Read the Alcemi catalog:- HERE (PDF)

Read our interview with Penny Simpson HERE

From the Alcemi home page:- "Alcemi believes in publishing success stories, kept on a human-scale. Editor Gwen Davies has deep experience of developing new fiction writers such as Richard Gwyn, Rachel Trezise and Tristan Hughes, who have gone on to make their name worldwide with publishers like Doubleday and Picador, while Alcemi has already had a taste of prize-winning, with Gee Willliams' Salvage being shortlisted for the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Gwen's tastes are for literary fiction; genre only if it has an intelligent twist; not so much fantasy as magic realism; not so keen on historical as retro; definitely surrealism, black comedy, sex. Urban, yes; but also rural voices which avoid the romance of Wales.

She doesn't mind a touch of exotica. She likes complex, well-handled narratives. Gwen loves narrators that are naive, vulnerable or excluded, where irony manipulates those gaps between a narrator's and a reader's viewpoint. But she will read unsolicited manuscripts with an open mind if the writing is stylish and authentic.

Gwen is also a literary translator from Welsh to English, and will be looking to support translators and authors create adaptations of the best contemporary Welsh-language novels. "

"The Banquet of Esther Rosenbaum" and Chris Keil's "Liminal" are amongst this months Americymru Book of the Month selections.