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Seren Books - September 2012
Nerys Williams wins the 2012 Eithne Strong Award for Best First Collection.
 | Congratulations to Seren poet Nerys Williams, who has won the Eithne Strong Award with her debut poetry collection Sound Archive . The award is presented annually for the best first collection of poems published by a poet in Ireland. Nerys beat off competition from three other poets, which included another Seren talent, Eoghan Walls with his fantastic debut collection, The Salt Harvest . Sound Archive was also shortlisted for two prizes last year, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and The Michael Murphy Prize . Prize winning poet Nerys Williams is originally from Wales but moved to Ireland in 2002, where she lectures in American Literature at University College, Dublin. |
The Poetry Garden at Foyles, Southbank
On Saturday 15 th September, Rhian Edwards will be reading from her debut poetry collection, Clueless Dogs at The Inpress Poetry Garden Market, an end of summer extravaganza of contemporary poetry on the Foyles lawn outside one of London's most iconic arts venues, the Southbank Centre. Clueless Dogs is currently on the shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection .
The Inpress Poetry Garden Market will have events running throughout the day, including readings by numerous poets, a poetry market to buy pamphlets, books, anthologies and special editions, and the announcement of the Indian Summer Poetry Competition winner. Click here for full details of this event.
The Poetry Garden is free to attend and you do not need to pre-book.
New Titles
Forthcoming Titles
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Call Mother a Lonely Field by Liam Carson A memoir of an Irish-speaking childhood in Belfast and a moving testament to growing up during the Troubles. Call Mother a Lonely Field mines the emotional archaeology of family, home and language, the authors attempts to break their tethers, and the refuge he finds within them. Carson confronts the complex relationship between a son thinking in English, a father dreaming in Irish and a mother who, after raising five children through Irish, is no longer comfortable speaking the language in the violent reality of 1970s Belfast. "An immensely pleasurable book, and a valuable addition to the canon of Irish autobiography. - The Irish Times ISBN: 9781854115881 Paperback 8.99 |
 | Sen Tyrone: A Symphony of Horrors by Mark Ryan Published posthumously, this illustrated novel describes a young mans search for his absent father and the horrors he encounters on his journey. Sen OBrien left his wife and son in County Tyrone to find work as a collier in the South Wales Valleys. He last sent money and a letter from somewhere called Aberuffern (the mouth of hell in Welsh). What follows for his son Jack, is a series of macabre, mythical encounters with individuals who have come across the avaricious and merciless Sen. ISBN: 9781854116475 Paperback: 8.99 |
| On Becoming a Fish by Emily Hinshelwood On Becoming a Fish was inspired by a series of walks around the 186 mile Pembrokeshire Coastal Path in West Wales, known for its spectacular views from cliffside paths skirting the Irish sea and the Bristol Channel. Deeply engaged with environmental issues through her work in community energy and climate change, the author is also a keen observer of human nature in the context of this beautiful coastline. ISBN: 9781854115775 Paperback: 8.99 |
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See How they Run by Lloyd Jones New Stories from the Mabinogion Small-minded, malicious academic Dr Llwyd McNamara has a grant to research one of Wales biggest heroes: rugby player big M. But as plays with his USB sticks in his little office, the gods have other plans for him. Prize-winning author Lloyd Jones tackles this retelling of the Third Branch of the Mabinogion: Manawyddan son of Llyr, with his usual ingenuity, imaginative intelligence and zest for language to create a skilful and hugely enjoyable tale. ISBN: 9781854115904 Paperback: 8.99 |
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Bird, Blood, Snow by Cynan Jones New Stories from the Mabinogion The original Peredur tale recounts the adventures of a youth bent on recognition as a knight in King Arthurs court. In true questing fashion, he defends maidens, defeats giants, and eventually overcomes the witches who have cursed him. Award-winning author Cynan Jones turns the tale into a modern Quixotian romp. Hoping to save him from the same fate as his father and brothers dead, jailed or missing Peredurs mother takes him from the sink estate. But the world wont be held at bay. When local kids cycle into his life, he follows. ISBN: 9781854115898 Paperback 8.99 |
 | Beyond the Pampas: In Search of Patagonia by Imogen Rhia Herrad Beyond the Pampas is an entrancing journey to the ends of the earth in search of an ideal. Its journey that takes off in unexpected directions, leading the author to a new perspective on her own life and those in the remote reaches of Patagonia. It traces the fortunes of the 19th century Welsh colony in Argentina, and tells the story of the indigenous peoples of that vast, inhospitable territory. ISBN: 9781854115911 Paperback 9.99 |
Meet the Author
Friday 14th September, 2pm: Candy Neubert launches her Channel Island-set novel Big Low Tide at the Guernsey Literature Festival, Guille-Alls Library. She also has a poetry reading with David Charleston on Saturday 15th September, 2.00pm at the Poetry Cafe, Costa Coffee, The Arcade. Entry to both events is free, but booking is required.
Tuesday 18th September, 6.45pm: Graham Mort and Andrew Greig will be reading as part of the Wordsworth Trusts Poetry Season 2012. Graham will be reading from his latest collection Cusp , his first since Visibility: New and Selected Poems . St Oswalds Chrch, Grasmere, Cumbria, LA22 9SW. Tickets 8 (7 in advance). Visit www.wordsworth.org.uk for more information
Friday 21st September, 2pm: Bowery Poetry Segue Academic/Language Reading Series celebrating Womens Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English . Readings from Phillis Levin, Joy Katz, Marilyn Nelson, Eva Salzman. With special guests from Ireland - Siobhan Campbell & Martina Evans. Venue: Bowery Poetry, 308 Bowery (btwn. Bleeker & Houston), NY NY 10012. (F train to 2nd Ave, 6 to Bleeker) Contact: Bob Holman bobholmanpoet@gmail.com
Saturday 22nd September, 2pm: Patrick McGuinness will be reading from his award-winning debut novel The Last Hundred Days at the Throckmorton Literary Festival . For more information call 07592775177
Friday 21st September, 7.30pm: BOOK-ISH presents a Poetry Evening with Paul Henry and Gillian Clarke at the Bear Hotel, Crickhowell. Tickets 5.00 from Bookish or www.book-ish.co.uk
Friday 28th September, 11am: Sculpture unveiling at Cheapside, Bridgend. Two pieces of sculpture by David Annand will be unveiled as part of the regeneration of Bridgend Town Centre. Seren poet Rhian Edwards has been comissioned to write two poems to be engraved on the scupltures.
Thursday 4th October, 7.30pm: First Thursday poetry and fiction readings. Award-winning Seren authors Lloyd Jones See How They Run and Emily Hinshelwood On Becoming a Fish will read at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Thursday 4th October, 9am until closing: National Poetry Day at John Lewis. Rhian Edwards is Poet in Residence at John Lewis (Cardiff). Rhian will be creating Poetry Takeaways on Bookmarks, Poems over the tannoy and odes to wedding lists.
Saturday 6th October, 7.30pm: Poet Anne Cluysenaar will be reading at Poetry on the Border along side Myra Schneider. The Drill Hall, Lower Church street, Chepstow NP16 5HJ
Poem of the Month
Slugs
Each night the slugs have found a way of getting in.
They slip through cracks, inhabiting corners,
edging up table-legs, walls, or chairs.
With their slug etiquette, slug gestures,
are they silently dreaming of lettuces, hostas?
Do they elegise greenhouses, commune with their dead?
Or fantasize brethren on distant planets?
What mistakes do they make, and how will they tell us?
Do we ask their forgiveness? Do they imagine us saved?
Of their psychobiographies will I ever be sure?
Occipital horns conduct in the darkness.
They know nothing of envy, nothing of blame.
In the gastropod inchings of their midnight seances,
the slow rehearsals of molluscular dance,
theyre themselves absolutely, beyond imitation.
And their silvery cast offs Isadoras
just at the moment in the silvery moonlight
when she sheds her scarves to a million star.
From Deryn Rees-Joness latest collection of poetry Burying the Wren
A Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Welcome to Autumn and to Blodwen's New 'Hafod' and 'Hendre' Rare Breed Textile Collections.
By Ceri Shaw, 2012-09-14
Welcome to Autumn and to Blodwen's New 'Hafod' and 'Hendre' Rare Breed Textile Collections.
Sheep have been an integral part of Wales since the Neolithic times and the diversification and preservation of rare breed flocks is a testament to the ingenuity of the Welsh hill-famer across the ages.
When it comes to sport, being a small country, Wales has managed to punch above its own weight over the years. Be it in rugby, athletics, football, boxing, snooker and even rugby league Wales has produced its fair share of heroes. A new book published this week will test how sport loving and how knowledgeable the Welsh public really are. So You Think You Know Welsh Sport? includes questions an all kinds of sports. The book has 50 rounds of 10 questions with the questions getting harder as you get along.
It is safe to say that the author Matthew Jones, a 29 year old chemist from Cardiff is a Welsh sports anorak. He spends his weekends travelling the length and breadth of Wales visiting sporting events and he has already published a quiz book on Welsh rugby. It was due to the success and the enthusiastic feedback to So You think You Know Welsh Rugby? that Y Lolfa decided to commission the new book. Matthew Jones said about his new book,
If you struggle to only get a couple correct then your knowledge is probably equivalent to a drunk dart player however if you manage to get ten out of ten then you are the trivia king of Welsh sport!
The book includes questions like:
Which Middle East country appointed Terry Yorath as their manager in 1995?
Who recorded Glamorgans best ever bowling figures of 7-16 in a one day contest, against Surrey in 1988?
In 1990, whose 27 year Welsh 100 meters record did Colin Jackson break?
Which future rugby union international scrum half was Welsh schools champion in the high jump in 1969 and 1970?
So You Think You Know Welsh Sport? is published by Y Lolfa and will be available in bookshops and on www.ylolfa.com , from Saturday the 8th of June for 3.95.
A retired religious education teacher from Ystradgynlais has released Satans Alternative, a new apocalyptic thriller set in 2012 where mankind is facing elimination. Writing under the pseudonym of James Stevens, this is Steve James second novel after retiring, following his successful debut, The Judas Codex.
Coming from a strict chapel background it was inevitable my views on the Bible would be tinged with bias, but my time spent in the Royal Air Force altered that, said Steve James. Experiencing other faiths at first hand I began to question my beliefs, and that questioning shaped my teaching career. During the mid 1970s I developed lesson plans which were based on comparative religions. Controversial at the time, by the 1980s they had become the norm and compulsory by the 1990s. The words of the author Robert Griffiths, one of my brightest pupils, speaks volumes about my open-minded style of teaching; You prompted us to view the scriptures from a critical rather than devotional perspective.
My interest in writing goes back a long way, explains the author. The idea for my first novel - The Judas Codex - which pre-dates the Da Vinci Code by some thirty years, took root in the 1970s. A busy teaching schedule meant I didn't have time to put pen to paper, which is a shame; by now I might have been a household name. Each of my novels touches on my early experience of the church and the way primitive ideas impacted on it.
Each of Steve James novels has a kernel of truth. Satan's Alternative touches on a problem that is global; set in the year 2012, the present era, it deals with the collapse of the world monetary system. There appears to be only one ending - Armageddon. In the past the onset of two world wars decimated the population and helped create new growth. A third would benefit no one; there would be very few survivors and no economy.
What makes Satan's Alternative unique is that it takes apocalyptic literature to a new level. Faced with social unrest on an unprecedented scale, the world seems doomed, but one man sees things differently. Convinced he is the modern Noah, he bases his solution on the Book of Genesis; the world must be cleansed of sin so that mankind can begin afresh. The author adds, What occurs in the book is possible, perhaps inevitable. As in the first novel I want the readers to say, yes I know its a work of fiction; but what if? Steve James spent his formative years in the Royal Air Force, serving mostly overseas. He is a retired Head of Religious Studies and holds a Bachelor of Education form Cardiff University as well as a Bachelor of Divinity in Theology.
Americymru: H ow did this project come about? Who participated in it, in what capacity?So, I hired a Tudor gate-house in the Preseli hills, worked out a timetable and asked about twenty musicians or so to come singly, in pairs or trios to come and record a track of their choosing. Anything they were concerned with at the time. The results were astonishing and inspiring, not least because of the interaction between the individuals and the nature of the building and its surroundings. The building itself is after all, a kind of portal. And the music recorded was a key to something that is heard less and less these days; something magic, inspired, at times unearthly, and also very intimate. It's not party music as someone pointed out to me on listening to the recordings. It's not party music in either sense of the word. But it is the music of the people. Or at least, some of them. I could have made three or four CD's and it was an onerous task to leave people out.
I think it's fitting that it is to be released on the Folkways label. A label that always recorded the ordinary people; those without an official voice. But whose collective voices became a vehicle of cultural expression for millions, beyond commercial consideration.
The musicians on the CD are:
1. Mary Hopkin
2. Anne Marie Summers and Helen Wilding
3. Ceri Jones
4. John Morgan, Diarmuid Johnson, and Chris Grooms
5. Linda Griffiths
6. Ceri and Catrin Ashton
7. Daniel Huws
8. Christine Cooper
9. Llio Rhydderch and Tomos Williams
10. Cass Meurig and Nial Cain
11. Jo Cooper and Elin Lloyd
12. Jem Hammond and Tom Scott
13. Max Boyce, Christine Cooper, and Llio Rhydderch
14. Julie Murphy, Sille Ilves, and Martin Leamon
Americymru: How would you describe the final result?
1. Remembering
Mary Hopkin sings a song that is imprinted on the cultural DNA of the people, and yet it is a surprise to hear her sing it. Well known internationally for her popular song, this is where she started, in her and our youth.
Anne Marie Summers and Helen Wilding Smith live on the porous border between modern England and Wales. Both have strong Welsh family and childhood connections. Being outside, they remember a cultural inheritance, and give a forgotten dance form, the estampie, back to the giver of that inheritance.
Ceri Jones was born and raised in Canada but this summer came to visit his grandmother in Llangrannog for the first time. He remembers his inheritance in a different way.
A reverie between John Morgan, Diarmuid Johnson and Chris Grooms. From the quiet and abstract opening notes, the musicians conversation is like the dawn, from which we can read the signs of the day to come. Here are elements of the memory, magic, song tunes, instrumental music and emotion which will unfold thought the rest of the anthology.
Linda Griffiths remembers how a lover hurt her.
Ceri and Catrin Ashton moved away from Conwy to Sheffield. The dance tunes they play, they played as young girls at home.
2. Describing magic
Daniel Huws sings of the mystical nature of the nativity, in a plygain carol from Anglesey that has been unsung for some generations.
Christine Cooper sends a bird as a love messenger, or llatai, from a winter-like desolate, treeless place without love, to a lover. Wait, the lover says, wait until May.
Llio Rhydderch and Tomos Williams improvise on a forgotten tune. They explore the tune like dancers, with two of the instruments of the forest.
Cass Meurig and Nial Cain engage in a mystical dialogue with the cuckoo about the nature of time, a story Cass sings to her children, and then brings us into the world of dance.
3. Dance and celebration
Jo and Elin play triple time hornpipes from the border, as Jo prepares to make a new life abroad.
Jem and Tom have some light hearted fun with flutes.
4. Emotion and the fabric of life
Max Boyce, with Christine and Llio, explores the fabric of sentiment and emotion, and ask the question; what is loss?
Julie, Martin and Sille compare the different emotions men and women feel in love.
These small individual narratives are the grains of sand in which the whole of the land may be seen, with its towns, mountains and beaches; its rivers, rocks and stones; its lovers, friends, families and homes. Taken together, these songs make a snapshot of a hive of activity. The story of a posy of wildflowers.
Americymru: What is planned for its release and where will it be available?
Americymru: Will you be appearing at the Folk-life Festival?
Ceri: Yes, I'm pleased to say I'll be performing mainly in a duo with Christine Cooper. But also, and this is very exciting, different combinations of musicians are encouraged to collaborate with each other throughout the festival, so expect some exciting combinations. Last night, a group of seven of us got together that will be playing for a twmpath one evening. Musicians are getting together with storytellers, poets etc. in all sorts of great combinations. But I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to play some really straightforward beautiful flute and fiddle tunes with Christine.
Americymru: What would you most like to achieve as a musician?
Ceri: To attain the freedom I hear in musicians who can hear things which seem unreachable to me. People like John Coltrane or Micho Russell. And singers, like say, Bjork or like Mary Hopkin, or Tymon Dogg or Otis Redding - They all make me cry. I'd also like to earn my place in the anonymous pantheon if that's not an oxymoron.
www.yscolan.info/
http://yscolan.blogspot.com/
www.youtube.com/user/yscolan
www.myspace.com/ceriandchristine www.fernhill.info/
www.myspace.com/fernhillmusic
http://www.fflach.co.uk/
http://www.bejo.co.uk/
More info about the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2009 here:-
Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Americymru Events Page
BUY 'FLIRTING AT THE FUNERAL' HERE
Praise for Chris Keil's third novel
"Flirting At The Funeral is a sophisticated, deeply mature work, shot through with oodles of lovely writing and shored up by many insights and ideas....." Jon Gower
"Keil's writing, which is limpid and arrestingly vivid, has a charged quality that conveys the mysteries pulsing behind the everyday surface of things." Nicholas Clee, The Guardian
Read our 2008 interview with Chris HERE
Full review of 'Flirting At The Funeral' coming shortly on AmeriCymru.
Executive Director of Llangollen expresses delight in “excellent early ticket sales...”
By Ceri Shaw, 2009-06-02
Llangollen Festival to benefit from the British staycation
With many British holiday-makers opting to holiday at home this year due to the economic downturn, the town of Llangollen, North Wales is set to receive a record number of visitors as it plays host to one of the worlds most vibrant Festivals, the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, which this year takes place from 6th to 12th July.
Llangollen ywr gyl yn gwyliau!
Gyda chymaint o Brydeinwyr yn dewis cael gwyliau adref eleni oherwydd y dirwasgiad, mae tref Llangollen, Gogledd Cymru yn barod i dderbyn y nifer fwya o ymwelwyr wrth ir ardal eu croesawu i un o wyliau mwyaf blaenllaw, sef Eisteddfod Gerddorol Ryngwladol Llangollen, syn digwydd y 6ed ir 12fed o Orffennaf.
