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‘Y Traeth’ , which translates as ‘The Beach’, by Haf Llewelyn is set in Meirionydd during the 17 th century and follows the lives of some of the gentry families of the period. It follows the story of Margaret Cave who marries the nobleman Sion Wynne of Gwydir when she was still a child. Although Margaret tries to persuade herself that she belongs, she suffers the contempt of her family in law, experiences bouts of depression and longs for her little girl and husband who spends time in far away London.
When Begw comes to work as her handmaiden, a close relationship develops between her and Margaret, and Begw comes to feel that she has no choice but to stay with her mistress through it all.
‘This is mainly a story of friendship and loyalty – particularly the handmaiden Begw’s loyalty towards her mistress, Margraet,’ explained Haf Llewelyn. ‘Begw did not choose to be poor. Margaret did not choose to be rich. But what is important is the choices the two make during the novel.’
Rewriting Margaret’s story was like ‘making up for the abuse she suffered during her life’.
‘She was clearly a very lonely woman and had to bend to the society of the time. Because she could not bear an heir, she was discredited and insulted by this powerful family,’ says Haf. ‘I took to her at once. As I read more about her I began to feel closer to her. I wanted the best for her. So I decided to write another story around her.’
The beach is also a central part to the novel.
‘Many of the characters feel drawn towards the beach. It is an embodiement of an attachment to somewhere. Like the characters of the novel know the sea and the beach, I’m sure many of us feel an attachment to familiar places or some feeling of belonging.’
The events of Y Traeth happen in the same place as Haf’s other novel, Mab y Cychwr , and some characters from that novel make an appearance. But Haf stresses that Y Traeth is not a sequel.
‘You do not need to read Mab y Cychwr to read this novel,’ she says. ‘Perhaps the reapperance of some old characters is a sign of my attachment towards the world I have created!’
Haf Llewelyn grew up on a mountainous farm in Ardudwy but has lived in Llanuwchllyn for over thirty years. This is her third novel for adults, following Y Graig and Mab y Cychwr , and she has published many novels and books for children, including Diffodd y Sêr , a novel told from the perspective of the younger sister of poet Hedd Wyn, a book which won her the Tir na n-Og prize in 2014.
‘You do not need to know the history of the period or the story of the Wynne family of Gwydir to read the novel,’ added Haf. ‘The period is simply the background for the story. Not much differentiates today and yesterday in the sense that the characters would make the same decisions they make in 1612 as they would today.’
‘This is a story about friendship and human nature. And those themes are timeless.’
Y Traeth by Haf Llewelyn (£8.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.
A discussion of Y Traeth and Sian Northey’s new novel, Rhyd-y-Gro, (Gwasg Gomer) will take place at Y Fedwen Lyfrau in Galeri Caernarfon at 10 in the morning ond Saturday the 23 rd of April.
On Wednesday the 27 th of April at 7.30 pm at the Eagles Hotel in Llanuwchllyn there will be a special launch to celebrate the publishing of Y Traeth and new volume by Beryl H Griffiths, Mamwlad, by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch.
A long-standing business relationship between an Italian winemaker and a Welsh wine importer was sealed with the presentation of a book at the world famous Vinitaly wine fair in Verona this week.
Dylan Rowlands and two members of staff, Emma Williams and Terri Jones, flew over to Italy on Sunday taking a copy of his newly published ‘ Rarebit and Rioja – Recipes and Wine Tales from Wales’ to present to Vincenzo Bossotti and his daughter Cristina.
Bossotti’s vineyard features in the Welsh wine importer’s newly published book about wine.
The book’s chapters and recipes are structured around the wine producing countries from which Dylan imports and has tales about his journeys through Europe searching for wine. Vincenzo fittingly features in the first chapter.
The story began with Dylan’s first steps into the wine world as he ventured to Turin in Italy fifteen years ago to discover his first wines to import in the very same wine fair – quite a daunting affair as it is a very large expo with over five thousand producer stands on the site.
It was here where he met Vincenzo before visiting their family run vineyard in Cisterna D’asti, a beautiful little hilltop town in Piedmonte, Northern Italy.
Quality reigns at the Bossotti vineyard and this won Dylan over immediately.
‘The integrity of the winemaker is all important in a long-distance partnership like this and you have to trust the person you’re trading with to be consistent. The Bossotti family have never let me down over the years and I’m proud to sell the wine of a small family producer.’ said Dylan.
‘There is little doubt the passion of the whole family is reflected in their product, from the beautifully designed labels to the wine in the bottle. Long may this Italian - Welsh relationship last!’ he continued.
Wine shop and cafe bar Gwin Dylanwad Wine is based in Porth Marchnad in Dolgellau. Since 2003 Dylanwad have been importing exclusive wines direct from Spain, France, Italy and Austria. These are available to drink or buy in Gwin Dylanwad Wine or to take out and can be delivered throughout Britain.
Rarebit and Rioja: Recipes and wine tales from Wales by Dylan and Llinos Rowlands (£14.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.
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This is the sixth book in a series that features Major Abel Jones, Welshman, British army and American Civil War veteran and investigator extraordinaire. As ever, Major Jones is directly commissioned by Abraham Lincoln and in this instance his mission is to investigate the murder of Susan Peabody, a Northern abolitionist, in New Orleans in 1863.
Owen Parry`s works have been described elsewhere as "well-researched entertainments" and it is difficult to resist his vivid depiction of war-torn New Orleans. The city is imbued with an atmosphere of decadence, mystery and intrigue which acts as a perfect foil for Major Jones' swashbuckling adventures.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of these books is the character of Jones himself. Jones is in many ways a stereotypical 19th century Welsh Methodist, albeit with an almost superhuman gift for self-preservation. He is aloof, self-righteous, judgemental and pompous almost to the point of arrogance. He never misses a chance to air his prejudices, particularly where the Irish are concerned. But for all that he is a likeable character who frequently fails to live up to his own very high standards and is entirely capable of self-criticism.
This book is a first class entertainment for the lover of historical fiction and an ideal companion for a long journey.
Owen Parry is a nom-de-plume of Ralph Peters who writes about political and military matters under his own name. Whatever one may think of the political opinions expressed in his more serious works, it is undeniable that he is a fine writer of historical adventures. It is also difficult not to sympathise with the sentiments expressed in the dedication to "Faded Coat of Blue" ( 2002 ),one of the earlier Abel jones mysteries:-
" To the Welsh, Scots, and Irish who built America while the English weren`t looking"
Faded Coat of Blue 2002
Dylan's Great Poem opens for submissions on Thursday 28 April at 9.00 am and invites anyone aged between 7 and 25 years old, living anywhere in the world, to submit up to four lines of poetry written in English or Welsh. From these, 100 lines will be chosen to create the Great Poem.
The theme for this year’s competition is ‘hands’, after the Dylan Thomas poem ‘The Hand That Signed The Paper.’
Entries need to be sent via the Developing Dylan 100 website before 12.00 noon on Thursday 5 May .
This year, we have joined forces with Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Selected entrants to Dylan’s Great Poem, who are between 11 and 17 years of age, and living in Wales, will be invited to a poetry writing masterclass to work on entries to the Poetry Society competition.
Dylan’s Great Poem will be edited by Rufus Mufasa and clare e. potter, and will be published online and performed on #DylanDay.
For resources, see: http://www.literaturewales.org/dylans-great-poem/
To submit lines visit the Developing Dylan website .
For more information contact Literature Wales:
07846484274 / mabananajones@gmail.com
Follow online #GreatPoem #DylanDay @DyddDylanDay
Cynan Jones lives near Aberaeron in West Wales. His first book, 'The Long Dry 'was published in June 2006. The novel , which won a Betty Trask Award in 2007 is set on a Mid Wales farm. His second book 'Everything I Found on The beach' is also set in West and North Wales. AmeriCymru spoke to Cynan recently about his novels and his plans for the future.
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C ynan : I find it difficult to be around good things without wanting to try and do something good myself. If I eat amazing food, I want to learn to cook. Reading amazing books probably made me want to write, way back. But in terms of inspiration, I think the question is mostly asked the wrong way round. I didn't get 'inspired to be a writer.' A person is inspired, and they find an outlet for that. Be it chefing, or excellence in sport, or writing. It's driven by a great love of a thing and the consequent desire to want to do it well.
AmeriCymru: Your first book 'After The Factory' is somewhat difficult to find. Care to tell us a little more about it and whether it will become more easily obtainable in the future?
Cynan: 'After the Factory' tells the story of Joseph Napoleon, a factory worker who comes home every night to his basement flat and, while trying to sleep, imagines the characters behind the footsteps that echo across the square outside his room.
It's a short work, but one that readers seem to like very much. It's very different from the two 'Welsh' novels. I'm hoping there will be some news on the 'After the Factory' front soon. I'll keep you posted.
AmeriCymru: In both your subsequent books:- 'Everything I Found on The Beach' and 'The Long Dry' the central characters life and circumstances are revealed through an intimate connection with their surroundings. How important is a sense of 'place' in your writing?
Cynan: A good story should work even when it's lifted out of its setting - I'm talking about the key themes, the big motors of the thing. This is how great 'universal' tales are built, even when they are humble like 'The Old Man and the Sea'. But creating a sense of place is akin to setting the spell, making a world for a reader. It happens that the main characters are very linked to their environments in both these stories so the sense of place is vital. It's the environment I grew up in and am very close to. While I haven't written that intimacy in deliberately, its picked up majorly by readers.
AmeriCymru: You live in West Wales and your books reveal a strong familiarity with the rural lifestyle. What is your background? What did you do before you became a writer?
Cynan: I grew up in West Wales and returned to live here at twenty eight after a stint in Glasgow working as a freelance copywriter. I grew up very close to my grandparents' farm, so spent most of my time there. The farm was small, sixty acres or so. But it had woods, fields and scrubland, and ran right down to a beach. It had an incredible range of places to play. I don't think I ever outgrew that. All I'm doing now really is playing made up games like I did when I was a kid. Just I'm writing things down rather than running round playing them.
Before now I've been a substitute teacher, mentored in a behavioural unit, worked on building sites and as a wine presenter. I've worked in aquariums, and in a kitchen. All sorts. I've done whatever it took to get by without getting tied up in a contract which wouldn't let me drop out to work on a book when I needed to.
AmeriCymru: Care to tell us a little more about The Long Dry . What can readers expect to find? How would you describe the book?
Cynan: The Long Dry is the story of a bad day that gets worse. A calving cow goes missing, and the farmer has to try and find it. He is meanwhile beset by doubts and questions.I wrote it very quickly (in ten days) and immediately knew it was the strongest thing I was capable of at the time. That was back in 2005. It was accepted for publication relatively soon after I wrote it. It went on to win a Society of Authors first novel award, and has been translated into French, Arabic and Italian. It is ostensibly a very simple thing, but people say it's very strong.
AmeriCymru: Everything I Found on The Beach paints a grim picture of life in rural West Wales. How has the area been affected by the current economic hard times?
Cynan: In some ways there hasn't been a major 'boom' here, so we're not as badly affected as those places that grew and swelled with the prior injection of affluence. Statistically, people here earn considerably less than the average wage, and house prices are higher than near anywhere in the UK as compared to earnings, (because of the huge second home market). In terms of jobs, there's not much to do. There's farming, but on small family run farms that are increasingly unfeasible. There's some factory work in relatively small factories. There's a university and hospital in Aberystwyth and lots of seasonal work in tourism related industries. The local authority is a major employer. But the quality of life if good. If you use and appreciate this area, it pays back. You don't need vast amounts to exist. The grim element perhaps comes from the limited choices here.AmeriCymru: How difficult is it for Welsh writers to get published and to succeed these days?
Cynan: It is simply difficult to get published, Welsh or not. (You could even argue it's easier when you're Welsh, particularly writing in Welsh, because of the funding that makes that process possible).
When I decided to write I said to myself: write as strongly as you can, everything else is a side effect. I've stuck by that. However, the key thing now is visibility. Breaking through the London-dominated media wall is difficult, and perhaps they don't take Welsh publishers as seriously as they should. In France and Italy my work had big reviews in major newspapers, with some extraordinary critical acclaim. The next step, as well as continuing to write strongly, is to get that attention on my own turf.
AmeriCymru: What do you read for pleasure? Any recommendations?
Cynan: I read massive amounts. Writers like Steinbeck, McCarthy, Carver and so on are on a different level. Brink, Coetze. Graham Greene, Orwell. The great writers. When you write yourself, the quality of the writing has to be very very high. For something more recent, try 'The Solitude of Thomas Cave' by Georgina Harding.
AmeriCymru: What's next for Cynan Jones? What are you working on currently?
Cynan: There's a new novel on the desk right now. Come the end of January, I'll start work on the final draft. It's called 'Traces of People.'
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Cynan: Keep reading! When you read something you like, tell everyone!
While visiting the San Rafael (CA) area I became aware that the local Civic Center was designed by internationally acclaimed Welsh American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. I simply had to get a few snaps! I have posted them below. They're not very good because I don't know the area and it appears to be difficult to get a good vantage point. The last shot on this page (of the interior) is from Wiki Images.
From the Wikipedia :- Marin County Civic Center
"The Marin County Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is located in San Rafael, California, United States. Groundbreaking for the Civic Center Administration Building took place in 1960, after Wright's death and under the watch of Wright's protégé, Aaron Green; it was completed in 1962. The Hall of Justice was begun in 1966 and completed in 1969. Veterans Memorial Auditorium opened in 1971, and the Exhibit Hall opened in 1976.
Located away from the former county seat in downtown San Rafael, the expansive complex stretches across two valleys just east of US 101. Its pink stucco walls, blue roof and scalloped balconies are distinctive. The smaller wing is the county administration building and the larger the Hall of Justice, joined by a round structure on a small hill that houses a county library.
A battle between factions of the Marin County Board of Supervisors played out through the selection of the site and the architect, the financing of the project, and its eventual completion. The Marin County Civic Center is a state and National Historic Landmark."
'WHAT'S SHE LIKE WHEN YOU'RE NOT WATCHING' - THE THEME OF NEW NOVEL BY ACCLAIMED SCREENWRITER
By Ceri Shaw, 2016-03-25
Investigating Mr Wakefield by acclaimed writer Rob Gittins, follows Jack Connolly, a war photographer whose career went into freefall after he manipulated the image of a dead soldier to make it appear the soldier died a hero’s death. The deception cost him his job, the trust of his peers and his career. It taught Jack an all-important lesson, only one thing matters and that’s truth. No matter how unpalatable.
He soon becomes obsessed by a nineteenth-century short story, Wakefield by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wakefield tells the story of a man who, one day - and in Hawthorne’s own words - decides to absent himself from his wife. He hopes to assess how much she loves him by gauging the extent of her desperation at his apparent disappearance.
Jack attempts to recreate in fact the events of this fiction and gradually infiltrates the private spaces of his partner’s life by the use of surveillance technology attempting to capture her private conversations and record her emotional responses to the tests he puts her through. His obsession inevitably spirals out of control, inexorably leading to the destruction of his relationship and his life.
Unsettling and culturally significant, Investigating Mr Wakefield digs into issues of trust and loss at the most intimate and disturbing of levels.
‘While the hero of Investigating Mr Wakefield clearly takes matters to an extreme, the theme of the novel can resonate with almost anyone.’ explained Rob Gittins.
‘Many people, at one time or another, have probably wondered what a wife, husband or partner are like when they’re not watching. This novel explores the dangers waiting to ensnare those who try to find out.’ he added.
This is Rob Gittins’ fourth novel. His previous novels received high critical acclaim, including The Poet and the Private Eye (2014) which was praised as a ‘compelling novel that values truth above what is simply true – at the same time as declaring that death really does have no dominion.’ by T. James Jones, former Archdruid and translator of Under Milk Wood, and Gimme Shelter (2013), commended as ‘Visceral, strongly visual and beautifully structured’ by Andrew Taylor, Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Winner.
Rob Gittins is the longest serving scriptwriter on EastEnders having written over 250 episodes of the programme. In recognition of his work on EastEnders, Rob received an Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2015 British Soap Awards. He has also scripted for Casualty, The Bill, Emmerdale, Soldier, Soldier and Heartbeat and has won many other awards for his work including the Gold Drama Medal at the New York International Radio Festival.
Rob was Script Executive and Writer on Stella starring Ruth Jones (Gavin and Stacey) and was executive Producer and co-lead writer on Crash, a drama series for BBC Wales. Rob has written over twenty original radio plays for BBC Radio 4 and over one hundred episodes of The Archers.
Rob’s short film Sacrifice, was released theatrically and Rob’s feature film, Blue Monday has just completed principal photography.
Investigating Mr Wakefield by Rob Gittins (£8.99, Y Lolfa) is out now.
URGENT: Please Please Support this Appeal!!!
Carwyn Edwards has probably done more to promote Wales in the USA than any other man alive. He inspired us and hundreds of others to take up the cudgel. He is now seriously sick in hospital with infective Endocarditis. If you have anything to spare please support this campaign!!!!
For those of you who don't know Carwyn Edwards let me just say that he was the most influential promoter of Wales in the USA for many years. He inspired me, Dave Parry and o thers to spend our time productively and promote Cymru. The news of his current medical condition is devastating!! We must help our own AND Carwyn Edwards is the first among us. His Wales Newsletter went out to 30,000 people a week long before AmeriCymru was born. I have donated personally and I will give more. Please help this online Welsh American pioneer in his hour of need!!
"He is suffering from Infective Endocarditis, which is a bacterial infection in the blood that settled on his mitral heart valve. This growth grew to abo ut 2cm, and then started showering blood clots throughout his body. This has led to him having his left leg amputated above the knee and he will also lose part of his lower right leg. The clots have also seriously damaged his kidneys and spleen and he is presently on constant dialysis. The clots found their way into his brain causing lesions and hemorrhaging. This brain injury is delaying the open heart surgery that he needs to replace his heart valve." https://www.gofundme.com/carwyn
