AmeriCymru:  Hi Chris and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. You have visited Portland before. Care to tell us more about your experiences on those occasions?

Chris: Portland is a wonderful, vibrant, hospitable city, full of life and colour and brilliant, creative people. I love downtown, and the river, and the size and scale of all that, and the detailed infill of bars and dance-halls between massive locations - iron bridges and docks, and steel and glass sky-scrapers, and then the suburbs, winding up into melancholy foothills, and freight-trains calling in the night; and the numbing vastness of the forest all around. I’m really looking forward to being back!

AmeriCymru:  You are presenting a workshop at Wordstock titled 'Sex and the Serious Novel'. Can you tell us more? When and where will the workshop take place?

Chris: My workshop is on Saturday October 5th, at the Oregon Convention Centre, from 4.30 to 5.45 pm, followed, for me at least, by cocktails. The workshop will look at the role of the erotic in literary fiction: sometimes moving, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes unintentionally hilarious. Sex is a major part of life; why do so many good writers have so much trouble with it? We’ll look at examples from the sublime to the toe-curling, in a format that will be participatory, discursive and interactive. Or, as the Festival programme puts it: Let’s get seriously sexy!

AmeriCymru:  You will also be giving a reading from your novel ''Flirting At The Funeral''. Will there be a Q&A session afterwards? When does this take place?

Chris: I’ll be on-stage with the fantastic Chelsea Cain from 2.00pm to 3.00pm at the Convention Centre. We’ll both be reading from our books, and there’ll be a Q&A session, and lots of black humour and serious fun. If you’ve got a ticket to the Festival, the event itself is free, so there is absolutely no excuse for not being there.

AmeriCymru:  You are appearing at the AmeriCymru/Portland State University panel discussion on the subject:- 'Culture Wars, Should Welsh Writing in English be taught as a separate course or module in U.S. Universities?' What are your initial thoughts on this topic?

Chris: I’m looking forward to this: an interesting question, and excellent fellow-panelists. It seems to me there’s a real issue here: in the wide world, UK literature tends to get called ‘British’ literature, but there’s a tacit or out-loud recognition that writing from Scotland occupies a territory of its own; and of course Ireland has a distinct national cultural voice. This leaves Wales annexed to England, in a long and unhappy marriage that badly needs relationship-counselling.

WORDSTOCK

Find AmeriCymru at stall 718 (see floor plan below, click to enlarge ).

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CULTURE WARS - OTHER VOICES IN BRITISH LITERATURE

Presented by AmeriCymru and the Portland Center for Public Humanities

Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 327/8

Fri Oct 4th 6.30-9.00 pm

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