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Visit Barrie Doyle's website here One of the fun things about writing works of fiction is the excitement of meeting my characters for the first time. Over the period of a year or so, I will meet them, name them, give them bodies and personalities and watch them develop into viable and, hopefully, believable people. Some, I will like. Others not. Some will have strange quirks. Others will be fairly normal, even bland, people. All will be wound together into a strange and dangerous situation that will challenge them and perhaps even destroy them. Some will pass the...
Read MoreA reading of 'As The Meadow Ends', a short story by Matthew G. Rees, author of 'Keyhole' and 'Smoke House & Other Stories'. Matthew G.Rees is a critically acclaimed Welsh fiction writer and playwright in the fields of folk horror and fantasy. 'Smoke House & Other Stories' is AmeriCymru's Book of the Month for November 2020. Matthew G. Rees on AmeriCymru Keyhole - An Interview With Welsh Author Matthew G. Rees Keyhole - A Stunning Debut From A Major New Talent Simon Howells Reads 'Dreamcoat', A Short Story By Matthew G. Rees Smoke House...
Read More‘Nawr Yr Arwr/Now The Hero is a multi-artform, site-specific project created by Swansea born interdisciplinary artist Marc Rees for 14-18-NOW. This bold and exciting commemoration of WWI will take place in and around the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea during Harvest, September 2018.’ The website introduces me to the performance. My problem was that I didn’t have the humility to research the project before hand. ‘Harvest’ why Harvest? Now I know. The connected ‘Graft - A Soil Based Syllabus’ curated by artist Owen Griffiths has been going on for months in and around the city. The plants of...
Read MoreMore from Ambrose Conway here ... I have often been exasperated by the way booksellers classify my books. They tend to work to set parameters and the Reso can easily fit into several categories, so in some book listings it appears as fiction, young adult, in others as general fiction. I've even seen it in a section on social issues, young people! In truth, all of these are technically correct. Others would be equally appropriate such as : fiction: Wales, fiction: historical (it is disconcerting to realise that what appears to you as your short life to date, is now...
Read MoreAmeriCymru: Hi Neil and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Care to introduce your online magazine Parallel.cymru for our readers? Neil: Shw mae Ceri! Great to be here on AmeriCymru- gwych i fod yma ar AmeriCymru. I'd be delighted to share with your readers more about parallel.cymru. Parallel.cymru is a digital magazine that presents articles about Wales and Welsh life in a unique format- each article is bilingual, with side by side Welsh and English (in parallel) . There are many Welsh-language magazines and books, but only a proportion of Welsh speakers feel...
Read More1 CommentsAmeriCymru spoke to author Meredith Efken about a recent piece she published in Nation Cymru in response to an earlier editorial. This interview discusses nationalism in a Welsh context amongst other topics. Meredith is an author, blogger, Welsh language learner and founder member of the Texas Welsh Society. Her website can be found here:- Meredith Rose Books ... AmeriCymru: Hi Meredith and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. To begin with can you tell us a little about your Welsh roots? Meredith: I am... (counts on fingers) 5th generation...
Read More1 CommentsHi all, Beryl Richards here.. As you know I live in South Wales, in the heavily industrialised town of Port Talbot. I have long been interested in Welsh history, but the early Bronze and Iron age, I sort of dismissed as being a 'long way off' and probably not relevant to me or where I live. I had seen pictures of iron a forts or enclosures but in no way were they associated in my mind with smokey ol' Port Talbot. Which in a roundabout way brings me to the subject of my new novel which has a working title of 'The Mountain', and the thought process which led to writing it. I...
Read MoreAn Interview With Philip Thomas - Beyondstorytime AmeriCymru: Hi Philip and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Care to describe Beyond Storytime for our readers? What inspired you to create the site? Philip: Beyond Storytime is a streaming service for stories – a sort of ‘Spotify for stories’, if you will. Some of the best storytellers have visited Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival over the years, but not everyone is able to make the trip to Wales to hear them. We have created Beyond Storytime so anyone with a computer, laptop, tablet or...
Read MoreORDER HERE What? A Welsh Western? I have called All Through the Night (my new book) a Welsh Western for the simple reason that I think, only half tongue-in-cheek, that cowboys were as much invented in Wales as in Wyoming. My story is about a group of men who drive a large herd of cattle a great distance, through a wild landscape, across rivers and over mountains, threatened by rustlers and ne’er do wells (sounds familiar?). The bond between these drovers (cowboys!) is strengthened by the shared experience of overcoming the various threats they...
Read MoreMORE FROM PAUL STEFFAN JONES: CLICK HERE ... He could almost hear his late father say “there’s nothing on the telly!”, mimicking some long gone radio presenter. So right, whoever it had been. D switched off the TV and threw the remote at the wall, missing the framed photograph of his disapproving parents peering down at him. A snort of disgust blew through his untrimmed nostrils and the room plunged into a post-entertainment gloom. He climbed the narrow stairs carefully, not letting the arthritis get the better of him. In bed, he tried to weigh up his options now...
Read More2 CommentsMORE FROM PAUL STEFFAN JONES: CLICK HERE ... Jimmy Jangles prepared as he always did one late Saturday night to watch his favourite TV sport programme, Melee of The Day. He seemed to have watched this every week of his life as far as he could remember. His father had also been a fan though the format had apparently been somewhat different in those days. The broadcast was preceded by a news bulletin which ended with the advice that those not wishing to know the results of MOTD should leave the room. He duly acquiesced to this tiny bit of theatre and stood at the open...
Read MoreA beautiful new online collection of audio stories suitable for children of all ages from Beyond the Border – Wales International Storytelling Festival In the autumn of 2016 we were really excited to announce Beyond Storytime - a way of providing families everywhere with beautifully told stories in their own homes. It is a small taste of our wonderful festival, available all the time, wherever in the world you live. Beyond Storytime is part of Beyond The Border – Wales’ International Storytelling Festival which happens biannually in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales...
Read MoreBack to Welsh Literature page > Apart from writing one of my great passions is lawn bowls. I suppose it was inevitable that eventually I would combine the two and write a fictional novel about the game I love. The result was 'Jack's High'. 'Jack's High' was first conceived as a six part comedy drama centred around the hapless exploits of a Welsh Valleys' fictional lawn bowls club called Penypont. The BBC liked what they read but were not convinced that lawn bowls was a compelling enough vehicle for comedy and asked me to write about something else. I...
Read More1 CommentsBack to Welsh Literature page > Who doesn't love the story of Orson Welles radio production of War of the Worlds which caused many listeners to head for the hills - literally. Deliberately introducing the play as a news broadcast proved too realistic especially when one of the actors described the emergence of an alien from its spacecraft: "Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake," he said, in an appropriately dramatic tone of voice. "Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's...
Read MoreBack to Welsh Literature page > Okay so Im not the greatest author in the world. Maybe I will never make the best seller lists but thats no excuse for ripping me off. As Indie authors we know how difficult and time consuming it can be promoting our books. Sometimes I feel like Hansel lost in a forest of social media never able to find my way out with new trees being planted around me all the time. HELP!!! Then one day I discovered a clearing in the wood. It wasnt a house made of candy but an enormous edifice called Amazon - pretty appropriate for an empire in...
Read More2 CommentsBack to Welsh Literature page > Read our 2012 interview with author jean Mead here ... The historical trilogy is set in the quarry lands of North Wales amidst the Snowdonia Mountains, ancient castles, opulent Penrhyn Castle, grand mansions and the straggling cottages of a mountain community in the mid 19th century. Following a pit disaster in Manchester, Joe Standish takes his wife Emily and tiny son Tommy to live in North Wales where he settles to the hard and dangerous existence as a quarryman. Home life for Emily and Joe is happy but for the small...
Read More1 CommentsFor more from Mike Jenkins click here In 2009 we received the following communication from Mike Jenkins ( excerpted ) "Dear friends, Here is a poem which I recently wrote , which you can use on your site if you wish.". We proudly present Mike's poem below. Jumping forward to 2018 we are also excited to include a short film based on the poem. 'Journey' is an Al Jones Weird Unit Film. 'Journey' will be premiered at the Cardiff International Film Festival on October 21st. .. Journey of the Taf - Mike Jenkins ... It begins in the centre...
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