Blogs

Nam Le, who won the 60,000 Dylan Thomas Prize for his book The Boat last November took on the challenge of meeting 11 year old schoolchildren from Terrace Road School as part of his role as an ambassador for the University of Wales sponsored Prize.The meeting with the 36 Year 6 pupils took place at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive , Uplands, Swansea - the birthplace of Dylan Thomas which has been restored to its condition as a new house in 1914 by local couple Anne and Geoff Haden and where the prizewinning author stayed for a few days.Said Nam "The children amazed me with their range of original ideas - they kept me on my toes all day."Staying at the birthplace of Dylan Thomas has been a huge treat - I've learned something about how this house and the area influenced his early work."Apart from the workshops with Nam the children also toured the house with Anne and were shown by tour guide Ann Hughes how to make a cup opf tea using leaf tea, a teapot and china cups with not a teabag in sight!.Geoff took them on a trip to nearby Cwmdonkin Park where they followed the love triangle short story Patricia, Edith and Arnold in which Patricia, the maid at Number 5 and Edith who worked next door discover that they are dating the same man. Sparks fly when the three meet up at the bowls pavillion in the park under the watchful eye of the youthful storyteller Dylan!In the evening Nam and 2006 prizewinner Rachel Tresize talked about their writing careers in conversation with Peter Stead and award winning author Flur Dafydd at the Dylan thomas Centre.

Drop In Sessions continue... Wednesday 24th June 2009, 4.30pm-6.30pm, Hobo's, Queen Street, Bridgend.
WMF are hitting the road again and hosting a series of Drop-In Sessions over the coming months across the country for those who would like to meet face-to-face with questions about their ventures / careers / aspirations in the music industry.Staff will be on hand to answer queries and offer general guidance to anyone who pre-books a time slot .The Drop In sessions are free to attend. If youd like to book a space or would like any further information, please drop us a line.hello@welshmusicfoundation.com / Tel: 02920 494110

I'm looking for a good Richard Burton type voice to read a script narration for our upcoming Welsh documentary in northeastern Pennsylvania

Welsh writers were out in force at the recent Hay Literature Festival beating off TV cooks and broken down politicians for the attention of enthusiastic audiences. The highlight was the announcement of the Wales Book of the Year shortlists. Poet Damian Walford Davies from Aberystwyth University chaired an evening in which the three English language and three Welsh language authors were invited to read from and discuss their work.

The English language shortlist consisted of Gee Williams (Blood etc), Deborah Kay Davies (Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful) and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch (Not In These Shoes) pictured above from left to right. The Welsh language authors were Hefyn Wyn (Pentigily), William Owen Roberts (Petrograd) and Geraint V Jones (Teulu Lord Bach).

Later, Damian Walford Davies teamed up with Richard Marggraf Turley and presented a son-et-lumiere evening of poetry and imagery and another Welsh success: during the course of the festival Flur Dafydd was presented with the Oxfam Emerging Writer of the Year prize.

Pictured below with shortlisted authors is Dominic Williams representing Parthian who can claim two thirds of the Wales Book of the Year list. WTG Parthian!

Vote Now!...in the Wales Book of The Year Award 2009 Poll.

Sir Tom will be going home to Wales to perform in Cardiff on October 9 and 10 at Cardiff Internationa Arena (CIA). Tickets are on sale. Check our web site for more of Tom's 2009 itinerary http://www.tjfanclub.com also Tom's website at tomjones.comTom Terrific Fan Club - USA

We arrived in Cardiff about a week ago now, in the early afternoon on the train from Paddington Station, having arrived at Heathrow that morning on an overnight flight from Detroit. We pulled our luggage out from the train platform to the lobby, paused just long enough to buy a small map of downtown Cardiff, then headed out through the station doors to the cab stand, to be greeted immediately by several cabbies asking if we wanted a cab, Surely, we said, and were directed over to the cab first in the cue, with the explanation that this was how it worked; everyone takes their turn.No muss, no fuss - doors were opened, luggage stowed, we got in, the cabbie turned, looked at me: Plasturton Avenue I said a little tentatively, looking at my wife for reassurance since I inevitably mispronounce even the simplest words. She nodded approvingly, confirming I was conforming with the coaching she had given me on the train, causing me to more loudly declare "We're going to Plasturton Avenue. Then, an exchange something like the following:Where?Plasturton.Where?Plasturton.I have never heard of that place. Is it in Cardiff?Yeah, Im pretty sure Then, our cabbie, out the window to another cabbie but still facing me to ensure I named the place:Do you know where this is?Plas Plasturton I stumbled as he came up to the window. We want we want to go to PlasturtonPlas tur ton he said slowly, No, no, I never heard Then, he grinned, moved back from the window, folded his arms across a middle I usually think of as reserved for truck drivers, grinned again, looked sideways with a now face-splitting grin at another cabbie standing close by, then came back to the widow: Plasturton. Oh, Plasturton. Yes, yes, we know that. Five minutes from here. Then, to our cabbie: Plasturton. Take them to Plasturton. Our cabbie grinned. In fact, excepting for my wife and me, by now that whole little universe of cabbies was grinning. Ten minutes later, were on Plasturton Avenue, standing in front of the house that will be our home in Wales for the next three months, having just had our first lesson in one of the things that makes Wales truly distinctive.According to folks who study how we talk, intonations are different in Wales. Whereas most of us English speakers tend to augment sound with stressed syllables, thats not true of the Welsh. Instead, rhythm counts more, with stress tending to go to penultimate syllables. Hence, I was asking to go to PLAS-tur-TON. However, once the cabbies figured it out, we ended up going to Plas-TUR-ton.

We have recently added a feed in the right hand column for our new Forum feature. For the technically minded I should point out that this is not an RSS feed but rather a php module in a resizeable iframe. That said, the whole thing is very easy to use and the new display means that you can observe at a glance all the latest activity in the Forum. We will still use the old Ning Forums but we would like to encourage people to try out the new Forum as well. Just click on any of the links in the display in the right hand column to be taken to the appropriate thread.

Please feel free to start a new thread ( we are a little threadbare at the moment ) or reply to existing posts. Threads in the Forum can be saved to your hard drive as .pdf files and there are a host of other sophisticated features . Enjoy!

New feed here ===================================================================>

Acapulco Zombie recipeAdd Comments Scale ingredients to servings1 shot vodka1 shot 1800 Tequila1 shot rum1 dash white creme de mentheorange juicegrapefruit juicePour the alcohol in first, then finish off the glass with the two juices. Also, remember, just a little Creme de Menthe, not too much!

You'll find the url below and links to more details about the authors and their works. Personally, I'm voting for Gee Williams. www.walesonline.co.uk/bookoftheyear More details here:- http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/books-in-wales/book-of-the-year/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/poll/2009/may/05/art-fund-britains-best-museums