Tagged: new welsh review
New Welsh Review is excited to announce the opening of the fourth iteration of the New Welsh Writing Awards. The 2018 award is the Aberystwyth University Prize for an Essay Collection. To complement the awards, a companion Readers’ Poll for the best essay collection ever published in the English language (including in translation) around the world, is also being launched.
Now in its fourth year, the Awards were set up to champion the best short-form writing in English and have previously run non-fiction categories with the WWF Cymru Prize for Writing on Nature, won by Eluned Gramich in 2015 and the University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing, won by Mandy Sutter in June 2016. In 2017 the awards ran two categories for the first time: the Aberystwyth University Prize for Memoir, and the AmeriCymru Prize for Novella. The winners were Catherine Haines (Memoir), and Cath Barton (Novella).
For the 2018 prize, New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies acts as main judge, with the help of students from Aberystwyth University. The Awards are open to all writers based in the UK and Ireland plus those worldwide who have been educated in Wales. Entries opened on 02 October 2017 and will close on 02 February 2018. Entries for the prize will be longlisted and announced online on 3 April 2018. The shortlist will be announced at an event at Aberystwyth Arts Centre Bookshop on Thursday 03 May 2018, and the winner will be announced at a ceremony at Hay Festival on Friday 01 June 2018.
Judge Gwen Davies writes that ‘As judge I will be looking for essays written in a style that is literary and rigorous (rather than academic), with a personal voice and elements of present docu-journalism. Some of my favourite models for essay collections include No Man’s Land by Eula Biss, Margaret Atwood’s Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature, and Geoff Dyer’s Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It.’
First prize is £1,000 advance, e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint in 2016, a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at WME. Second prize is a weeklong residential course at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales. Third prize is a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales. All three winners will also receive a one-year subscription to the magazine.
In addition, New Welsh Review will consider the highly commended and shortlisted nominees for publication in a forthcoming edition of its creative magazine New Welsh Reader with an associated standard fee.
Nominations for the Readers’ Poll will be open until early 2018, and can be submitted via Twitter (#newwelshawards), email, or through the New Welsh Review Facebook page. The winner of the Readers’ Poll will be announced at the longlisting event for the awards
The Call for Entries video can be found here: https://vimeo.com/230047799
For a selection of New Welsh Readers’ Poll videos, visit the New Welsh Review Vimeo page here: https://vimeo.com/newwelshreview
To request a more information, please contact Jamie Harris, Marketing Officer at
marketing@newwelshreview.com/07812804505
Call for Entries: New Welsh Writing Awards 2018 Aberystwyth University Prize for an Essay Collection from New Welsh Review on Vimeo .
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— americymru (@americymru) October 19, 2017
MEMOIR THEME FOR NEW WELSH READER
New Welsh Reader Autumn Edition (115)
Publication date: 1 September 2017
The autumn edition of New Welsh Reader includes exclusive extracts from entries to the New Welsh Writing Awards 2017: Aberystwyth University Prize for Memoir. First place winner Catherine Haines’ memoir gives an insight into a young woman’s experience of anorexia while at Oxford University. As the Cambridge Weight Plan spins out of control, a post-grad’s academic subject, ‘the mind-body problem’, goes through an existential phase to become ‘extraordinary morality’ rather than a mental health problem. Second-placed ‘The Case’ by MJ Oliver tells the story of Jim, an emigrant from England to Canada, as he awaits release from a progressive mental hospital and reconciliation with his baby daughter. He is in turns hopeful migrant, stowaway, farmer, thief, hobo, rough poet and ever-loving brother. Third-placed ‘People, Places and Things: A Life With the Cold War’ Adam Somerset paints a sweeping landscape of the Eastern Bloc as experienced through the eyes of a British backpacker. Beginning the Highly Commended entries, ‘The Red Circle’ by Maria Apichella is the story of daughter’s Pennsylvania road-trip with her Italian-American father. ‘On Shifting Sands’ by Liz Jones; a true tale of family rift and reconciliation, and finally ‘Boystown, SA’ by Robert and Amanda Oosthuizen, a story told by a husband to his writer-wife. Also included is an essay on spirituality and landscape in recent travel and poetry titles from Welsh publishers, covering Jim Perrin, Nathan Llywelyn Munday, Biddy Wells, David Lloyd Owen & the poetry of Ruth Bidgood.
POETRY FROM Rosie Garland, Charlie Bird, Ashleigh Davies, Ben Wilkinson, Meg Eden, Chris Emery, Manash Firaq Bhattacaejee and Michael Derrick Hudson.
On my third day at Hay-on-Wye, The New Welsh Review hosted a writing awards ceremony. The ceremony was sponsored by AmeriCymru and Aberystwyth University. I puttered my way to the Summer House. It was a particularly warm Welsh day. The festival had seen little rain, which may be attributed as a minor miracle. At the festival in Cornwall, I found an injured pigeon, jokingly presented it to the set up crew as dinner, but when I let it go, it flew away. With the pigeon healing event I had already considered calling the pope to ask for the canonization process to begin, but now good weather was following me through Cornwall and Wales. I figured I had two minor miracles under my belt at this point.
A pretty lady in a beautiful peach dress met me at the door of the Summer House. Gwen Davies turned out to be the judge of the contest and the editor of the New Welsh Review. She introduced me to the three short list finalists for the novella prize, which was co-sponsored by AmeriCymru. Nicola Daly wrote The Night Where You No Longer Live . Olivia Gywne wrote the The Seal . The winner of the prize was Cath Barton from Abergavenny who after retiring has pursued writing as a new career. Cath had been a contributor to the former Celtic Family Magazine out of Los Angeles. Her book The Plankton Collector is a fantasy realism piece about a magical individual (The Plankton Collector) who appears as a variety of everyday common people to bring help to others in need, and the resolution to their difficulties comes in common ways. The prize-winning piece was good for a £1,000, plus an extended excerpt of the book was professionally read and placed into a beautifully animated video. Catherine Haines won the New Welsh Review Memoir Prize (co-sponsored by Aberystwyth University) for her book My Oxford about a young woman studying at Oxford who survives severe anorexia.
As the ceremonies began, we drank wine and nibbled on tasty bites. Then the awards were announced, as the photos were snapping. I caught Cath Barton after the event in a nine-minute interview, which you can watch here. She is a gracefully engaging woman. I made a point of asking her about her emotional acceptance speech. She cried, she laughed, and she made us all love her to pieces. Her short thank you was my personal highlight for the afternoon ceremony.
The New Welsh Review describes itself as the foremost English language Welsh literary magazine. It seeks out the best in new fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, and offers a vibrant outlet for expression and discussion. Gwen Davies is a wonderful host as are the other staff members: Marketing Dude Jamie Harris, and Administration Maven Bronwen Williams. (I suppose I should admit to Californizing their titles.)
Since I am traveling, I signed up for the New Welsh Review in digital format, which was only £6.99 for the year. If you are a writer or an avid reader with a serious case of Cymrophilia breaking out all over your body like a Red Dragon rash, then you should consider signing up. You can go online to www.newwelshreview.com and find the link to sign up for hard and digital copies for £16.99, or if you want to get the e-format only, you can contact Bronwen Williams at admin@newwelshreview.com .
Next post, I will finish up my thoughts on Hay-on-Wye and the Hay Festival. I somehow became mildly famous for being the American Steward who spoke Welsh and slept in a hammock in the trees. Bernie Sanders spoke at the event. It turns out that he is a rock star in the UK, and I had to answer all kinds of questions about American politics. Then I tried to follow the cawl thick accent of a British comedian, who told jokes about American actors mumbling.
For now, hwyl fawr from Y Teithiwr Twp.
The video for Cath's book can be found at http://www.
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1. In red: Olivia Gywne, in black: Nicola Daly, in pink: Cath Barton
2. Jamie Harris and Gwen Davies
3. The beginning of the award ceremony in the Summer House
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Two Catherines reign in short book prize New Welsh Writing Awards 2017 in Novella and Memoir categories on the subjects of healing and trauma
By , 2017-06-01
New Welsh Review, in association with Aberystwyth University and AmeriCymru, announced the winners of the New Welsh Writing Awards 2017: Aberystwyth University Prize for Memoir, and AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella, at a ceremony at the Hay Festival on Thursday 1 June.
The Prizes celebrate the best in both Memoir and Novella from emerging and established writers, and received entries from both new and established writers based in Wales, England and the US. New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies judged both categories with the help of students from Aberystwyth University. The Novella Prize was co-judged by Welsh-American writer David Lloyd. David is the author of nine books including poetry collections, a novella and novels, and directs the Creative Writing Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY.
Catherine Haines, a dual English-Australian citizen, won the Memoir Prize, for her account of a young woman’s experience of anorexia while at Oxford University, entitled ‘My Oxford’. Cath Barton, from the English Midlands and now living in Abergavenny, south Wales, won the Novella Prize for her story ‘The Plankton Collector’, a gentle pastiche of an idyllic world populated by archetypes who will help us heal and learn.
Both writers were given cheques for £1,000, as well as e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint. They will also receive a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown
NWR Editor Gwen Davies said ‘In our two winning entries in the novella and memoir categories, chosen from nearly all-woman shortlists (putting our political parties to shame), healing, trauma and the fluidity of memory and experience predominate as themes.
‘On our memoir shortlist were true accounts of bad luck, eating and Cold War paranoia, all taken to extremes. From it triumphed a rigorous, philosophical case for regarding eating disorder as pilgrimage. Our four-minute animation [https://vimeo.com/219528361] of ‘My Oxford’, made by Aberystwyth University graduate Emily Roberts, uses typography to show the to-and-fro of academic discourse and the skull of Yorrick from Hamlet to illustrate Catherine’s experience of how anorexia started turning her into ‘a floating head… devoid of emotion.’
‘On our novella shortlist were dark stories of sexual abuse, grooming and escaping domineering fathers. From it triumphed a beautifully controlled mix of magical realism and nature writing about time, healing, trauma and the fluid, unreliable nature of memory. Our four-minute animation [https://vimeo.com/219525617] of ‘The Plankton Collector’, made by Aberystwyth University graduate Emily Roberts, deploys 1960s-style children’s book illustration to depict a lost natural golden world of childhood and the healing Everyman that Cath’s mysterious Plankton Collector represents.’
Second Place in the Memoir Prize was awarded to Mary Oliver for ‘The Case’, a ‘cross-genre fictionalised memoir’ that is ‘innovative, affecting, with depth of heart and breadth of research’. In the Novella Prize, Second Place was awarded to Olivia Gwyne for her story ‘The Seal’, a tale of ‘complex, nuanced characterizations and a narrative that expertly builds tension and suspense’. Mary and Olivia will both receive a weeklong residential course at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales
Third Place in the Memoir Prize was awarded to Adam Somerset for ‘People, Places, Things: A Life With The Cold War’, a memoir that ‘paints a sweeping landscape of the Eastern Bloc as experienced through the eyes of a British backpacker.’ Nicola Daly was awarded Third Place in the Novella Prize, for her ‘innovative style and the masterfully-created, surreal world’ in her novella ‘The Night Where You No Longer Live’. Both Adam and Nicola win a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales.
All twelve nominees will be published in extract form in upcoming editions of New Welsh Reader; all six shortlisted writers will also receive a one-year subscription to the magazine.
New Welsh Review also reminded those present of the winners of their New Welsh Readers' Poll 2017: Best Memoir & Novella, originally announced in spring. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Vintage Books) is the winner of the Best Memoir category and received 50% of the vote. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter (Faber) is the winner of the Best Novella category with 55% of the vote. Congratulations to Marjane Satrapi and Max Porter.
http://www.newwelshwritingawards.com/ #newwelshawards
The 2017 New Welsh Writing Awards are sponsored by Aberystwyth University, the core sponsor and host of New Welsh Review, and US online magazine and social network AmeriCymru. The Awards are run in partnership with Curtis Brown, Gladstone’s Library and Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre.
For images, more details on the Prizes, Readers’ Poll and for interview requests please contact Jamie Harris on marketing@newwelshreview.com or 07812 804505. Please note that Catherine Haines is currently in Hong Kong but is available via email and video.
FISRT PLACE MEMOIR
CATHERINE HAINES (CHARING, KENT), ‘My Oxford’
A young woman’s experience of anorexia while at Oxford University enriches a lively account of student life with literary, philosophical and existential questions. As the Cambridge Weight Plan spins out of control, a post-grad’s academic subject, ‘the mind-body problem’, goes through an existential phase to become ‘extraordinary morality’ rather than a mental health problem. Catherine Haines developed anorexia and underwent religious conversion while facing extreme academic pressure at Oxford University. She wrote it in tribute to a male friend who died from the condition, to explore her own experiences deeply and as self-vindication against friends’ harsh judgement of her in the light of her work at the time as a model. She feels that eating disorders may be regarded as a ‘pilgrimage’ rather than being a ‘media-inspired dysfunction’. ‘My Oxford’ augments a cool, detached style in order to emphasise the rigour of the author’s academic training and the physical process of anorexia which made her ‘something of a floating head… devoid of emotion’. This is a rigorous, perceptive, original and truly felt piece of writing from a very fine mind.
Catherine Haines is a dual English-Australian citizen. She studied Philosophy at the Australian National University and took her Masters Degree in English at the University of Oxford. Catherine currently lives in Hong Kong, and will shortly begin a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham. Her work has been published in Needle in the Hay, Cherwell and Woroni. Her debut novel, The Wicked and the Fair, is currently being circulated.
SECOND PLACE MEMOIR
MARY OLIVER (NEWLYN, CORNWALL), ‘The Case’
Jim, an emigrant from England to Canada, awaits release from a progressive mental hospital and reconciliation with his baby daughter. He is in turns hopeful migrant, stowaway, farmer, thief, hobo, rough poet and ever-loving brother. This story approaches its subject prismatically through different documentary sources, and is based on an historical character. Innovative, affecting, with depth of heart and breadth of research, this cross-genre fictionalised memoir, about ‘one man’s bad luck’ and what his life shows about society, rewards re-reading.
Mary [MJ] Oliver was born in Clun, Shropshire and since then has lived mainly in Scotland and Cornwall. Having gained a BA and an MA in Fine Art from Reading and Falmouth Universities, she exhibited paintings and installations across the UK. Her work was collected by Carmen Callil and some were reproduced as book covers by Virago. To supplement income, she also taught for many years; from facilitating Art Workshops in Barlinnie Jail, Glasgow, to lecturing in Fine Art at Falmouth University. Mary has been writing full time since 2014 and has had a number of prize nominations for her work.
THIRD PLACE MEMOIR
ADAM SOMERSET (ABERAERON), ‘People, Places, Things: A Life with the Cold War’
This memoir paints a sweeping landscape of the Eastern Bloc as experienced through the eyes of a British backpacker. The account is coloured with frequent references to the historical hinterland and details of the author's encounters with the inhabitants of the world beyond the Iron Curtain - all these elements coming together to provide the reader with an immersion into the ‘culture of apocalypse’.
Adam Somerset has lived in Ceredigion for 23 years. His first piece of writing was a play Quay Pursuits produced at the Questors Theatre in Ealing. He wrote an article on national theatre in 2007 for Planet magazine. In the same year he began to write for Theatre Wales, a review site based in Aberystwyth. He is the author of 600 commentary articles and reviews of theatre books and productions. He has written 100 reviews and articles on art, photography, history and television for Wales Arts Review. His reviews of books on politics have featured on the website of the Institute of Welsh Affairs.
FIRST PLACE NOVELLA
CATH BARTON, ‘The Plankton Collector’
“Look,” the narrator directs the reader at the start of this beautifully-written novella. “We are approaching a country house, somewhere in the middle of England.” And with this narrator’s guidance, we enter the house, and enter the lives of its inhabitants - who are ordinary and, it turns out, quite extraordinary. Through an assured combination of magical realism and traditional realism, this story tells of the mysterious Plankton Collector, whose intercessions help members of an apparently conventional family come to terms with debilitating traumas: infidelity, isolation, a closeted gay husband, the death of kin. It is a wise tale of vulnerability, healing, and love. Ultimately, memory and trauma work in tandem, and the power of imagination triumphs. The elegant and finely-tuned prose made “The Plankton Collector” rise to the top of our short-list.
Cath Barton was born in the English Midlands and now lives in Abergavenny, south Wales. Her short stories have been published in anthologies in Australia, the US and the UK, and her flash fiction has appeared on-line in Fictive Dream, Firefly Magazine and Long Exposure, amongst other places. Cath was Literature Editor of California-based Celtic Family Magazine (2013-2016) and is a regular contributor to Wales Arts Review.
SECOND PLACE NOVELLA
OLIVIA GWYNE, ‘The Seal’
This is a story of unequal power, and the grooming of an eleven-year-old girl by a nineteen-year-old male. He spots the source of her vulnerability in her crazy religious Nana and her fearful mother. Strong beach and caravan-site settings coupled with the cat-and-mouse story make compelling reading. ‘The Seal’ is short-listed in second place because of the complex, nuanced characterizations and a narrative that expertly builds tension and suspense.
Olivia Gwyne, originally from Hereford, is now based in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2015 her pamphlet of short stories, The Kittens’ Wedding, was published by Womach Press, and the same year she won the SASH Writing Prize. Olivia has also been shortlisted for the Wells Short Story Competition, the Home Start Short Story Prize and the Horror Scribes Flash Fiction Ghost Story Competition. Her work was recently featured in Halo Literary Magazine. She holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Newcastle University.
THIRD PLACE NOVELLA
NICOLA DALY, ‘The Night Where You No Longer Live’
A first person, dark European fairytale about abuse, cross-dressing and the main character Claudette’s desperate attempts to escape a cruel, deceased father’s shadow and a living brother’s evil intent. Unusual, unsettling language animates each page, as does Claudette’s immediate voice. The novella’s dense texture is further enriched with references to modern Paris as well as Baudelaire and Sartre. This novella is our third place choice because of the innovative style and the masterfully-created, surreal world.
Nicola Daly was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in 1974. However for most of her life she has lived in Chester. Her short stories, non- fiction work and poetry has been widely published by a variety of publications such as Honno Women’s Press, The North West Arts Council Anthologies, Myslexia, Rialto, and many more.
New Welsh Review was founded in 1988 as the successor to The Welsh Review (1939- 1948), Dock Leaves and The Anglo-Welsh Review (1949-1987) and is Wales’s foremost literary magazine in English, offering a vital outlet for the very best new fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, a forum for critical debate, and a rigorous and engaged reviewing culture. New Welsh Review Ltd is supported through core funding by the Welsh Books Council and hosted by Aberystwyth University Department of English and Creative Writing. The magazine’s creative content was rebranded as New Welsh Reader in 2015, with reviews moving entirely online. New Welsh Review can be bought by Direct Debit on subscription at £16.99, UK only (£20.99 for all other subscription types, UK) via www.newwelshreview.com. New Welsh Review Ltd, PO Box 170, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 1WZ, Tel: 01970 628410, Email: admin@newwelshreview.com
Themes of family separation and reconciliation on New Welsh Writing Awards 2017 longlist dominated by women
By , 2017-04-03
Now in its third year, the Awards were set up to champion the best short-form writing in English and has previously run non-fiction categories with the WWF Cymru Prize for Writing on Nature, won by Eluned Gramich in 2015 and the University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing, won by Mandy Sutter in 2016. The Awards 2017 opened up entries from the US and Canada for the first time in the Novella category.
Both new and established writers based in Wales, England and the US are in the running for the top prize including a joint memoir by a husband and wife. The longlist is dominated by women with 8 out of 9 women contending for the Memoir Prize and 6 out of 9 women in the running for the Novella Prize.
The memoir list includes true stories of a Canadian hobo; anorexia; a daughter’s American road-trip made to help reconcile her father and grandmother; an all-boys care-home in South Africa whose residents include a baboon; being the daughter of a Rhyl beauty competition judge, and backpacking behind the iron curtain.
Among the novellas, sexual abuse or the threat of it are among the themes; also homosexuality in a Welsh monastery; the meanings and mystery of treasures old and new; escaping the shadow of a father figure, and the enduring healing and destructive powers of archetypes and idylls.
Aberystwyth University Prize for Memoir Longlist
Maria Apichella (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk) The Red Circle
Caroline Greville (Eythorne, Nr. Dover Kent) Badger Contact
Catherine Haines (Charing, Kent) My Oxford
Liz Jones (Aberystwyth, Wales) On Shifting Sands
Sarah Leavesley (Droitwich, Worcestershire) The Myopic of Me
Mary Oliver (Newlyn, Cornwall) The Case
Amanda and Robert Oosthuizen (Eastleigh, Hampshire) Boystown S.A.
Lynne Parry-Griffiths (Wrexham) Painting the Beauty Queens Orange
Adam Somerset (Aberaeron, Wales) People, Places, Things: A Life with the Cold War
AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella Longlist
Cath Barton (Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales) The Plankton Collector
Rebecca Casson (Holywell, Flintshire, Wales) Infirmarian
Barbara de la Cuesta (Seaside Heights, New Jersey, US) Exiles
Nicola Daly (Chester, Cheshire) The Night Where you no Longer Live
Olivia Gwyne (Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland) The Seal
Atar Hadari (Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire) Burning Poets
Joao Morais (Cardiff, Wales) Smugglers' Tunnel
Veronica Popp (Chicago, US) Sick
Mike Tuohy (Jefferson, Georgia, US) Double Nickel Jackpot
Commended
Amanda Oosthuizen (Eastleigh, Hampshire) Carving Strangers
New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies judged both categories with help from students from Aberystwyth University. The shortlist for the Novella category will now be co-judged by Welsh-American writer David Lloyd. David is the author of nine books including poetry collections and novels, and directs the Creative Writing Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY.
Gwen Davies, editor of New Welsh Review said: ‘These Awards keep going from strength to strength in their third year with a much-increased number of entries and an excellent standard of writing. Carving Strangers , a South-Africa set novel about female emancipation, wood-carving and illegal diamonds, didn’t make it to the longlist but deserves a special mention for the quality and flow of its prose. The novella category, in particular, this year offers a range of voice and expertise of style, as well as historical span, that bodes well for the future of the novella in Wales, a place that has long been a haven for the shorter form in literature.’
The shortlist will be announced at an event at The Bookshop in Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Thursday 4 May from 6.30-8pm and the winners will be announced at a ceremony at Hay Festival on Thursday 1 June from 2-4pm.
Each category winner will receive £1,000 cash, e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint and a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown. Second prize for each category is a weeklong residential course at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales and third prize is a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales. All six winners will also receive a one-year subscription to New Welsh Review. In addition New Welsh Review will consider the highly commended and shortlisted nominees for publication in a forthcoming edition of its creative magazine New Welsh Reader with an associated standard fee.
The Awards are open to all writers based in the UK and Ireland plus those who live overseas who have been educated in Wales. The AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella was also open to writers based in the US and Canada.
The 2017 Awards are sponsored by Aberystwyth University, the core sponsor and host of New Welsh Review, and US online magazine and social network AmeriCymru. The Awards are run in partnership with Curtis Brown, Gladstone’s Library and Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre.
Aberystwyth University Prize for Memoir Longlist
Maria Apichella (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk)
The Red Circle
A daughter’s Pennsylvania road-trip with her Italian-American father is taken to help reconcile him with his mother. A red and black oil painting and the father’s hospital visit frame evocative settings of forest and former coalmines, while this memoir is warmed by delightful exchanges with a cast of far-flung relatives.
Maria Apichella completed her PhD in English and Creative Writing at The University of Aberystwyth, Wales. An award-winning poet, her book Psalmody was co-winner of Eyewear’s 2015 Melita Hume Prize. Paga was a winner of the Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition in 2014. She teaches English with the University of Maryland, University College, Europe. Visit her blog: mariaapichella.com
Caroline Greville (Eythorne, Nr. Dover, Kent)
Badger Contact
Twelve-year-old Maddy becomes addicted to visiting her local badger sett, while her mother gets drawn in to the politics and legalities of badger life, coming to blows at times with neighbours and farmers. Enriched with literary, folk, and natural history references.
Caroline Greville lives in a rural Kent village with her husband, four children and ever-expanding menagerie of chickens, ducks, guinea pigs and badgers. She is completing a PhD in Narrative Non-Fiction at the University of Kent, where she also works as an assistant lecturer in creative writing. She continues to teach part-time for Kent Adult Education, which she has done since completing a Masters in creative writing in 2014. During 2016 her nature writing featured in four anthologies published by Elliott and Thompson for the Wildlife Trusts.
Catherine Haines (Charing, Kent)
My Oxford
A young woman’s experience of anorexia while at Oxford University enriches a lively account of student life with literary, philosophical and existential questions. As the Cambridge Weight Plan spins out of control, a post-grad’s academic subject, ‘the mind-body problem’, goes through an existential phase to become ‘extraordinary morality’ rather than a mental health problem.
Catherine Haines is a dual English-Australian citizen. She studied Philosophy at the Australian National University and took her Masters Degree in English at the University of Oxford. Catherine currently lives in Hong Kong, and will shortly begin a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham. Her work has been published in Needle in the Hay, Cherwell and Woroni. Her debut novel, The Wicked and the Fair , is currently being circulated.
Liz Jones (Aberystwyth, Wales)
On Shifting Sands
Another true tale of family rift and reconciliation. The author was estranged as a girl from her shallow, beautiful mother, the death of whose sister Ruth damages generations. The gap between brash Merthyr Gran and Nain of Newborough couldn’t be greater. Somehow, though, between these grandmothers and the healing powers of the beautiful Ynys Môn islands, beaches and warrens, identity is forged. Innovatively framed by a ‘historical’ journal of the town.
Following her writing debut, ‘The Naughty Dog’ (which won her a gold star at her Merthyr primary school), Liz Jones has gone on to write drama and creative non-fiction, reviews, short stories and journalism ranging from Take a Break to New Welsh Review . Along the way she has raised two daughters, tried (and failed) to change the world, worked in a café-cum-bookshop, a housing association, in community development and lifelong learning. She is now a Teaching Fellow at Aberystwyth University. Liz is now working on a biography of the incredible - but forgotten - bestselling novelist, scriptwriter, actor and theatre impresario known as Oliver Sandys or Countess Barcynska.
Sarah Leavesley (Droitwich, Worcestershire)
The Myopic of Me
A forensic look at depression that flows forwards and backwards through time, painting the picture of a life through a series of snapshots. Themes and images of sight and how we see recur throughout, from photography to kaleidoscopes. An examination of the self as consistently shifting and malleable.
Sarah Leavesley is a journalist, fiction writer, poet and editor. Having lived, studied and worked across England, Wales and France, Sarah is now based in Worcestershire but considers herself an amalgamation of all the people and places she has known. Her poems have been published by the Financial Times, Guardian, The Rialto, PN Review, Magma, The Forward Book of Poetry 2016 , on county buses and in the Blackpool Illuminations. A short novella, Kaleidoscope , was published in March and her Lampshades & Glass Rivers Overton Poetry Prize 2015 pamphlet-length sequence in 2016. The Myopic of Me is her first piece of memoir. The University of Oxford modern languages graduate has postgraduate qualifications in journalism and creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Wales, Cardiff. She is also a keen swimmer, cyclist and climber.
Mary Oliver (Newlyn, Cornwall)
The Case
Jim, an emigrant from England to Canada, awaits release from a progressive mental hospital and reconciliation with his baby daughter. He is in turns hopeful migrant, stowaway, farmer, thief, hobo, rough poet and ever-loving brother. This story approaches its subject prismatically through different documentary sources, and is based on an historical character. Innovative, affecting, with depth of heart and breadth of research, this memoir rewards re-reading.
Mary Oliver was born in Clun, Shropshire and since then has lived mainly in Scotland and Cornwall. Having gained a BA and an MA in Fine Art from Reading and Falmouth Universities, she exhibited paintings and installations across the UK. Her work was collected by Carmen Callil and some were reproduced as book covers by Virago. To supplement income, she also taught for many years; from facilitating Art Workshops in Barlinnie Jail, Glasgow, to lecturing in Fine Art at Falmouth University. Mary has been writing full time since 2014 and has been had a number of prize nominations for her work.
Amanda and Robert Oosthuizen (Eastleigh, Hampshire)
Boystown S.A.
Told by a husband to his writer-wife. Due to family rift and addiction, Robert Oosthuizen was brought up in South Africa by his grandmother, mother, foster homes and residential schools including the highly democratic Catholic Boystown, whose residents included a baboon. Action ranges from rugby matches, in which boots feature only occasionally, to a bizarrely set Eisteddfod, this memoir captures the presentness of childhood in which a survivor takes all in his stride.
Robert Oosthuizen moved from South Africa to the U.K. in 1977, and became a British National soon after. He is married to Amanda and they have three grown-up daughters. He has never returned to South Africa in spite of his daughters’ attempts to persuade him. He is a passionate photographer, and is thinking about joining a choir.
Amanda Oosthuizen’s stories and poems have been published in various forms, shown in galleries, in Winchester Cathedral and on the London Underground. Last year a series of ten poems was displayed in Oxfordshire as part of a collaboration with artist, Lucy Ash. Her latest online story is at 3:AM and prose and poetry is forthcoming in the U.K. with Paragram, and in the U.S. with Woven Tale Press and Prelude. She has an M.A. with distinction in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester, where she won the Kate Betts Prize. A long time ago, she studied English and Music at Aberystwyth University and has combined both ever since. Amanda and Robert have been married for 38 years and live in Hampshire.
Lynne Parry-Griffiths (Wrexham)
Painting the Beauty Queens Orange
This account of being the daughter of a Rhyl beauty competition judge shows a world of Carmen rollers, Miss Prestatyn Prince Charming and Dad going to work at Tito’s club in a frilly shirt and butterfly bowtie.
Lynne Parry-Griffiths was born in St. Asaph and educated at various universities. She currently teaches part-time and seems to divide a lot of her time between Rhuddlan and Ruabon. Her short story, ‘My Will Ne’er Be Done’ was a runner-up in the Cheshire Prize for Literature in 2015. She has recently co-founded smallbooks, an artisan publishing company, and the first book in the Catrin-Elisabeth series for young children, Ladybird is Lost , will be published in 2017.
Adam Somerset (Aberaeron, Wales)
People, Places, Things: A Life with the Cold War
This memoir paints a sweeping landscape of the Eastern Bloc as experienced through the eyes of a British backpacker. The account is coloured with frequent references to the historical hinterland and details of the author's encounters with the inhabitants of the world beyond the Iron Curtain - all these elements coming together to provide the reader with an immersion into the 'culture of apocalypse'.
Adam Somerset has lived in Ceredigion for 23 years. His first piece of writing was a play Quay Pursuits produced at the Questors Theatre in Ealing. He wrote an article on national theatre in 2007 for Planet magazine. In the same year he began to write for Theatre Wales, a review site based in Aberystwyth. He is the author of 600 commentary articles and reviews of theatre books and productions. He has written 100 reviews and articles on art, photography, history and television for Wales Arts Review . His reviews of books on politics have featured on the website of the Institute of Welsh Affairs .
AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella Longlist
Cath Barton (Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales)
The Plankton Collector
This combination of magical realism and a realistic tale has the sense of being a gentle pastiche of an idyllic world populated by archetypes who will help us heal and learn. It tells of various family traumas being faced through the intercession of the mysterious Plankton Collector: infidelity, a closeted gay husband, the death of kin. Ultimately, memory and trauma work in tandem, and the power of imagination triumphs.
Cath Barton was born in the English Midlands and now lives in South Wales. Her short stories have been published in anthologies in Australia, the US and the UK, and her flash fiction has appeared on-line in Fictive Dream , Firefly Magazine and Long Exposure , amongst other places. Cath was Literature Editor of California-based Celtic Family Magazine (2013-2016) and is a regular contributor to Wales Arts Review .
Rebecca Casson (Holywell, Flintshire, Wales)
Infirmarian
Complex and authentic first-person narrative of homosexuality, sickness, healing and herbs in a Welsh monastery. Two novices go missing and are found with an interesting, gender-bending twist and a story of unrequited love.
Rebecca Casson is originally from North Yorkshire but travelled widely as a child with her army family. Graduating from Liverpool University in 2010 with an MA in Classics, she qualified as a teacher and now teaches Latin, Classical Civilisation and Ancient Greek at a girls’ school in Chester. As yet unpublished, Rebecca currently lives in North Wales with her husband and enjoys writing fiction in her free time.
Barbara de la Cuesta (Seaside Heights, New Jersey, US)
Exiles
Atmospheric and nuanced story of expat life penetrated by local characters and dangerous politics. The language, food, landscape and customs of Cuba are vivid. Themes include gender politics, the unknowability of others, sacrifice, chance, injustice, class, privilege and poverty. The value of love is held up to that of pragmatism and convention.
Barbara de la Cuesta has one published novel, The Spanish Teacher , winner of the Gival Press Fiction Prize in 2007. She has been past recipient of fellowships in fiction from the Massachusetts Artists’ Foundation, and the New Jersey Council on the Arts, as well as residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, The Virginia Center, and the Millay Colony. Her poetry collection will be published this year by Finishing Line Press. She lives in New Jersey and has taught English as a Second Language and Spanish for many years.
Nicola Daly (Chester, Cheshire)
The Night Where you no Longer Live
First person dark European fairytale about abuse, cross-dressing and Claudette’s desperate attempts to escape a cruel, dead father’s shadow and a living brother’s evil intent. The unusual, unsettling language here is compelling, as is Claudette’s immediate voice. Enriched with references to modern Paris as well as Baudelaire and Sartre.
Nicola Daly was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in 1974. However for most of her life she has lived in Chester. Her short stories, non- fiction work and poetry has been widely published by a variety of publications such as Honno Women’s Press, The North West Arts Council Anthologies, Myslexia, Rialto, and many more.
Olivia Gwyne (Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland)
The Seal
This is the story of unequal power, and the grooming of an eleven year old girl by a nineteen year old male. He spots the source of her vulnerability in her crazy religious Nana and her fearful mother. Strong beach and caravan-site settings coupled with the cat-and-mouse story make compelling reading.
Olivia Gwyne , originally from Hereford, is now based in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2015 her pamphlet of short stories, The Kittens’ Wedding , was published by Womach Press, and the same year she won the SASH Writing Prize. Olivia has also been shortlisted for the Wells Short Story Competition, the Home Start Short Story Prize and the Horror Scribes Flash Fiction Ghost Story Competition. Her work was recently featured in Halo Literary Magazine . She holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Newcastle University.
Atar Hadari (Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire)
Burning Poets
A curiously perplexing account of a famous, passionate, deceased poet: her life and its many hurts, in tandem with an ambitious academic later in time, who attempts to uncover the secrets of her passing. the reader is haunted by the voice and words of a woman with deep, ardent, almost animalistic hopes, desires and vices.
Atar Hadari was born in Israel, raised in England, trained as an actor and writer at the University of East Anglia before winning a scholarship to study poetry and playwrighting with Derek Walcott at Boston University. His plays and songs have won many awards.
Joao Morais (Cardiff, Wales)
Smugglers' Tunnel
A historical tale of 19th century Cardiff that takes some surprising twists and turns; charting the journey of a young man struggling to escape the shadow of his late father, while uncovering the mystery behind a most exotic trinket. A wide cast of characters inhabit a vividly formed, urban world of desperation and poverty.
Joao Morais lives in Cardiff. He is about to complete a PhD in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. He has previously been shortlisted for the Academi Rhys Davies Short Story Prize, the Percy French Prize for Comic Verse, and the All Wales Comic Verse Award. He won the 2013 Terry Hetherington Prize for Young Writers. He has a short story collection due out next year with Parthian.
Veronica Popp (Chicago, US)
Sick
A writer in her early 20s has a mother in hospital dying of liver cancer. The protagonist is in an obsessive, toxic relationship based on meaningless sex. Pleasure circles evasion as conventional ‘doctor’-patient roles are overturned.
Veronica Popp is an activist and writer throughout the city of Chicago. She has a Bachelor’s from Elmhurst College in English and History, a Master’s in Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University and a Master’s in English with a concentration in Literary Studies from Western Illinois University. Popp has been published by many magazines and journals. Popp was recently nominated for the Silver Pen Writers Association Writing Well Award. Last year, she was a Teaching Artist and Co-Editor of student writing for Young Chicago Authors. The resulting work titled The End of Chiraq will be published by Northwestern University Press. Popp teaches composition at Elmhurst College and recently completed her first novel, The Longest Summer , out for submission to literary agents.
Mike Tuohy (Jefferson, Georgia, US)
Double Nickel Jackpot
Pacey, dialogue-driven, filmic, comic, coming-of-age anti-bromance. Parker and Lee, drifting since school, turn their access to the police car pool to their advantage in a joyride through the Bayou badlands. Things turn very nasty indeed.
Mike Tuohy was born in New Jersey in 1954. Moving to Georgia in 1965, he has sopped up Southern Culture ever since. A professional geologist, Mike works the environmental consulting rackets by day and writes at night, making friends, family and co-workers nervous as he chronicles the preposterous through short stories, novellas and a novel-in-progress. 17 of his short stories, including two collaborations and a Pushcart nominee, have been published. A two-time finalist in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, he has a total of nine words in that prestigious publication. Mike lives with his wife Sally in an earth-sheltered home by the North Oconee River near Jefferson, Georgia.
Commended
Amanda Oosthuizen (Eastleigh, Hampshire)
Carving Strangers
In this 1940s South-Africa set novel, the protagonist seeks escape from an unhappy marriage through carving beautiful boxes from rare African wood. When this doesn’t pay, she forms dangerous alliances, breaching class and race to enter the illegal diamond trade and move towards emancipation.
Amanda Oosthuizen’s stories and poems have been published in various forms, shown in galleries, in Winchester Cathedral and on the London Underground. Last year a series of ten poems was displayed in Oxfordshire as part of a collaboration with artist, Lucy Ash. Her latest online story is at 3:AM and another was recently shortlisted in The London Magazine competition; prose and poetry is forthcoming in the U.K. with Paragram, and in the U.S. with Woven Tale Press and Prelude. She has an M.A. with distinction in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester, where she won the Kate Betts Prize. She lives in Hampshire but a long time ago, she studied English and Music at Aberystwyth University and has worked in both subject areas ever since. Born a Jenkins, her family came from Merthyr.
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The New Welsh Writing Awards 2017, run by New Welsh Review in association with Aberystwyth University and AmeriCymru, opens for entries on 26 September with two new categories, the Aberystwyth University Prize for Memoir and AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella.
Now in its third year, the Awards were set up to champion the best short-form writing in English and has previously run non-fiction categories with the WWF Cymru Prize for Writing on Nature, won by Eluned Gramich in 2015 and the University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing, won by Mandy Sutter in June 2016.
This year sees the Awards open up to fiction and memoir, welcoming sponsorship from Aberystwyth University, the core sponsor and host of New Welsh Review, and US online magazine and social network AmeriCymru. The Awards are run in partnership with Curtis Brown, Gladstone’s Library and Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre.
New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies will judge both categories with Welsh-American writer David Lloyd co-judging the Novella category. David is the author of nine books including poetry collections and novels, and directs the Creative Writing Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY.
Each category winner will receive £1,000 cash, e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint and a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown. Second prize for each category is a weeklong residential course at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales and third prize is a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales. All six winners will also receive a one-year subscription to New Welsh Review. In addition New Welsh Review will consider the highly commended and shortlisted nominees for publication in a forthcoming edition of its creative magazine New Welsh Reader with an associated standard fee.
The Awards are open to all writers based in the UK and Ireland plus those who have been educated in Wales. The AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella is also open to writers based in the US and Canada. Entries close at midnight on 1 March 2017. Full details, including terms and conditions, can be found online at www.newwelshwritingawards.com .
The longlist will be announced online on 3 April 2017, with the shortlist announced at an event at Aberystwyth University on 4 May 2017 and the winner at an event at Hay Festival on 1 June 2017.
Gwen Davies , editor of New Welsh Review says: 'We are seeking evocative, succinct and authentic short book-length manuscripts in English. For the novella category they will be between 8,000 and 30,000 words. For the memoir, between 5,000 and 30,000. If your top drawer hides a novella with the punch of Animal Farm or the poignancy and dialect of Mihangel Morgan's Pan Oeddwn yn Fachgen ; or the bite, and visceral local feel of memoirs such as Mary Karr's The Liars' Club or the sheer cheek of Charles Nicholl's The Fruit Palace , we want to hear from you.'
Co-judge David Lloyd says ‘I am delighted to serve as co-judge for the AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella. Ever since writing a novella for my first book of fiction, I have loved the form, which combines the intensity of the short story with the expansiveness of the novel. It can be devoured in one sitting or put down and picked up for leisurely reading. Anyone who has read James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness , Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café , or Kate Chopin’s The Awakening will know the pleasures of this genre in the hands of masters. I also very much value the international scope of this contest, which I hope will draw out authors from diverse backgrounds who write – or who are now inspired to try – the novella.’
Louise Marshall , Head of English and Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, said: ‘We are delighted to be working with New Welsh Review to find the best writing talent in Wales and beyond. Memoirs are a fascinating and often surprising literary form and, just as these Awards have already celebrated Mandy Sutter’s and Eluned Gramich’s beautifully crafted and enthralling works, we are very much looking forward to discovering equally talented writers in the future.’
Ceri Shaw, co-founder of AmeriCymru, added, ‘AmerCymru is honored to be offered this opportunity to partner with the New Welsh Review and Aberystwyth University. We founded AmeriCymru to increase awareness of Wales and Welsh heritage and to bring Wales and its arts, including literature, to the attention of more people around the world. This competition provides voice and opportunity to new and upcoming writers, and we are excited to be able to contribute to this effort.’
The AmeriCymru Prize For The Novella 2017!! https://t.co/xC0JnppRDj #Wales #writing pic.twitter.com/HKGWqoEUGl
— americymru (@americymru) September 26, 2016
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There is also an exclusive extract from Cynan Jones’ new novel Cove (Granta) publishing in November 2016. Out at sea, in a sudden storm, a man is struck by lightning. When he wakes, injured and adrift on a kayak, his memory of who he is and how he came to be there is all but shattered. Now he must pit himself against the pain and rely on his instincts to get back to shore, and to the woman he dimly senses waiting for his return. With its taut narrative and its wincingly visceral portrait of a man locked in an uneven struggle with the forces of nature, this is a powerful new work from one of the most distinctive voices in British fiction.
In addition there is new poetry from Wales Book of the Year 2016 category winner Philip Gross , Argentinian poet Daniel Samoilovich, Chilean poet Malu Urriola, (both translated by Richard Gwyn), Ian McLachlan, Syed Shehzar Mukkarim Doja, Agatha Abu Shehab and CM Buckland.
New Welsh Reader editor Gwen Davies talks through the edition highlights:
New Welsh Reader poetry submissions editor Amy McCauley explains why she chose Philip Gross' poems:
Cynan Jones will be reading from Cove at Chapter’s First Thursday on 3 November at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff.
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Memoir about a family divided by sexism and racism in 1960s white Nigeria wins New Welsh Writing Awards 2016
By , 2016-07-08
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New Welsh Review, in association with the University of South Wales and CADCentre, announced the winner of the New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing at a ceremony at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff on Thursday 7 July.
The Prize celebrates the best short form travel writing from emerging and established writers based in the UK and Ireland. The judges are New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies and award winning travel writer Rory MacLean.
Mandy Sutter from Ilkley won the top prize for her re-telling of her mother’s story of growing up in mid 1960s white Nigeria through her own eyes, ‘Bush Meat: As My Mother Told Me’. She was given a cheque for £1,000 by judge Rory MacLean and her winning entry will be published by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint this autumn and will also receive a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at WME.
NWR editor and Prize judge Gwen Davies said ‘Travel writing creates bridges of understanding across physical and imaginative borders, between our own and 'other' cultures as well as between the past and the present. Mandy Sutter's Nigeria rises like a mirage from her story as a child there in the mid 1960s; her use of fiction techniques such as empathy and multiple viewpoints, especially her mother's adult experience as an ex-pat negotiating her own family's conforming views of race and class, create a complete arc of innovative concision.’
Co-judge Rory MacLean said ‘Mandy Sutter's 'Bush Meat' triumphs, in its lean prose and true dialogue, in its disarming humour, in its evocation of a family divided by sexism and racism in 1960s white Nigeria. In her story, Mandy stitches together the threads of memory to create a moving tapestry of lost life, building bridges of understanding across time and place, enhancing literature's ever-changing, ever-supple genre.’
Mandy Sutter grew up in Kent but now lives in Ilkley with her partner and a large black dog called Fable. She has co-written two books about the lives of Somali women, published in 2006 and 2007 and her first novel Stretching It was published in 2013. She has also published three poetry pamphlets with independent presses.
Second prize was awarded to Cardiff University PhD student Nathan Llewelyn Munday for his piece ‘Seven Days, A Pyrenean Trek’ that uses European creation myths to map the highs and lows of the grand narrative. A deceptively simple hike with his father becomes a timeless, scholarly, rich, human, engaging and heartfelt Odyssey. Nathan wins a weeklong residential course of his choice at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales.
Third prize went to Welsh travel writer John Harrison for his piece ‘The Rains of Titikaka’ that tracks the rise and fall of the pre-Columbian city of Tiwanaku in Bolivia, highest city in the ancient world and the hub of a trading empire stretching from Chile to Peru. John wins a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales.
All three entries will be published in extract form in the autumn edition of New Welsh Reader (112) on 1 September and all three winners will also receive a one-year subscription to the magazine.
Watch the ‘Bush Meat: As My Mother Told Me’ animation video, produced by Emily Roberts in partnership with Aberystwyth University: Bush Meat: As My Mother Told Me (this will go live at 7.30pm on 7 July) and Shortlist Showcase with Interviews, Readings and Animation: Shortlist Showcase
New Welsh Review also announced the winner of their Best Travel Book Poll at the event, Losing Israel by Jasmine Donahaye (Seren), a moving and honest account of the author’s relationship with Israel, which spans travel writing, nature writing and memoir. Voted for by the public, Losing Israel was the overwhelming winner from a shortlist of three titles that comprised Wildwood: A Journey through Trees by Roger Deakin (Penguin) and A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor (John Murray). Losing Israel has also been shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year 2016.
Winner of the New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing from New Welsh Review on Vimeo .
Travel writer John Harrison among longlist of nine for the New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing
New Welsh Review , in association with the University of South Wales and CADCentre, is delighted to announce the longlist of nine travel nonfiction essays for the New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing. Both new and established writers based in Wales, England and Ireland are in the running for the top prize including the award-winning travel writer John Harrison.
The Prize celebrates the best short form travel writing (5,000-30,000 words) from emerging and established writers based in the UK and Ireland plus those who have been educated in Wales. The judges are New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies and award winning travel writer Rory MacLean.
Gwen Davies, editor of New Welsh Review said: ‘This prize has gone from strength to strength in its second year with an increased number of entries and an excellent standard of writing. Branching out from our previous theme of nature, this year’s longlist of travel nonfiction sees a move towards the political.’
Virginia Astley (Dorchester, England) Keeping the River
Evan Costigan (Kildare, Ireland) West Under a Blue Sky
Hannah Garrard (Norwich, England) No Situation is Permanent
John Harrison (London, England) The Rains of Titikaka
Gerald Hewitson (Holyhead, Wales) Oh my America
Julie Owen Moylan (Cardiff, Wales) Anxiety and Wet Wipes on Train Number Four
Nathan Llywelyn Munday (Cardiff, Wales) Seven Days: A Pyrenean Trek
Karen Phillips (Pembrokeshire, Wales) Stranger Shores
Mandy Sutter (Ilkley, England) Bush Meat: As My Mother Told Me
Davies continues: ‘Such essays follow the progress of a pioneering school from its refugee-camp origins in Ghana; a Nigerian domestic scene where subtle and interdependent racial and class issues are seething under a tight lid; the rise and fall of the pre-Columbian city of Tiwanaku in Bolivia and the underground (and underwater) currents of Mayan culture in the Yucatan, Mexico. In gentler pastures, meanwhile, language, geography, history, culture, religion and philosophy are given room to reflect in pieces that champion the humble Thames-side lock-keeper, the etiquette of the Trans-Siberian station pitstop; silence and spirituality on a Pennsylvanian Quaker residency, and the highs and lows of the grand narrative on trek through the Pyrenees.’
For more information about the long listed writers please visit the website here: http://www.
The shortlist will be announced at an event at Hay Festival on 1 June 2016 ( 3-4pm ) and the winner at a ceremony at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff on 7 July 2016 ( 6-8pm ).
First prize is £1,000 cash, e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint in 2016, a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at WME, as well as lunch with her in London. Second prize is a weeklong residential course in 2016 of the winner’s choice at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales. Third prize is a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales. All three winners will also receive a one-year subscription to the magazine. In addition New Welsh Review will consider the highly commended and shortlisted nominees for publication in a forthcoming edition of its creative magazine New Welsh Reader with an associated standard fee.
New Welsh Review have today also launched their Best Travel Book Poll inviting readers around the world to vote for their favourite all time travel book in the English language. A longlist of 20 titles have been selected by co-judges Gwen Davies and Rory MacLean with nominations from the students of the University of South Wales and librarians across Wales. The public can now vote for the shortlist and winner which will be revealed on 1 June and 7 July respectively.
For more information visit http://www.
New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing call for entries - deadline 3 April
By , 2016-03-19
There are just two weeks left to enter the New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing. The prize celebrates the best short form travel writing from writers based in the UK and Ireland and those based worldwide who have been educated in Wales. The word length is 5,000-30,000 and the closing date is midnight 3 April. Entry is free.
First Prize:
• £1,000 cash, e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint in 2016
• a positive critique over lunch with leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at WME
Second Prize:
• a weeklong residential course in 2016 of the winner’s choice at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre
Third prize:
• a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library
All three winners will also receive a one-year subscription to New Welsh Review. In addition New Welsh Review will consider the highly commended and shortlisted nominees for publication in a forthcoming edition of its creative magazine New Welsh Reader with an associated standard fee.
Find out more at http://www.newwelshwritingawards.com/ and you can watch our call for entries video here: https://vimeo.com/152185256
In addition to the writing prize, New Welsh Review is giving readers a chance to nominate their favourite travel books in their Best Travel Book Poll.
Find out more here: http://www.newwelshwritingawards.com/best-travel-book-poll/
To nominate your favourite travel book email us at marketing@newwelshreview , tweet us @NewWelshReview using the hashtag #NewWelshAwards or add a comment on Facebook.com/NewWelshReview. Deadline for nominations is midnight 3 April 2016.
We will reveal the longlist on 20 April and will be inviting the public to vote for the shortlist and winner which will be revealed on 1 June and 7 July respectively.
New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing opens for entries
By , 2016-01-23
Press Release
Tuesday 19 January 2016
New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing opens for entries.
www.newwelshwritingawards.com
The New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing has opened for entries on 19 January 2016 and closes at midnight on Sunday 3 April 2016. The Prize is run in association with the University of South Wales and CADCentre and celebrates the best short form travel writing (5,000-30,000 words) from emerging and established writers based in the UK and Ireland plus those who have been educated in Wales. The judges are New Welsh Review editor Gwen Davies and award winning travel writer Rory MacLean, author of ten books including best sellers Stalin's Nose , Under the Dragon and Berlin: Imagine a City .
First prize is £1,000 cash, e-publication by New Welsh Review on their New Welsh Rarebyte imprint in 2016, a positive critique by leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes at WME, as well as lunch with her in London. Second prize is a weeklong residential course in 2016 of the winner’s choice at Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Gwynedd, north Wales. Third prize is a weekend stay at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, north Wales. All three winners will also receive a one-year subscription to the magazine. In addition New Welsh Review will consider the highly commended and shortlisted nominees for publication in a forthcoming edition of its creative magazine New Welsh Reader with an associated standard fee.
The longlist will be announced on 20 April 2016, with the shortlist announced at an event at Hay Festival on 1 June 2016 and the winner at a ceremony at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff on 7 July 2016. Full details, including terms and conditions, can be found online at www.newwelshwritingawards.com .
The New Welsh Writing Awards 2015: WWF Cymru Prize for Writing on Nature and the Environment was won by Eluned Gramich for Woman Who Brings the Rain: A memoir of Hokkaido, Japan (published 15 October 2015, £2.99 Kindle ebook). Eluned said about her win: “This Prize has given me the confidence to treat my writing seriously. I’m now writing a novel again, and this time I am determined not to give up.”
Gwen Davies , editor of New Welsh Review says: “Since economy and precision is what journals champion, it's right that these awards celebrate the shorter publishing formats that our digital age has made possible. When fellow judge, prize winning travel author Rory MacLean and myself make our adjudication next summer, I'm sure we will unveil a host of talent to add to the stable of writers on travel that have already found a home in the pages of the magazine. I hope that Rory's ambition, invention and stunning prose style will inspire newcomers to the genre and veteran travel hands alike.”
Co-judge Rory MacLean says “Only by experiencing the world from another person's point of view can we begin to understand that person or society. Borders are bridged most powerfully by individuals, through characters and stories, by evoking empathy. Hence the enduring importance of travel and travel writing, and of this competition that goes to the very heart of the matter.”
Dr Nic Dunlop , Head of English at the University of South Wales, said: "We are delighted to be working with New Welsh Review to find the best writing talent in Wales and beyond. This Prize has already discovered Eluned Gramich’s beautifully crafted essay writing and we are very much looking forward to revealing more talented writers of the future."
Ali Anwar , Managing Director of CADCentre UK, added: "The CADCentre is delighted to support the New Welsh Writing Awards for a second time, celebrating the work of writers from Wales and those who are educated here nurtures and raises the profile of our writing talent. Building links between the business and the arts communities should be a creative experience and a source of inspiration for both, especially in a country which has a deep and innate respect for culture."
The New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing is sponsored by the University of South Wales and CADCentre UK. New Welsh Review has also partnered with WME , Gladstone’s Library and T ŷ Newydd Writing Centre for this project. New Welsh Review Ltd is supported through core funding by the Welsh Books Council and hosted by Aberystwyth University Department of English and Creative Writing.
Datganiad i’r Wasg
Mawrth 19 Ionawr 2016
Gwobrau New Welsh Writing 2016: Gwobr Prifysgol De Cymru ar gyfer Ysgrifennu Taith ar agor i ymgeiswyr
Ar 19 Ionawr 2016 agorodd Gwobr Prifysgol De Cymru ar gyfer Ysgrifennu Taith: Gwobrau New Welsh Writing 2016 i ymgeiswyr a bydd yn cau am hanner nos ar 3 Ebrill 2016. Caiff y Wobr ei rhedeg mewn cydweithrediad â Phrifysgol De Cymru a CADCentre ac mae’n dathlu’r ysgrifennu taith byr gorau (5,000-30,000 o eiriau) gan lenorion newydd a phrofiadol yn y DU ac Iwerddon ynghyd â’r rheini sydd wedi’u haddysgu yng Nghymru. Y Beirniaid yw Golygydd New Welsh Review Gwen Davies a’r llenor taith arobryn Rory MacLean, awdur deg o lyfrau gan gynnwys y cyfrolau poblogaidd Stalin's Nose , Under the Dragon a Berlin: Imagine a City .
Y wobr gyntaf yw £1,000, e-gyhoeddi gan New Welsh Review ar eu gwasgnod New Welsh Rarebyte yn 2016, beirniadaeth gadarnhaol gan yr asiant llenyddol blaenllaw Cathryn Summerhayes yn WME, yn ogystal â chinio gyda hi yn Llundain. Yr ail wobr yw dewis o gwrs preswyl wythnos o hyd yn 2016 yng Nghanolfan Ysgrifennu Tŷ Newydd yng Ngwynedd. Y drydedd wobr yw arhosiad dros benwythnos yn Llyfrgell Gladstone yn Sir y Fflint. Bydd y tri enillydd hefyd yn derbyn tanysgrifiad o flwyddyn i’r cylchgrawn. Yn ogystal, bydd New Welsh Review yn ystyried cyhoeddi gwaith yr enwebeion a gymeradwyir yn uchel a’r rhai ar y rhestr fer mewn rhifyn o’r cylchgrawn creadigol New Welsh Reader yngyhyd â ffi safonol gysylltiedig.
Cyhoeddir y rhestr hir ar 20 Ebrill 2016, gyda’r rhestr fer yn cael ei chyhoeddi mewn digwyddiad yng Ngŵyl y Gelli ar 1 Mehefin 2016, a’r enillydd mewn seremoni yng Ngholeg Brenhinol Cerdd a Drama Cymru ar 7 Gorffennaf 2016. Ceir manylion llawn, gan gynnwys y telerau ac amodau, ar-lein: www.newwelshwritingawards.com http://www.newwelshwritingawards.com .
Enillwyd Gwobr WWF Cymru ar gyfer Ysgrifennu am Natur a’r Amgylchedd: Gwobrau New Welsh Writing 2015 gan Eluned Gramich am Woman Who Brings the Rain: A memoir of Hokkaido, Japan (cyhoeddwyd 15 Hydref 2015, £2.99 elyfr Kindle). Wrth son am ei champ dywedodd Eluned: “Mae’r Wobr hon wedi rhoi’r hyder i fi drin fy ysgrifennu o ddifrif. Rwyf i nawr yn ysgrifennu nofel eto, a’r tro hwn rwy’n benderfynol o beidio â rhoi’r gorau iddi.”
Dywed Gwen Davies , golygydd New Welsh Review: “Cynildeb a chywirdeb yw’r hyn sy’n bwysig i newyddiadurwyr, ac felly mae’n iawn fod y gwobrau hyn yn dathlu’r fformatau cyhoeddi byrrach sydd bellach yn bosibl yn ein hoes ddigidol. Pan fydd fy nghyd-feirniad, yr awdur taith arobryn Rory MacLean a fi’n beirniadu’r haf nesaf, rwy’n siŵr y byddwn yn darganfod cyfoeth o dalent i ychwanegu at y stabl o lenorion taith sydd eisoes wedi canfod cartref yn nhudalennau’r cylchgrawn. Gobeithio y bydd uchelgais, dyfeisgarwch a rhyddiaith ysblennydd Rory’n ysbrydoli newydd-ddyfodiaid i’r genre a theithwyr profiadol fel ei gilydd.”
Yn ôl y cyd-feirniad Rory MacLean “Dim ond drwy brofi’r byd o safbwynt rhywun arall y gallwn ni ddechrau deall y person hwnnw neu’r gymdeithas honno. Caiff ffiniau eu pontio’n fwyaf pwerus gan unigolion, drwy gymeriadau a straeon, drwy ennyn empathi. Dyma’r rheswm am bwysigrwydd parhaus teithio ac ysgrifennu taith, a’r gystadleuaeth hon sy’n mynd i graidd y pwnc.”
Dywedodd Dr Nic Dunlop , Pennaeth Saesneg ym Mhrifysgol De Cymru : "Rydym ni wrth ein bod i fod yn gweithio gyda New Welsh Review i ddod o hyd i’r doniau ysgrifennu gorau yng Nghymru a thu hwnt. Mae’r Wobr hon eisoes wedi darganfod ysgrifau cain Eluned Gramich ac rydym ni’n edrych ymlaen yn fawr at ddatgelu rhagor o lenorion talentog y dyfodol.”
Ychwanegodd Ali Anwar , Rheolwr Gyfarwyddwr CADCentre UK: "Mae CADCentre yn falch iawn i gefnogi Gwobrau New Welsh Writing am yr ail dro, mae dathlu gwaith llenorion o Gymru a’r rhai sydd wedi’u haddysgu yma yn meithrin ac yn codi proffil ein doniau llenyddol. Dylai creu cysylltiadau rhwng y gymuned busnes a’r gymuned celfyddydau fod yn brofiad creadigol ac yn ysbrydoliaeth i’r ddwy gymuned, yn enwedig mewn gwlad sydd â pharch dwys a chynhenid at ddiwylliant.”
Noddir Gwobr Prifysgol De Cymru ar gyfer Ysgrifennu Taith: Gwobrau New Welsh Writing 2016 gan Brifysgol De Cymru a CADCentre UK. Mae New Welsh Review wedi creu partneriaeth gyda WME , Llyfrgell Gladstone a Chanolfan Ysgrifennu T ŷ Newydd ar gyfer y prosiect hwn. Cefnogir New Welsh Review Ltd drwy gyllid craidd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru a’i gynnal yn Adran Saesneg ac Ysgrifennu Creadigol Prifysgol Aberystwyth.
War theme for autumn edition of New Welsh Reader
New Welsh Review was founded in 1988 as the successor to The Welsh Review (1939-1948), Dock Leaves and The Anglo Welsh Review (1949-1987) and is Wales’s foremost literary magazine in English, offering a vital outlet for the very best new fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, a forum for critical debate, and a rigorous and engaged reviewing culture. New Welsh Review Ltd is supported through core funding by the Welsh Books Council and hosted by Aberystwyth University Department of English and Creative Writing. The magazine’s creative content was rebranded as New Welsh Reader in May 2015, with reviews moving entirely online.
Best selling travel writer Rory MacLean to judge New Welsh Writing Awards 2016: University of South Wales Prize for Travel Writing
By , 2015-12-20
AmeriCymru spoke to New Welsh Review/Reader editor, Gwen Davies about the re branding and the magazines future direction.
Gwen: New Welsh Review , is a literary and cultural magazine working across Wales with eleven publication dates in different formats including print, app, epub and online, through the media of text, photography, video, audio, graphic poetry and animation. This national magazine with international readership and horizons has contributors including Terry Eagleton, Michael Longley, Patricia Duncker, Stevie Smith, Jem Poster, Richard Gwyn, Rory MacLean and Tessa Hadley. Our USPs are that we publish newcomers alongside established writers, are highly professional, develop the work of students and emerging writers, and that we pay contributors. We rebranded in May 2015 to publish creative work and literary essays in the New Welsh Reader (print, app and epub formats), and to publish reviews and comment in the New Welsh Review (online only).
AmeriCymru: Where can American readers go to read more or subscribe?
https://www.newwelshreview.com/
https://www.newwelshreview.com/newsub.php
AmeriCymru: With regard to the recent name change / re branding...what is new in Welsh Reader? Has there been a change of focus?
Gwen: The emphasis, noted above, of creative work in New Welsh Reader, has been appreciated by readers who perhaps aren't so interested in reviews or like to get their reviews more quickly online. Our readers tell us that highlighting our creative work – poetry, creative nonfiction, short stories, novel previews, illustration, photography, graphic books and longer literary essays – in this way gives this type of work more status and room for contemplation, which print, in particular, favours. Publishing eight online supplements of reviews and comment allows us to respond more quickly to new books and topical issues without worrying about the production process. These supplements are published under the old umbrella, New Welsh Review. This move, of course, also saves money in a climate of public funding cuts.
AmeriCymru: What, for you are the highlights of the latest edition of New Welsh Reader?
Gwen: As it happens, am American contributor, Peter E Murphy www.murphywriting.com , whose essay is a fictionalised family memoir about his family's connections to Wales. His father and grandfather, longshoremen Eddie and Teddy Murphy, were billeted together in Newport and Belgium during the Normandy landings. Teddy was a nasty piece of work and Eddie was a tall-tale-teller of the first order. Other highlights in our autumn edition are former British serving officer Daniel Jones' story about an Afghanistan posting, and newcomer Crystal Jeans' dirty urban story about how a mother's sexual fantasy of Bukowski propels her to seduce the local alcoholic tramp: 'I lean over to my knicker drawer and pull out a condom. Bukowski wouldn't use a condom. Or he would, but right at the end he'd yank it off, sink his d*** back in and say, "You can have my seed and like it, you w****.' But you can take something too far.'
AmeriCymru: What can you tell us about the New Welsh Writing Awards program. Are there any upcoming publication plans? What will be the theme for next year?
Gwen: To elaborate on the rebranding you mentioned above. We rebranded around the term 'New Welsh' since that encapsulates all our work, and we have further sub-brands of the New Welsh Writing Awards which this year ran under the banner of writing for nature and the environment and was sponsored by WWF Cymru with further support from CADCentre (a software company working with early school leavers) and writing centres Ty Newydd and Gladstone's Library in north Wales.
The Awards' USP is that it celebrates essays or books of at least 10,000 words and part of the prize is publication in Kindle ebook form. Our fourth brand is New Welsh Rarebyte which is our new ebook imprint and publishes the winner of our writing award, this year (publishing on 15 October) 26-year old Eluned Gramich's Woman Who Brings the Rain , A Memoir of Hokkaido, Japan. It's available for pre-order internationally here as a Kindle ebook via Amazon. We are currently seeking sponsors to run next year's Awards, either from commerce or from education as we are looking into the possibility of combining work on the Awards with a university placement programme that would give experience to students, either with a literature background or in business or marketing, to work on a large event such as running a prize and ceremony. We hope that we will get enough funding next year to run an extra category, so that would be nature and the environment as before plus memoir. The prize should interest expats with a Welsh connection as our Terms & Conditions welcome international entries by people who were born in Wales or educated here.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?
Gwen: The publishing climate for journalism is very hard as we are hit five times over by the change in reading patterns caused by the internet, ie people accessing free stuff; writers having become willing to publish their work for free, thus undermining their own value and that of curated publications who see payment as part of the professional service they offer; the democratisation of the internet which, despite its many positive points does undermine the old hierarchy of choice and curation which publishers offer; the feedback and sense of community offered to writers by social media which used to be provided by magazines and authors' societies, and, finally, the current British austerity climate which has led to public funding cuts in the arts as elsewhere. We really do feel, in respect of our current mix of subscriber-exclusive and free-to-view content, that we are sucking it and seeing. We don't know how things will develop, how much will people pay to read in future in a world in which originally only very few of the big newspapers opted for the paywall model.
At New Welsh Review, however, we have been working creatively to track down alternative funding sources. Mainly this has been with the institution in which we are physically housed, our host and sponsor Aberystwyth University, to create a student work placement scheme producing a multimedia programme that provides us with audio and visual features, clips, reviews, interviews and creative showcases that exercise the students' skills in research, presentation, camerawork, editing, performed reading, animation, graphics, getting on with authors and working as a team as well as being responsive to an editor's demands and real-time deadlines. This relationship gives us a home and allows us to pay and develop the skills of a greater range of contributor. For the university, it ticks their employability boxes. To AmeriCymru I would humbly ask: does anyone want to sponsor an exciting Awards scheme and/or work with us to replicate our student placement model over the pond? Last year, during the Dylan Thomas centenary, many Americans learned of or visited the many beautiful west Wales locations associated with the poet. In Aberystwyth we are just down the coast from Laugharne and New Quay. If you would like to sponsor or develop any of the ideas outlined above to further strengthen the links of Wales and the US, and to put our mutual traditions of great writing on both our maps, contact me at editor[at]newwelshreview.com.
