AmeriCymru:  Care to introduce your novel 'Knight in the Scarlet Cloak' for our readers?'

Dan:   Yes…set in late thirteenth-century Pembroke,  Knight in the Scarlet Cloak  takes an unusual approach for a Welsh novel by centering on an eighteen-year-old squire who is due to become a knight for the English crown. Young Robert, whose Anglo-Welsh family has benefitted from its position in the Welsh Marches, suddenly realizes the injustice of the local government when it expels the family of his close Welsh friend Iolo and his sister Angharad (whom Robert loves) from Pembroke for only a minor infraction. 

Infuriated by the event, Robert leaves Pembroke and his pending knighthood behind to start life anew in North Wales, but, through a bizarre sequence of events, ends up joining the biggest Welsh rebellion ever against England until he is eventually captured and brought to Hereford’s Pleshey Castle. From there, Robert must navigate his tricky new role as a highly valued prisoner, even winning the heart of the Lady of the Castle, before making his daring attempt to escape. 

The story is based heavily on real events and people, including my own ancestors, among whom is the actual Robert of Pembroke, born in 1275.  

AmeriCymru:  Care to tell us a little more about Madog ap Llewelyn who figured prominently in the novel'?

Dan:  Prince Madog was essentially the Welsh William Wallace, who rebelled against Edward Longshanks’ control of Wales just a couple of years before the Wallace rebellion in Scotland began. Branding himself ‘Prince of Wales,’ Madog united virtually all of Wales against England and was every bit as difficult for King Edward to handle as was Wallace, for Madog ravaged many English-controlled towns and disrupted English supplies before he was finally captured. Unlike Wallace, however, Madog lived out his days in captivity, never being executed. While Madog’s time in the novel itself is brief, the rebellion he started and which Robert joins sets Robert on a path that carries through the rest of the novel.

AmeriCymru:  Where can readers buy the book online?

Dan:  Currently,  Knight in the Scarlet Cloak  is available only on Amazon (in Kindle and paperback format), but I hope to make it available on other outlets soon.

AmeriCymru: You are a fluent Welsh speaker. How did you go about learning the language?

Dan:  I began by watching skits from the Big Welsh Challenge that were once available on the BBC Wales website. I was obsessive and watched the skits over and over, reading and translating every word of the Welsh subtitles until I could perfectly understand the skits without looking at the subtitles at all. I then went to the same website and listened to the Welsh radio soap opera,  Ysbyty Brynaber , which, to its credit, presented Welsh characters of various dialects and who spoke at native speed, forcing me to keep up and truly develop my Welsh. I went over the skits there as well until I understood every word. After spending over a year listening to the episodes, my Welsh was good enough to where I began to listen to shows on BBC Radio Cymru (which I still do today) and try my best to comprehend them, replaying segments that I don’t fully understand and looking up words that are unfamiliar to me. It has paid off tremendously. I now speak only Welsh to my six-year-old son Evan. 

AmeriCymru: Care to recommend any resources for other aspiring learners?

Dan:  I would gladly recommend the BBC Big Welsh Challenge resources, but they are no longer available. However, I also spent a little time listening to the free items on Say Something in Welsh (which has a website), but as I was financially very poor, I stopped after the free lessons. Nonetheless, I benefited greatly from the lessons that I was able to go through, impressing the people who run the site with how fast I learned them. Anyone who has a little money to buy the remaining lessons would, no doubt, benefit tremendously. If one’s Welsh has advanced enough, regularly listening to BBC Radio Cymru on its podcast, which allows one to pause and replay segments as often as needed, will keep one’s abilities nicely honed. 

AmeriCymru: Are there any Welsh authors and/or titles that you particularly admire and would like to recommend?

Dan:  I have gotten into reading the Della Arthur mysteries by the lovely and humorous Gwen Parrott, who takes it upon herself to write her own Welsh and English versions of each book, refusing to leave it up to a translator. Her devotion to producing Welsh-language literature is an inspiration. I am in the middle of reading  Cyw Melyn y Fall , a Welsh-edition book in Gwen’s Della Arthur series, and I highly recommend her more recent novel  Dead White . Reading a Welsh-language novel can be tedious for someone new to Welsh, but the immersion is very helpful for developing one’s grasp of the language.

AmeriCymru:  What's next for Dan Rhys? Any new projects in the pipeline? 

Dan:  In all honesty, it depends on how successful  Knight in the Scarlet Cloak  turns out to be over the next two years. If it is successful, I would like to do one or two more stories focusing on Robert. If not, I will either try a standalone novel with an entirely new character or continue on my Bob Kelton series, which focuses on a Welsh-American college professor who gets into very bizarre situations. My only published Kelton story reached the semifinals of the Chanticleer Book Review ‘Clue Awards’ in 2018. If I am successful, I do not plan to keep churning out novels. Instead, I would like to give back to the community that helped me and do all I can to bring attention and prosperity to Wales.

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

Dan:  While I applaud and celebrate all efforts to enjoy and preserve every element of Welsh culture, I think if one can learn the language and pass it down to someone, that is perhaps most important of all. A language truly is a window into a culture’s ‘soul’, as they say, and I certainly feel more a part of Welsh culture having learned the Welsh language and passed it down to my son. Welsh almost went out altogether forty years ago, and after all of the efforts by England to erase it and the Welsh to keep it alive, I believe it is our duty to build on the work done to preserve it. I am thankful that I am playing a part in its preservation, and I thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about my novel to your audience. I hope it spurs its own movement towards a more self-governing Wales. 

Disclaimer - I would like to add, with regard to the cover of  Knight in the Scarlet Cloak , that the individual I hired to create the image chose to add the modern Flag of Wales to it in order to make clear the story’s association with Wales. Since some may find the modern flag asynchronously on medieval attire offensive, I want to clarify that it was an honest oversight by the illustrator and that the novel itself accurately describes the banner that would have been used to represent Wales in the thirteenth century. Diolch yn fawr!