? Being Irish I felt it would be natural to gravitate to Ireland, which was neutral. And the chances were I’d still have some family there to go to.

Of course, once I’d started writing the story it took on a life of its own. Characters reacted in ways I never intended. People I created as decent characters turned into monsters half way through a chapter, even a sentence. It was exciting and disturbing all at the same time, and I enjoyed every moment of writing it.

I was concerned about making the leading nasty persons - two sisters - direct descendants of a treasured Welsh historical character. Initially they were beautiful, kind and loving girls but they were corrupted by both love and riches. But so far I haven’t had any negative feedback about it. I would appreciate the views of my Welsh readers on that.

The original book was self-published with Smashwords.com but it has now been taken up by http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com

AmeriCymru: What can you tell us about your background as a writer? When did you first put pen to paper?

Brendan: When I won my first writing competition I was so excited I ran all the way home. I was about eight years old. The Fun Fair was coming to Tralee - our little town on the West coast of Ireland - and apart from Duffy's Circus which came every September, this was the highlight of our year. Our English teacher asked us to write an essay about it, and I won the only prize - a book of ten tickets for the fair.

There were eight kids in our family so everyone got a ride on something. Even The Mammy herself had a go on the dodgems.

So writing was in my blood from a very young age. I loved essays and English literature, but we were a very close family - physically as well as emotionally - so there wasn't much free space in our little house in Railway Terrace for me to sneak off to and indulge in my hobby.

My grand-uncle Moss Scanlon was a harness maker and he had a small shop in Lower William Street, Listowel - a rural town in Kerry that was just a bus ride from Tralee - where we spent some wonderful summer holidays. Down the lane opposite the shop was the River Feale, and Moss did some serious fishing there, standing out in the middle of the river in waders that came up to his neck while us kids swam in the cool brown water or just chilled out on the grass watching him struggle with a pike or a trout.

The shop had a wonderful magic about it - a magnet for all sorts of colourful characters who'd wander in for a chat and a bit of jovial banter. One wonderful storyteller who often popped in was John B Keane, and it was a great thrill to actually meet him. I asked him once where he got his ideas from, and he told me that everyone has a story to tell, so be patient and just listen to them.

And I was there, sitting on the counter in the shop, when John B's very first story was read out live on Radio Eireann. I can still remember the buzz of excitement and the sheer pride of the people of Listowel. And the seeds of storytelling were sown in my soul.

Another source of raw encouragement was Bryan MacMahon, one of Listowel's finest writers and a schoolmaster to boot, who was a very easy person to talk to.

Anyway, I left school at fourteen and went to work in hotels in Killarney, and I quickly got caught up in the excitement and colourful buzz of the tourist industry - remember, this was in the 60s when the Beatles were creating a heady revolution and engulfing the youth with hopes and dreams of a wonderful future - so I felt no great urgency to write. I dreamed of being a writer, of course. I wanted to be a writer - but somehow life just got in the way.

When I joined the Royal Navy at eighteen I was sent to the Far East, and I spent the first three years between Singapore and Hong Kong, and again I was having so much fun I didn't get to write anything, although there were loads of stories bursting to get out.

It was only when I got married and the children came along that I made any serious attempt to put pen to paper, and the result was Dark September, an alternative history thriller set in wartime Britain.

I loved writing it - I always wrote in longhand in a school notebook - but I hated having to type it. After working a ten-hour day, I'd be clattering away into the early hours of the morning on an old Olivetti typewriter and getting on everyone's nerves. Then I'd scream in frustration when I'd discover that hours of hard work were ruined by some horrendous typo error, and I'd have to start all over again.

Amazingly, I found an agent almost immediately, but she insisted on some major changes so I spent a year re-writing it.

Unfortunately my agent died suddenly and the agency closed. It took ages to find another agent, but he too demanded even more changes. It became too much for Jennifer and the kids, so my manuscript hibernated in the attic for a few years.

Then Jennifer bought me a computer for Christmas - with Spellcheck! This time finding an agent has proved an impossibility - they only want to represent people who're famous for just being famous - so I self-published it with Smashwords.com, though I still longed to have it accepted by a mainstream publisher.

Now I'm delighted to say the book has been accepted by Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com - an Irish company, and I'm delighted with the result and all the hard work they've put into it to make it a great success.

AmeriCymru: You also write short stories. Do you have any plans for a new anthology?

Brendan: I’m always troweling through the old stories looking for inspiration, and so far I have about six that would be good enough. But I’d need a few more before I could put an anthology together.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about your collection of Irish short stories, 'Dreamin Dreams'?

Brendan: While Dark September was languishing in limbo I discovered that writing short stories is amazingly therapeutic. I get a great buzz from taking an idea and developing it, often watching it evolve into something completely different from how it started out. And I realized too that great ideas are all around us. Little gems are waiting to be harvested everywhere we look. I found myself listening to what people are saying, and the way they say it.

For instance, the Irish are famous all over the world for their colourful and exaggerated expressions, always using a dozen words when one would have done, so I build on that and set all my stories in Ireland. The names are changed, of course, because I don't earn enough to sustain a major lawsuit. I've written hundreds of stories, most of which are still stuffed in drawers somewhere, but I did manage to get more than twenty of them published over the years, in anthologies, e-zines and magazines as well as web sites.

Dreamin’ Dreams - published as an eBook with Smashwords.com, and in paperback by Lulu.com - contains twenty of my published stories, of which I'm very proud. They're all based on real people who passed through my life at some time or other, or events that actually happened to me. Enhanced, of course, and sometimes exaggerated out of all proportion.

The title comes from something my father said years ago when I got poor grades at school. 'What do you expect?' he said to my mother. 'He never does any studying. He just sits there, dreamin' dreams.'

The image on the cover is the statue in The Green, Tralee's town park, and it represents the characters in the song The Rose of Tralee. It's a tremendously impressive statue, and in a beautiful setting too.

Anyway, if you do get the chance to read Dreamin' Dreams, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

AmeriCymru: Where can people buy your work online? Do you have a website?

Brendan: bgobrien.com is my website.

Dark September can be found through Tirgearr Publishing and read on all e-readers.
http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com

Dreamin’ Dreams can be found through Smashwords.com, and all e-book retailers.
And in paperback from Lulu.com

AmeriCymru: What are you working on at the moment? Any new novels in the pipeline?

Brendan: I’m about two chapters away from finishing my latest novel, which is also an alternate history thriller.

Set in 1941, Ireland is sinking under the hordes of refugees swarming there to escape the war in Europe. Danny O’Shea is a Local Security Force volunteer - an auxiliary policeman, in other words.

A man is shot dead in a crowded pub and no one sees or hears anything. Then a young woman is found dead in the town park the very next day.

But when a child disappears from a hospital the suspense is ratcheted up several notches …and the Gardaí need all the help they can get from the LSF. But can O’Shea step up to the mark?

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

Brendan: Thanks for taking the time to read this - I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did doing it. Remember AmeriCymru is a great place to hang out and chat with people who share a common interest - all things Welsh - so enjoy it and spread the word.

......

AmeriCymru: Hi Brian and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. What can you tell us about your latest novel Acts of God ?

Brian: Thanks for the invitation! It's always good to communicate with compatriots and friends on the other side of the pond. I'm not sure how to describe the new novel. I hope it's got more depth to it than the average thriller, which tends to place action (normally violent) above character development or the interactions between groups and individuals. And many of the thrillers I have read over the years don't give you much of a sense of place. I'm a geographer by training, and a sense of place means a great deal to me -- like everybody else in Wales, I have hiraeth in my blood! But here the place that becomes a character in the story is East Greenland rather than Wales.

...

AmeriCymru: Why there?

Brian: Well, because I went to East Greenland and its amazing fjord landscape in 1962 as a student, as joint leader of an Oxford University expedition. The area around Scoresby Sund is referred to -- with some justification -- as the Arctic Riviera, because of the freakish hot and dry weather normally experienced there during the Arctic summer. It's the only place in the world where I've ever experienced heat stroke! We had a fabulous time in the field over a period of eight weeks, but we had a few close shaves with disaster, and realised at the end of the expedition that we had been lucky to come out of it without any major injuries or even deaths. We were completely unsupported, a hundred miles from the nearest help if anything had gone wrong, and not even any radios to call for help. In retrospect, we took some crazy risks, as young men tend to do. We probably thought we were immortal.

But there were also some intriguing things that happened to us -- heavy aircraft high overhead, encounters with US military personnel, and of course a strong US presence at Keflavik in Iceland, not very far away. We were there, after all, at the height of the Cold War. In 1962 Gary Powers, the U2 pilot, was released. The USA was still recovering from the Bay of Pigs disaster. The Cuban Missile crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The Berlin Wall was being built. There was tension in the air. So back in 1962 I suppose the seeds of this novel were sown in my mind -- and for over 50 years they have been slowly germinating. And a couple of years ago I worked out the theme for the novel and started work on the first draft.

Camp site on the Oxford Glacier in 1962.  Some of the incidents from the OU Expedition to East Greenland were used as the basis for episodes in the new novel

  AmeriCymru: And the theme is?

Brian: I don't want to give too much away, but let's call the book the first ever "Arctic Noir" novel! It's related in some ways to those dark and brutal "Scandinavian Noir" stories that have poured out of Sweden, Denmark and Norway over the past few years -- but this story does not have a dysfunctional detective or a homicidal maniac who leads the police in a complex chase through the murky winter landscapes of the Copenhagen suburbs. In the high Arctic the darkness is the blackness of the long winter night -- and symbolically the blackness imposed on a pristine wilderness and an innocent people by powerful nations intent on out-thinking and dominating other powerful nations. And there is a very dark villain too. The story follows several groups of people whose fortunes are intertwined. The action jumps from one group to another in a manner that is deliberately cinematic. But essentially, the narrative is about a group of young men who arrive in East Greenland on a scientific expedition and who find, even before they arrive in their fieldwork area, that strange things are happening to them and to their environment.

They experience one "Act of God" after another, and soon they are afflicted by deaths and serious injuries. They are not the only ones to suffer -- the small local population of Greenlanders is also caught up in strange events. As the death toll mounts, the explorers are too intelligent and too inquisitive for their own good, and they realise that their misfortunes can be traced back to a strange "mining settlement" in a red mountain called called Himmelbjerg, surrounded by glaciers and snowfields, some fifty miles away from their base camp. Gradually, they uncover a gigantic conspiracy which has its roots in the Cold War, and it becomes clear that they are being targetted by an implacable enemy with limitless resources who will not allow any of them to get out of East Greenland alive. The forces of darkness, by the way, are led by a man called Jim Wagner. And so the scene is set for the Twilight of the Gods.........

Author Brian John and two colleagues near the point of exhaustion, on Roslin Glacier in 1962.

AmeriCymru: So the story is an allegorical one, full of symbols?

Brian: Yes, it is. All good stories are allegorical to a degree, since every author is seeking to demonstrate universal truths through an examination of a unique set of circumstances affecting a specific group of people. The conflict between good and evil is played out in almost every work of fiction -- it's a universal theme. There's another theme too, which has been in my mind ever since I started planning this novel. It's the same theme that Alexander Cordell used in "Rape of the Fair Country" -- the loss of innocence, the violent despoilation of a beautiful wilderness, the loss of humanity, the cynical acceptance of collateral damage in pursuit of power and wealth. Greed and the lust for power lie at the heart of Cordell's story, as they do in mine.

But while he was dealing with mineral exploitation and industrialisation, I'm dealing here with geopolitics and military might. This is a Cold War story, and I have tried to capture the mood of the time. And as some of my readers have already remarked, the events which I've built into the story are not so fantastical that they cannot possibly have occurred in reality. Since I tend be have an optimistic turn of mind, I like to tell stories in which evil and brutality bring their own grotesque rewards, and in which virtue triumphs!

AmeriCymru: 'Acts of God' is very much a change of setting and genre from your 'Angel Mountain' series. What prompted you to explore new avenues?

Brian:  I wasn't exactly bored with Martha Morgan and her Angel Mountain adventures, and am as fascinated by her as ever -- but shall we say I was getting rather complacent? After eight novels dealing with the same group of people in early nineteenth-century Wales I began to feel that I was in the comfort zone, and that there was a danger that my writing standards might start to slip. So rather than risking that, I decided to take on something more challenging -- an Arctic Noir story set in the Cold War of 1962. That of course involved huge changes in my storytelling technique, in the style of language used by the characters and in the interpretations of landscapes, political contexts, personal relationships and almost everything else. Also, in the Angel Mountain books I used a particular format -- an introductory chapter describing the discovery of another diary volume, and then a narrative unfolding in a diary format. Using a female voice, too!

This new novel has enabled me to experiment with a quite different narrative form -- third person, a relatively straightforward timeline, and several groups of players as the drama evolves. And for a change the real stars of the story are men! That having been said, there are just two women in this story -- but they are both absolutely critical to the manner in which the central crisis is resolved.  

AmeriCymru: Where can readers find 'Acts of God' online? Is there a website?

Brian:  The book is already available in both paperback and Ebook for Kindle. There is also a dedicated web site which is getting a wonderful response from readers.

This is the link to my web site, where I have a purchasing facility for both European and American readers:

Acts of God

And here are the other key links:

Acts of God ( Kindle ) Amazon.co.uk

Acts of God ( Paperback ) Amazon.co.uk

Acts of God ( Kindle ) Amazon.com

Acts of God ( Paperback ) Amazon.com

Polar bears such as this one inevitably play a role in a novel set in the Greenland fjords

AmeriCymru: While this story is obviously a full-blown adventure story with a dark conspiracy at its heart, it seems that you are also fascinated by the East Greenland landscape. Are you being paid by the Greenland tourist office?

Brian: If only! Maybe I should send them a bill? Seriously though -- of course I'm fascinated by the East Greenland landscape. It's one of the most exotic locations possible -- by far the most spectacular fjord landscape on earth, richly textured, washed with vibrant colours and ringing with birdsong and the sounds that come from glaciers and rolling and melting icebergs. I still have a large collection of digitised images from my own expedition in 1962, and during my research for this story I have dug up hundreds of amazing photos from more recent travellers into the area. I've put the best of them into a number of albums which anybody can access, including these:

Acts of God on Pinterest

East Greenland on Pinterest

Oxford University East Greenland Expedition 1962 on Pinterest

East Greenland is already becoming an important tourist destination, but access into the fjords is strictly limited to around two months every year, because of the ubiquitous East Greenland pack-ice belt. The Greenlanders are still involved in hunting, and it's important that their way of life should continue without too much interference from anybody else. But the wildlife resources are fantastic, and the tourist authorities are pushing "eco tourism" as hard as they can, with many visitors now coming in by air. That extends the tourist season, and now we are seeing trekking and "adventure holidays" in the area in the spring months as well, when the light is bright, the fjords are still frozen, and the snow is still thick on the ground. But tourism has to be handled carefully -- the area lies outside the East Greenland National Park, and great sensitivity -- and maybe tourist "rationing" -- is needed if this delicate wilderness is not to be damaged by those who seek to protect it.

AmeriCymru: Are you planning any further instalments in the 'Angel Mountain' saga?

Brian: Never say never. My faithful readers, who have bought 75,000 of my books since the series started, keep on hassling me and asking for more! All I can say at the moment is that there are still some long gaps in the story which are waiting to be filled. There are some interesting characters too -- like the wizard Joseph Harries -- who would make interesting central characters for other stories. Then we also have the next generation of the Morgan family, now that Martha is finally in her grave. I'll keep the matter under review!

AmeriCymru: What are you doing for Christmas?

Brian:  Nothing very exotic. I hate the very idea of Christmas in a hotel, or away from home. So it'll be at home, all being well, in the company of my wife, two sons, one daughter-in-law and two teenage grandsons. In our family we are lucky, since my wife Inger is Swedish and since we therefore have to celebrate Christmas twice. Christmas Eve (Julafton) is the important day in Sweden, so of course we have to celebrate that properly with all the correct rituals and food. Then we do it all again on Christmas Day, this time with the full turkey dinner in the evening. By Boxing Day we are all desperately in need of fresh air and exercise -- so whatever the weather, according to tradition, we all go for a long walk either on the cliffs of the north Pembrokeshire coast or else up our local mountain of Carningli. Up there, of course, on the mountain, we can commune with the resident angels.

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

Brian: Keep up the good work! It's great to see you and so many others participating in a real project designed to keep the Welsh flag flying in North America. Hiraeth is alive and well, and I've always believed that a "sense of belonging" is at least as important as a sense of place to all of us, as human beings, if we are to lead interesting and fulfilling lives. I don't think there is any conflict at all in feeling Welsh as well as being American, or Canadian, or whatever. If I'm asked what I am, I will always answer than I am a Welshman -- but that doesn't stop me from feeling British and European as well. So keep the dragon flying, keep cheering on the Welsh rugby team, and keep on buying Welsh books! Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

AmeriCymru: Hi Mark and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru? You are the driving force behind the collection of Welsh 'Lovecraftian' tales:- 'Cthulhu Cymraeg'. What inspired you to produce and contribute to this anthology?

Mark: I came up with the idea for the anthology more-or-less out of necessity. Given the huge influence of Welsh author Arthur Machen on Lovecraft's work, combined with the fact that there has been an explosion in Cthulhu Mythos-themed books over the last few decades, I felt sure that a book like Cthulhu Cymraeg must already exist; one where Welsh authors returned the compliment paid to Machen by Lovecraft by writing in a Lovecraftian manner. Completing the circle, so to speak.

But after months of searching for this book that gave a uniquely Welsh twist to the Cthulhu Mythos, I gave up, forced to admit that no Welsh publisher had yet been down that road. That was when I approached Steve Upham, who upon hearing of the idea was keen that his Cardiff-based company, Screaming Dreams, should take on the project.  

So I suppose you could say I produced the book because I wanted to read it! 

AmeriCymru: What can you tell us about your contribution to the collection:- 'Pilgrimage'?  

Mark: I took something that many people in south Wales will be familiar with - the hour's rail journey between Cardiff and Swansea - and made it even stranger than it usually is! 

The story nearly didn't happen, in fact. I'm always critical of writers who edit an anthology and include one of their own stories. It seems like cheating somehow. 

But in this instance I'm merely being hypocritical. As one of the few Welsh authors who had already written a series of Lovecraftian stories, the publisher persuaded me that on this occasion I really needed to put my money where my mouth was. 

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little about the other contributors?  

Mark:   All the contributors were either born in Wales or have lived here for some time, so hopefully a uniquely Welsh point of view comes through in the writing. It'd be unfair to pick out individual contributors but all of them have a track record of writing tales of the fantastic and macabre; some have even won prestigious awards for their work. 

The publisher, Steve Upham, and I agreed that we didn't simply want writers who were 'holidaying in horror' but rather authors who had an already proven commitment to the genre. And I think that shows through in the stories.  

And there are more writers in Wales today creating tales of the fantastic than ever before. So there is a solid foundation for a Welsh School Of The Weird - maybe this book is its first manifesto, who knows. 

I should also mention that we were very fortunate in that S T Joshi, Lovecraft's biographer and one of the world's foremost Lovecraft experts, agreed to write a foreword to the anthology. It speaks volumes about Machen's influence on Lovecraft in just a few pages. We were very grateful that he was generous enough to do that as he is always incredibly busy. 

AmeriCymru: How much does this collection owe to, and celebrate, the legacy of Arthur Machen ?  

Mark:  Gwilym Games, of the Friends Of Arthur Machen ,often gives talks on the author's influence on Lovecraft. I've heard him say on several occasions "Without Machen there would have been no Lovecraft". I think that sums things up very well. And, by extension, without Machen there would have been no 'Cthulhu Cymraeg'. So you could say that the anthology forms a small part of his legacy. 

AmeriCymru: In your opinion, how much of an influence did Machen have on Lovecraft's writing?  

Mark: An enormous influence. Without him, Lovecraft's work would have been very different. If he hadn't discovered Machen's tales, the Anglophile New Englander would probably have been far more influenced by Lord Dunsany or Algernon Blackwood and perhaps his writing would have had far less impact than it has had. 

In his 1927 essay 'Supernatural Horror In Literature', Lovecraft says about Machen: “Of living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen.”  He also praised Machen's story 'The White People' as one of the greatest examples of weird literature ever written. 

And of course the influence of Machen's celebrated 1894 novella 'The Great God Pan' can be seen quite clearly in one of Lovecraft's best-known tales, 'The Dunwich Horror', which seems to have been partly written as an homage to the Welsh author. 

AmeriCymru: How prominently does Welsh folklore feature in these tales?  

Mark:  One or two of the stories do touch on elements of Welsh folklore, although that was never really a major intention of the anthology. 

But in the introduction I do suggest that Lovecraft's inter-dimensional beings are distorted versions of the Welsh myth of the Tylwyth Teg (or 'Fair Family'). Machen used these supernatural beings, who were said to dwell underground or below water, in his own work (most notably in 'The White People', 'The Novel Of The Black Seal' and 'The Children Of The Pool'), making them even more terrifying than their already unsettling reputation. Perhaps Lovecraft was impressed by these creatures' reputed ability to use water as an occult gateway between their own realm and ours, echoing this in his own creations' thankfully unsuccessful attempts to create their own gateways between the arcane and the mundane. 

So it could be that Lovecraft himself was unconsciously influenced by Welsh folklore, transforming it (Oz-like) into something even more fantastical than the original. 

AmeriCymru: What is your background as a writer? Can you tell us something about your other books/writing?  

Mark:  My background is in journalism. I spent a decade-and-a-half working for Welsh newspapers (including the South Wales Echo in Cardiff and the South Wales Evening Post in Swansea) and the BBC before moving to a marketing and PR role in higher education.  

I decided at the age of nine that I wanted to be a writer. I finally succeeded in getting into print at the age of 39! 

My novella 'The Garden Of Doubt On the Island Of Shadows' was published in 2006. It was largely written as a response to my father's death two years earlier.  

By a strange co-incidence it was read by the great American author Ray Bradbury, who was kind enough to comment favourably on it. This meant a lot to me as I am a great admirer of his work, which I discovered in my early teens. 

My 2010 book 'Songs From Spider Street' is structured so it can be read as either a portmanteau novel or a short story collection, depending on your mood and how much time you have. It contains a mixture of magic realism, science fiction, existential horror and surrealism. 

While the follow-up collection, 2013's 'Brightest Black', has a darker tone overall and is more traditional. 

At the moment I'm working on a new collection for an American publisher. But as I'm quite a slow writer I can't say when that'll see the light of day. 

My stories also pop up from time-to-time in anthologies and magazines when you least expect them. 

AmeriCymru: What have you been reading lately? Any recommendations?  

Mark: I've just finished re-reading Juan Rulfo's 'Pedro Paramo'. And I'm also dipping into a beautiful-looking book by Colorado's Centipede Press called 'A Mountain Walked: Great Stories Of The Cthulhu Mythos'. There is some wonderful work in there and, in terms of its size and weight, it reminds me of an old Welsh family Bible. 

As for recommendations - well, Machen and Lovecraft of course. Any short story by Dino Buzzati. 'Invisible Cities' by Italo Calvino, which is endlessly inventive and great to dip in and out of. Christopher Priest's wonderful novel 'The Glamour'. 

I can't choose a single piece by Thomas Ligotti, so I'll just content myself with saying that anything by him is well worth reading (even his shopping list, probably).  

AmeriCymru: What's next for Mark Howard Jones?  

Mark: Early next year a collection called 'Dreamglass Days' is due out, which collects together all the stories I've had published in the Manchester-based literary magazine Sein und Werden over the last eight years. 

And there are plans for a second volume of 'Cthulhu Cymraeg'. The anthology had almost universally good reviews but the one thing people did say was that it simply wasn't long enough. So this time we'll probably be concentrating on publishing longer stories and even novella-length pieces. 

AmeriCymru: Where can our readers go to purchase 'Cthulhu Cymraeg' online?  

Mark: It's available through Amazon both in the U.S. and the U.K. They can also simply click on the ad in the Welsh-American Bookstore. > 

If anyone wants more information about the book they can visit www.screamingdreams.com/cthulhucymraeg.html . 

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

Mark:  Why not read 'Cthulhu Cymraeg' to your loved ones by the fireside on these cold winter nights.

From the North American Festival of Wales ( Sept. 1-4, 2016 , Calgary, Alberta, Canada):

It's that time again... time to enter the Eisteddfod competitions on Saturday, September 3 , at the 2016 North American Festival of Wales (NAFOW) in Calgary!

We're proud to announce this year a new category for Solo Voice (Youth), open to those aged 15 and under and sponsored by the Calgary Welsh Society. As with the equivalent adult competition, all entrants will perform at least two songs, at least one of which must be in Welsh. All of our competitions involve highly qualified adjudicators who provide a very friendly and supportive atmosphere, thus our younger singers can look forward to a highly rewarding stage experience!

We will again hold three competitions in poetic recitation: Adult and Welsh Learners', both involving recitation of a set piece from memory in Welsh, as well as English Language Recitation. Copies of the set pieces are made available to competitors upon application.

In addition to the new Solo Voice (Youth) competition, we'll be holding three more singing competitions: Hymn Singing, Solo Voice (Adult, 16 and over) and Solo Voice/Semi-Professional. The Solo Voice/Semi-Professional competition, as usual, offers the David G. Morris Memorial Award with a generous cash scholarship as a first prize, for travel to compete in the 2017 National Eisteddfod of Wales.

Our competition entry form (and information sheet) is available at the NAFOW website: http://www.nafow.org/WNAA_ NAFOW/PDFs/Forms/forms2016/ eisteddfod_2016.pdf . (Please note that the form has recently been revised to shift some competition times, but all are still taking place on Saturday, September 3, 2016 , at the Westin Calgary. )

Anyone may enter up to three competitions total, subject to restrictions noted on the entry form and information sheet. All entries must be received by August 20, 2016 . Please contact us at any time with questions (email: eisteddfod@nafow.org , phone: 412-215-9161 ), and we'll see you onstage in Calgary!