Literary Salon Series

18:00-19:00 - Waterstones Swansea, 17 Oxford Street, Swansea SA1 3AG

Join us as we celebrate the debut novels of award-winning authors Jane Fraser (Wales) and Kathleen B. Jones (USA).
In conversation with Elaine Canning, Jane and Kathleen will discuss the art of writing historical fiction, inspirations and influences, as well as the silencing and invisibility of women, duty and desire within a range of cultural landscapes.

Biographies

Jane Fraser lives, works and writes fiction in a house facing the sea in the village of Llangennith, in the Gower peninsula, south Wales.

She is the author of two collections of short fiction, The South Westerlies (2019) and Connective Tissue (2022), both published by leading UK indie, SALT. Her debut novel, Advent (2021) was published by Welsh women’s press, HONNO, and was awarded the Society of Authors Paul Torday Memorial Prize in 2022.

Her short stories have placed highly in major international competitions: she was a finalist in the Manchester Fiction Prize (2017) and she has been a runner-up, shortlisted or highly commended in the Fish Short Story Prize, the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, the Cambridge Short Story Prize, and The Rhys Davies National Short Story Prize.

Her work has been widely anthologised, appearing in publications by New Welsh Review, The Lonely Crowd, TSS, Momaya Press, Retreat West, and Fish Publishing. In 2022, she was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 for the first time to write ‘Soft Boiled Eggs’, a short story broadcast as part of the Short Works series.

She has a B.Ed as a first degree and an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University. She is also proud to be a Hay Festival Writer at Work.

Jane has recently been awarded a Society of Authors' grant to work on her latest novel: an intergenerational ecofeminist contemporary story set in Gower. 

Born and educated in New York City, Kathleen B. Jones taught feminist theory for twenty-four years at San Diego State University. Besides many scholarly books, she wrote two memoirs:  Living Between Danger and Love,  (Rutgers University Press, 2000) and the award-winning Diving for Pearls: A Thinking Journey with Hannah Arendt (Thinking Women Books, 2015). Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Fiction International, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, The Briar Cliff Review, Humanities Magazine, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Among numerous awards, she received multiple grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, writers’ grants to the Vermont Studio Center, an honorary doctorate from Örebro University, Sweden, and a distinguished alumni award from CUNY Graduate Center. Cities of Women is her debut novel. She lives in Stonington CT.

Originally from Belfast, Elaine Canning is a public engagement specialist, writer and editor living in Swansea, South Wales. She holds an MA and PhD in Hispanic Studies from Queen’s University, Belfast and an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University. She is currently Head of Special Projects at Swansea University, including the international Dylan Thomas Prize. As well as having written a monograph and papers on Spanish Golden-Age drama, she has published several short stories. Her debut novel, The Sandstone City, was published by Aderyn Press in 2022. She is also editor of Maggie O’Farrell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (forthcoming, Bloomsbury, 2023). She is a member of the British Council Wales’ Advisory Committee and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

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18:00-19:00
Waterstones Swansea, 17 Oxford St, Swansea SA1 3AG

Small town justice comes with a price.

'Full of tension and suspense, I couldn't put this down. The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat. Brilliant!' Simon McCleave

'Dark, gut-punching and satisfying all at once. Expert handling of characters and pace, and a glorious evisceration of moral duty!' Rachel Lynch

Ten years ago, in the pine-shaded town of Savage Ridge, Nick, Emmy, and Pete murder their high school classmate, Sammy Saint John.

His body is never found, and no arrests are made. The three friends make a pact to leave Savage Ridge and never return...

Now, each is drawn home, seemingly by chance or fate. But it's neither: Private Investigator Sloane Yo has brought them back to finally answer for their crime.

The noose begins to tighten. But with each stone turned over in pursuit of justice, the long-buried secrets of Savage Ridge, and Sloane's employers – the ruthless Saint John family – start to come to light.

What aren't they telling Sloane? Is Sammy Saint John the only victim? And when the truth is finally revealed, whose side will she choose?

For fans of Chris Whitaker's We Begin at the End, Savage Ridge is a shattering, propulsive why-dunnit crime thriller set deep in the pines of the American Pacific Northwest.

Morgan Greene is the pen name of British author Daniel Morgan who grew up in Wales, studying Creative Writing and English Literature at Swansea University.  Author of the bestselling Jamie Johansson series, Daniel currently lives in southern British Columbia, Canada.

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13:00-16:00 - Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP

Come celebrate International Women's Day with Women Publishing Wales - Menywod Cyhoeddi Cymru! This in-person event will be held in collaboration with The Cultural Institute at Taliesin Create on the Singleton Campus, Swansea University in Sketty, Swansea, UK. Get ready to celebrate and support the incredible work of women in the publishing industry.

Speakers include: Jannat Ahmed; Faith Buckley; Emma Clark; Gwenno Dafydd; Sarah Johnson; Helgard Krause; Meredith Miller; Rufus Mufasa; Rhoda Thomas; Penny Thomas; Tia-zakura Camilleri and Nelly Adam

Women Publishing Wales - Event Programme

ABOUT US

Women Publishing Wales - Menywod Cyhoeddi Cymru (WPW/MCC) is a dynamic network that aims to connect and empower women in publishing within Wales. By creating an inclusive space where women can thrive and advance in their professional journeys, WPW - MCC will help to amplify the talents of women in publishing and unlock their full potential.

FROM THE FOUNDER

'At the London Book Fair and Frankfurt Book Fair I had the opportunity to engage with a diverse range of women in Welsh publishing and women from around the world. It was truly invigorating to witness their vibrant energy, wisdom, broad skillsets and to hear their stories of triumph over familiar challenges and barriers in the publishing world. These encounters left me feeling liberated and deeply inspired! Given the untapped potential of women in publishing, it’s evident that a women's publishing network is not only desirable but essential. Such a network will provide a vital platform to harness our collective aspirations and attract new audiences to the publishing world.' Dr Gemma June Howell, Director.

MORE ABOUT US
www.womenpublishingwales.com

JOIN US TODAY
join@womenpublishingwales.com

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14:00-15:00 - Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP

Purity and Hope is the first published collection of the work of Aruni McShane, a poet and essayist whose writing builds a bridge between her native Sri Lanka and her adopted home in Wales.

As Sri Lanka celebrates the 75^th anniversary of its independence from Britain, one of its gifted artists shares her own journey towards creative independence and a renewal of her own identity, and sketches a portrait of the fierce, selfless love of a mother for her children.

Aruni McShane came to the UK in search of safety. In the short time that Aruni had lived in Swansea, she has already made a substantial contribution to local life through her volunteering activities. She has both received and given support. She has won Swansea university Sanctuary Scholarship in 2022, and currently reading for her Masters in creative writing.

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18:00-19:00 - Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP

A story full of strangeness and extraordinary twists, games and trickery, Crow Face, Doll Face explores being forced to live with the consequences of the decisions we make and the fantasies we construct to soothe ourselves when the life we live falls far short of the life we planned.

Unhappily married mother of four, Annie is drowning in domestic servitude. She often wonders what her life could have been had she not had children, but when her youngest daughters perform a seemingly impossible act of levitation, her life is touched with magic and she realises that her girls are truly special and that she must protect them. Eventually Annie musters the courage to leave the wreck of her marriage, but she commits a terrible, unthinkable, unmotherly act along the way.

Carly Holmes lives and writes on the banks of the river Teifi, west Wales. Her debut novel The Scrapbook was shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award, and her Literary Strange short story collection Figurehead was published in limited edition hardback by Tartarus Press, and reprinted in paperback by Parthian Books. Her prize-winning short prose has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Ambit, The Ghastling, The Lonely Crowd, and has twice been selected for The Best Horror of the Year.

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Photo credit: Nik Roche

18:00-19:00 - HQ Urban Kitchen, 37 Orchard Street, Swansea SA1 5AJ

Local Fires sees debut writer Joshua Jones turn his acute focus to his birthplace of Llanelli, South Wales. Sardonic and melancholic, joyful and grieving, these multifaceted stories may be set in a small town, but they have reach far beyond their locality. From the inertia of living in an ex-industrial working-class area, to gender, sexuality, toxic masculinity and neurodivergence, Jones has crafted a collection versatile in theme and observation, as the misadventures of the town’s inhabitants threaten to spill over into an incendiary finale.

In this stunning series of interconnected tales, fires both literal and metaphorical, local and all-encompassing, blaze together to herald the emergence of a singular new Welsh literary voice.

Joshua Jones (he/him) is a queer, autistic writer and artist from Llanelli, South Wales. He co-founded Dyddiau Du, a NeuroQueer art and literature space in Cardiff. His fiction and poetry have been published by Poetry Wales, Broken Sleep Books, Gutter and others. He is a Literature Wales Emerging Writer for 2023, and is currently working with the British Council to connect Welsh and Vietnamese queer writers. Local Fires is his first publication of fiction.

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15:00-16:00 - Mumbles Tabernacle, Mumbles, SA3 4AR

In this absorbing memoir Dai Smith engages and entertains with a personal life and times of a writer who has illuminated the modern history of the people of South Wales.

‘From its first paragraph almost to its last, Smith’s precise, luxuriant prose style dazzles in its ability to simultaneously set off syntactical fireworks and marshall precisely into shape the considered thoughts of a lifetime’s intellectual curiosity and self-reflection.’ Dylan Moore, Nation.Cymru

Dai Smith was born in the Rhondda in 1945. He studied History at Balliol College, Oxford, and Literature at Columbia University, New York City. He was awarded a Ph.D. at Swansea University for a thesis on the South Wales Miners’ Federation, subsequently the subject of his book, with Hywel Francis, The Fed. He was the contributing editor to the series of essays A People and A Proletariat and published, with Gareth Williams, the prize-winning Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union, Fields of Praise. Through the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote and edited a number of innovative and provocative books and scholarly articles on the social and cultural history of modern Wales: notably, Lewis Jones, Aneurin Bevan and the World of South Wales and Wales: A Question for History. The latter was an extensively revised version of the book associated with six documentary films he wrote and presented under the title Wales! Wales? He went on to make a number of other films on the arts and popular culture, including most recently The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith.

He became Editor BBC Radio Wales in 1993, and was Head of Broadcast (English) there from 1994 until 2000 when he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Glamorgan. He had held Lectureships since 1969 at the Universities of Lancaster, Swansea and Cardiff, where he was given a Personal Chair of the University of Wales in 1984, and since 2005 has been Research Chair in the Cultural History of Wales at Swansea University.

From 2006 to 2016 he was Chair Arts Council Wales and the founding Series Editor of the Library of Wales for which he also edited two volumes of Welsh short stories as Story 1 and Story 2. In The Frame, his autobiography with attendant essays was published in 2010 as was the completion of a trilogy of fiction with The Crossing in 2020. Since 2016 he has been commissioning Series Editor for Modern Wales.

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14:00-15:00 - Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

The five stories in Children of the Land are set in real places: Caerllion, Rhossili, Ynys Llandwyn, Bannau Brycheiniog, underneath Eryri. Places readers and buyers know and love, made new. Hawks of Dust and Wine came second in the 2019 Rheidol prize, and, like all these tales, offers a strong, unconventional heroine. Sarah Tanburn takes us on an exhilarating ride, all the while asking important questions about what kind of Wales we want to live in.

These wildly imaginative tales will appeal to lovers of Angela Carter and Ursula Le Guin. Sarah Tanburn takes us from mythology to a future Wales where unquiet children have powerful voices. Rooted in the Welsh landscape, her language pulses with the power of the sea, lifts and veers on the wind and echoes with the sounds of the deep underground.

‘Writing in a notably fresh voice and strikingly original, these fables hook us in as readers and take us off in thrilling and unpredictable directions.’ Philippa Davies

‘Sarah Tanburn populates the terrain of Wales with a glorious cast of colourful characters. Conveying a sense of wonder about a world that Is intriguingly off-kilter, and presented compellingly well.’ Jon Gower.

Sarah Tanburn lives and writes in South Wales. She is a sailor and hiker, immersed in the environment around her and is approaching the end of a part-time creative writing PhD at Swansea. Her work has been published in anthologies and online, including New Welsh Review, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Aliens (from Iron Press), Wifiles and Superlative magazine. She writes regularly for Nation.Cymru.

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18:00-19:30, Mumbles Tabernacle, Newton Road, Mumbles, SA3 4AR

A special evening of performance and conversation honouring the late critically-acclaimed Gower writer, scholar and teacher Nigel Jenkins.

Introduced by award-winning Welsh writer Jon Gower, join us for the launch of Wild Cherry: Nigel Jenkins’ Selected Poems (Parthian Books). This posthumous volume brings together a selection of Nigel Jenkins' poetry from across his career, selected and edited by Wales Book of the Year winner Patrick McGuinness.

The Evening will also include the announcement of the Hmm Foundation-sponsored 2023 winner of the Nigel Jenkins’ Award for the MA in Creative Writing at Swansea University.

About the author

Nigel Jenkins (1949-2014) was one of Wales’s leading writers: a poet and essayist, he was also political activist, a teacher and a mentor. He first came to prominence as one of the Welsh Arts Council’s Three Young Anglo-Welsh Poets (1974). In 1976, he was given an Eric Gregory Award by the Society of Authors. This was followed by numerous poetry collections, including Song and Dance (1981), Blue: 101 Haiku, Senryu and Tanka (2002) and Hotel Gwales (2006). His poetry has been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Dutch and Russian, and his translations of modern Welsh poetry have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies worldwide, including The Bloodaxe Anthology of Modern Welsh Poetry (2003).

A former newspaper journalist, Jenkins was an accomplished writer of prose. In 1996, he won the Wales Book of the Year prize for his travel book Gwalia in Khasia (1995) – the story of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists’ Mission to the Khasi Hills in north-east India (1841–1969). Jenkins also edited an accompanying anthology of poetry and prose from the Khasi Hills, Khasia in Gwalia. In 2001, he published a selection of his essays and articles as Footsore on the Frontier and, in 2008, and his first psychogeographical guide book Real Swansea was published followed by Real Swansea Two (2012) and Real Gower (2014).

Nigel was elected as a bard to the Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain in 1998. He was a co-editor of the Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales (2008). A highly respected pioneer of the haiku in Wales, he also co-edited the country’s first national anthology of haiku poetry, Another Country in 2011.

About the editor

Patrick McGuinness is the author of two previous books of poetry, two novels, The Last Hundred Days and Throw Me to the Wolves, and a non-fiction book about place, time and memory, and his mother’s small Belgian border town of Bouillon - Other People’s Countries - which was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize and the James Tait Black Prize, won the Wales Book of the Year, and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at St Anne’s College, Oxford. 

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18:00-19:00 - Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

Published by Honno Welsh Women’s press in May 2023, Vulcana is a fictional telling of the real story of Victorian Kate Williams.

On a stormy winter’s night, 1892, Kate Williams, a Baptist Minister’s daughter, leaves her small Welsh hometown of Abergavenny and sets out for London with nothing more than a travel case and a wild plan: she is going to become a strongwoman.

But it is not only her ambition she is chasing. William Roberts, twelve years her senior and the leader of a troupe of strong men and women, has captured her imagination and her heart. In London, William reinvents Kate as ‘Vulcana – Most Beautiful Woman on Earth’, and himself as ‘Atlas’. Soon they are travelling around Britain and beyond, performing in theatres in France, Australia, Algiers.

As Vulcana’s star rises, however, so Altas’ fades, and Kate finds herself holding together both a troupe of performers and a family. But does she truly want fame and fortune? How can she reconcile being a mother with touring the world? Can she really be a voice for women and, in spite of expectation and convention, remain true to herself?

‘Beautifully written, thought-provoking & a touching love story.’ Tracy Rees

‘All the glamour and grit of music halls. A truly empathetic portrayal of a brave, independent young woman.’ Essie Fox

Rebecca F. John is the author of five books for adults – Clown’s Shoes, The Haunting of Henry Twist, The Empty Greatcoat, Fannie, and Vulcana. She has previously been shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Costa First Novel Award, and the Wales Book of the Year Award. In 2022, she published her first children’s book, a middle-grade novel called The Shadow Order, with Firefly Press. Rebecca lives in Swansea with her partner, their son, and their dogs. She loves walking, the sea, and reading about as many different worlds as possible.

Rebecca lives in Swansea with her partner, their son, and their dogs. She loves walking, the sea, and reading about as many different worlds as possible.

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18:00-19:00 - Waterstones Swansea, SA1 3AG

Scott will be talking about, and giving advice on, all things publishing, from writing and editing, to submitting and publishing a book.

From a handy introduction to how the publishing world works, and how authors fit into it, to practical tips on writing your book, strategies for editing and re-writing, and an indispensable guide to creating the perfect submission, Tips from a Publisher is crammed full of common-sense advice that no aspiring writer should be without.

Scott Pack is now in his third decade working in the book world. During that time he has been head of buying for Waterstones, worked for publishers big and small – including a lengthy spell at HarperCollins – and taught numerous workshops on classes on all aspects of writing. These days he splits his time between writing his own books, editing other people's, teaching the editors of tomorrow as part of the Oxford Brookes University MA in Publishing, and he is one of the specialist subject question setters for BBC's Mastermind. His books include Tips from a Publisher, a handbook for writers, and Literary Cats, a history of felines in literature.

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14:00-15:00, Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

Author Kathy Biggs talks to Elaine Canning and Gemma June Howell about her new novel Scrap, a modern human fable set in Swansea. With a reading and Q&A.

As part of the Literary Salon series, The Cultural Institute and Honno Welsh Women’s Press invites you to an insightful conversation between new author Kathy Biggs and Dr Gemma June Howell. Discover the magic within the pages of Kathy Biggs' latest novel, Scrap. Set in a Swansea scrapyard, this compelling story takes you on a journey of resilience, triumph, and the human spirit's unwavering strength. Prepare to be immersed in a world of larger-than-life characters, heartfelt emotions and personal growth that transcends the ordinary. Chaired by Dr Elaine Canning, together they will explore the intricate themes, characters, and inspirations that brought Scrap to life. Gain unique insights into Biggs' creative process, the challenges she encountered, and the literary influences that have shaped her remarkable work.

Kathy Biggs is originally from Yorkshire. She took a summer job in Mid Wales in 1985 – and never left. She has two grown children and lives with her husband. After studying a number of Creative Writing courses linked to Aberystwyth University, she discovered a talent for writing. In October 2022 she published her first novel The Luck. Scrap is her second title published with Honno.

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14:00-15:00 - Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

Philippa Holloway’s debut novel The Half-Life of Snails explores survivalism and the legacy of Chernobyl in a narrative split between North Wales and Ukraine during the Euro Maidan crisis.

“Two sisters, two nuclear power stations, one child caught in the middle...
When Helen, a self-taught prepper and single mother, leaves her young son Jack with her sister for a few days so she can visit Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, they both know the situation will be tense. Helen opposes plans for a new power station on the coast of Ynys Môn that will take over the family’s farmland, and Jennifer works for the nuclear industry and welcomes the plans for the good of the economy.
And Jack isn’t like other five-year olds... as they will both discover with devastating consequences.”

‘Shimmers with compassion…a tale that will linger longer than the half-life of many books you will read this year.’ Alex Lockwood, author of The Chernobyl Privileges

‘A transformative read in a time of heightened complexity and division.’ Wales Art Review

Philippa Holloway is an author and academic, teaching Creative Writing at Staffordshire University. Her debut novel, The Half-life of Snails (Parthian Books) was longlisted for the 2023 RSL Ondaatje prize for ‘a distinguished work evoking the spirit of place,’ and was featured in an international podcast and serialized in a national newspaper.

Her prize-winning short fiction/non-fiction is published internationally in literary magazines and prize anthologies, and as chapbooks with Nightjar Press (2018) and Broken Sleep Books (2023).

She co-curates the global writing project, 100 Words of Solitude, and co-edited 100 Words of Solitude: Global Voices in Lockdown 2020 (Rare Swan Press).

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19:00-20:00 - Mumbles Tabernacle, Newton Road, Mumbles, SA3 4AR

Catrin Kean has had her short stories published in Riptide Journal, Bridge House Publishing and The Ghastling. Her first novel, Salt, was the Wales Book Of The Year winner in 2021 and she is currently working on her second which is due to be published in 2024. She is also working on a feature film script and a collection of short ghost stories. Kean lives in the Garw valley with her partner and three ridgeback dogs.

Salt is based on the lives of Kean’s great-grandparents, who married in 1878. It is their love story.

Cardiff in the late 1800s is grimy, crowded and grey, and Ellen, a domestic, dreams of escaping her dreary life there for the sea. When she falls in love with Samuel, a ship’s cook from Barbados, she is able to fulfil her fantasy by running away with him on a ship. Life at sea is brutal and dangerous, but it is a place where they can be free… Until circumstances force Ellen home, and the hardships of working class life and racism begin to poison their lives.

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Friday 19 May, 19:30:20.30

Mumbles Tabernacle Church, Newton Road, Mumbles, SA3 4AR

Former BBC Wales arts and media correspondent Jon Gower and self-confessed map addict and occasional stand-up comic Mike Parker, Jon Gower in conversation.

Jon Gower is a former BBC Wales arts and media correspondent who has over 40 books to his name. These include The Story of Wales, which accompanied a landmark TV series, the travelogue An Island Called Smith and Y Storïwr which won the Wales Book of the Year.

His latest book is The Turning Tide: A Biography of the Irish Sea, an immersive history of a pivotal stretch of water.

Described by Roddy Doyle as ‘fascinating, spellbinding, erudite and great fun,’ The Turning Tide is a hymn to a sea passage of world-historical importance. The novelist Cynan Jones considers it ‘Contagious with delight and fascination. The seeming informality, the twinkle-in-the-eye in the telling, the gentle provocation make it a joy to read. Jon's perhaps brought into being a new class of book, for it's nothing if not a “Racontography.”’

Self-confessed map addict and occasional stand-up comic Mike Parker writes narrative non-fiction books such as The Wild Rover and Real Powys that start from a profound sense of place. His 2009 book Map Addict became a bestseller while his 2019 book On the Red Hill won the non-fiction category in the Wales Book of the Year for 2020.

His latest volume, All the Wide Border is a funny, warm and timely meditation on identity and belonging, following the scenic route along the England–Wales border: Britain’s deepest fault-line.

All the Wide Border is a personal journey through the places, amongst the people, and across the divides of the border between England and Wales. Taking in some of our loveliest landscapes, and our darkest secrets, this is a region of immeasurable wonder and interest.

Reading it, the writer John Sam Jones “was often overcome by 'fierce wonder'; there’s geography and topography enough to orientate and surprise; there’s history enough to fascinate but not to fog the senses; there are anecdotes that brought belly laughs and tears. Fine writing indeed.”

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18:00-19:00, Waterstones Swansea, The Old Carlton Cinema, 17 Oxford St, Swansea SA1 3AG

Join us to celebrate the launch of The Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology 2023!

Guest judge Jane Fraser, editor Elaine Canning and the finalists and overall winner of the 2023 Rhys Davies Short Story Competition will discuss the collection and the short story form.

The stories which feature on the 2023 Rhys Davies short story award shortlist spark with authenticity of voice and perspective. They are stories set not just in Wales, but in other countries such as Spain and Japan, and explore being and belonging, departure and desire.

Authors in this anthology: Ruairi Bolton, Ruby Burgin, Bethan Charles, JL George, Joshua Jones, Emma Moyle, Rachel Powell, Matthew G. Rees, Silvia Rose, Satterday Shaw, Emily Vanderploeg and Dan Williams.

In partnership with Parthian Books and Waterstones Swansea

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Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

In Birdsplaining: A Natural History, New Welsh Writing Awards 2021 Winner Jasmine Donahaye is in pursuit of feeling ‘sharply alive’, understanding things on her own terms and undoing old lessons about how to behave. Here, she finally confronts fear: of violence and of the body's betrayals, daring at last, to ‘get things wrong’. Roaming across Wales, Scotland and California, she is unapologetically focused on the uniqueness of women’s experience of nature and the constraints placed upon it. Sometimes bristling, always ethical, Birdsplaining upends familiar ways of seeing the natural world. “Fresh, modern, forensic” – Gwyneth Lewis 

About the author
Jasmine Donahaye’s work has appeared in the New York Times and The Guardian, and her documentary, Statue No 1, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her books include the memoir, Losing Israel (2015), winner of the nonfiction category in the Wales Book of the Year award; a biography of author Lily Tobias, The Greatest Need (2015), the basis for O Ystalyfera i Israel, broadcast by S4C; the cultural study Whose People? Wales, Israel, Palestine (2012), and two collections of poetry: Misappropriations (2006) and Self-Portrait as Ruth (2009). She is a part-time professor of Creative Writing at Swansea University, and a fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. Jasmine won the New Welsh Writing Awards in 2021 with an extract from Birdsplaining. 

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Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

As part of the Literary Salon Series, Nilopar Uddin will be in conversation with Dr Kamand Kojouri.

Book Synopsis
The Halfways is an epic family drama that spans over four decades, moving between London, Wales, New York and Bangladesh. It is a story of mothers and daughters, of fathers and daughters, of sisterhood, exploring belonging, family and what makes forgiveness and redemption possible.

Nasrin and Sabrina are two sisters, who on the face of things live successful and enviable lives in London and New York. When their father, Shamsur suddenly dies, they rush to be with their mother at the family home and restaurant in Wales, and reluctantly step back into the stifling world of their childhood. When Shamsur’s will is read, a devastating secret is revealed that challenges all that people thought and loved about him. It also profoundly changes the lives and identities of the sisters, and creates an irreparable family rift…

About the author 
Nilopar Uddin was born in Shropshire to Bangladeshi parents who, like the fictional family in The Halfways, owned and ran an Indian restaurant in Wales. She has had a successful career as a financial services lawyer practising in both London and New York and is a trustee of iProbono, a charity whose mission is to enable people to access their rights in pursuit of a just society. Nilopar has an MA in Creative Writing from City University where she first started working on The Halfways. Her short stories have been published in various anthologies including Jamal’s Pen which was shortlisted for the Asian Writer Short Story Prize. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.

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Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

As part of the Literary Salon Series, Carole Hailey will be in conversation with Alan Bilton, author and Senior Lecturer of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

Book Synopsis

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB PICK
'Engrossing and original, political and unpredictable, The Silence Project will get people talking' - Bernardine Evaristo

Monster. Martyr. Mother.

On Emilia Morris's thirteenth birthday, her mother Rachel moves into a tent at the bottom of their garden. From that day on, she never says another word. Inspired by her vow of silence, other women join her and together they build the Community. Eight years later, Rachel and thousands of her followers around the world burn themselves to death.

In the aftermath of what comes to be known as the Event, the Community's global influence quickly grows. As a result, the whole world has an opinion about Rachel - whether they see her as a callous monster or a heroic martyr - but Emilia has never voiced hers publicly. Until now.

When she publishes her own account of her mother's life in a memoir called The Silence Project, Emilia also decides to reveal just how sinister the Community has become. In the process, she steps out of Rachel's shadow once and for all, so that her own voice may finally be heard.

About the author 

Carole Hailey completed an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London and a PhD in Creative Writing at Swansea University before being selected by the London Library as a 2020/21 Emerging Writer. The Silence Project was chosen for the Radio 2 Book Club hosted by Zoe Ball on her Breakfast Show and on BBC Sounds. It was published In February 2023 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books, and is their 2023 Lead Debut. The Silence Project was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award.

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As part of the Literary Salon Series, Edward Matthews will be in conversation with Alan Bilton, author and Senior Lecturer of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

Book Synopsis
Why live one life, when you could live a thousand?

Sol Andrews works for a San Diego start-up that traffics in the underground memory trade—harvesting memories from donors in Mexico and implanting them in Americans. He inherited the job from his brother, whose recent suicide left a hole in his life.

Sol’s newest client is Mr. Bray—old, rich, well-connected, blind. Mr. Bray has heard rumors of a mysterious graveyard in Tijuana where miracles are said to occur, a place that could restore his sight. He has tracked down a young librarian who knows the graveyard—Nora Rincón—but its location is buried in a childhood memory.

Sol’s task is simple—find Nora, build rapport, extract her memory. His reward: $100,000. However, when Sol befriends Nora, he finds that she is everything he’s not—funny, optimistic, attractive—and he is drawn to her. She helps him process his grief and open him back up to life. But as they grow closer, Sol begins to understand who Mr. Bray is and what he is capable of—and knows it’s too late to go back on their agreement…

About the author 
Edward Matthews is a writer based in San Diego, California. He earned his PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University in 2020. He has read and published widely on the topic of reimagining space along the U.S./Mexico borderlands. Border Memories is his first novel.

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‘Reading Strange Animals feels a bit like rummaging around in someone's well-travelled backpack full of old photographs, seashells, tarot, and countless precious found objects collected for "the passing of knowledge”. A brilliant new voice.’ – Roberto Pastore, Hey Bert (Parthian Books, 2019)

About the author
A Canadian grandchild of Dutch and Hungarian immigrants, in Strange Animals, Emily Vanderploeg explores issues of language, ritual, death and identity. Having studied English and Art History at Queen’s University and Creative Writing at Swansea University (MA, PhD), she now teaches creative writing to children and adults. Emily was a Hay Festival Writer at Work (2018 and 2019) and received a 2019 Literature Wales New Writer’s Bursary Award for an extract of her recently completed novel. Her pamphlet, Loose Jewels, won the Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition and was published in 2020. ‘Strange Animals’ was published by Parthian in 2022 and charts the author’s journey from childhood home to settling across an ocean, moving through the vagaries of modern love as she travels to new cities and a newfound maturity. Originally from Aurora, Ontario, she lives in Swansea.

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Tabernacle Church, Newton Road, Mumbles, SA3 4AR

Twins Ana and Nan are lost after the death of their mother, a renowned author who seemingly killed herself by jumping out of a window. Everyone knows who drove Elena to suicide – her long-time literary critic, Eben. But the twins need proof if they’re going to get their revenge.

When Eben requests access to Elena’s diaries at the National Library where the twins work, desperate to clear his name, they see an opportunity. With careful planning and just a little outside help, the twins lock down the labyrinthine building, trapping their colleagues, the public and most importantly Eben inside. But as a rogue security guard starts upsetting the plan and freeing hostages, Ana, Nan and Eben find themselves pushed to the limit. And what began as a single-minded act of revenge blooms into a complex unravelling of loyalties, motives and what it is that makes us who we are.

Hauntingly written, with a fresh, captivating voice, The Library Suicides is an intensely memorable and provocative literary listen for fans of high concept thrillers that break the mould, and books about books and the concept of the written word.

About the author
Fflur Dafydd is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter and musician, who writes in Welsh and English. She has published six novels, one short story collection and has created around 50 hours of prime-time drama for S4C and the BBC iPlayer. She also wrote and co-produced the feature film Y Llyfrgell/The Library Suicides, (BBC Films) based on her own novel, which won numerous awards at the BAFTA Cymru awards and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. She has twice been nominated for a BAFTA Cymru for best screenwriter; and her fiction prizes include the Prose Medal (2006), the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize (2009), the Oxfam Hay Festival Emerging Writer Award (2009), and the Welsh Big Read Award (2010). She also won the Female Artist of the Year Award in the BBC Radio Cymru awards in 2010. She is a graduate of UEA’s creative writing MA, has a PhD from Bangor University on the poetry of R.S. Thomas, and was also selected as the first ever Welsh participant for Iowa University’s world-renowned International Writing Program. From 2006-2016 she was a creative writing lecturer at Swansea University. 

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Former Archbishop of Canterbury and internationally-renowned scholar Dr Rowan Williams in conversation with eminent professor and critic M. Wynn Thomas

Dr Rowan Williams was born in Swansea and educated at Dynevor School before studying Theology at Cambridge and researching in Russian religious thought at Oxford. He taught in both universities and in 1992 became Bishop of Monmouth. In 1999 he was elected Archbishop of Wales and in 2002 became Archbishop of Canterbury. After retiring from this office, he was Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge until 2020, when he retired to Cardiff. He has written widely on theology, literature and current affairs. His Collected Poems appeared in 2021, and he has recently published an anthology of modern religious verse, A Century of Poetry.

Professor M Wynn Thomas is a Fellow of the British Academy, Vice-President of the Learned Society of Wales, an Honorary Fellow of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and Wales' leading scholar on Welsh writing in English.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, SA2 8PP

The Shadow Order

'One year on from the day the shadows shifted and began to show, not people’s shapes but their real selves, best friends Teddy, Betsy and Effie plan to risk all and watch the winter sun rise over Copperwell, in defiance of the Shadow Order.

But from their hidden vantage point the three shocked friends witness a mysterious woman shout a dire warning, before being arrested, beaten and dragged away in handcuffs.

The event leads them on an extraordinary series of dangerous adventures as they discover more about the disturbance in the natural world surrounding Copperwell, battle to save their city and start to recognise their truest selves.'

About The Author:

Rebecca F. John was born in 1986, and grew up in Pwll, a small village on the south Wales coast.  She holds a BA in English with Creative Writing and an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University, as well as a PGCE PCET from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.   

Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4Extra.  In 2015, her short story The Glove Maker's Numbers was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.  She is the winner of the PEN International New Voices Award 2015.

Her first short story collection, Clown's Shoes, was published through Parthian in 2015.  

Her first novel, The Haunting of Henry Twist, was published through Serpent's Tail in July 2017.  It was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award.

She has recently published two more books for adults - The Empty Greatcoat (Aderyn Press) and Fannie (Honno Press) - The Shadow Order (Firefly Press) is her first children’s book. 

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“To be blunt: I must escape.” 

1893. Henry Nettleblack runs away from home to evade her elder sister’s plans to marry her into the aristocracy. Equipped with £50 and a ferret, she is ambushed, robbed, and then rescued by a mysterious organisation run by women – part detective agency, part neighbourhood watch – in which she enlists.  Nettleblack is a subversive and playful ride (with bicycles, rodents and a decadent, Welsh-speaking chwaer) through the perils and joys of finding your place in the world, challenging myths about queerness – particularly transness – as a modern phenomenon, while exploring the practicalities of articulating queer perspectives when you’re struggling for words. 

"Nettleblack arrives breathlessly, wholly itself, yet also winding down the strange and brilliant bent lanes previously ridden by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Robert Aickman.” So Mayer, author of A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing 

“Nat Reeve’s debut sizzles and crackles with confidence, offering a timeless tale of LGBTQ people finding family wherever they can. A delight!”

 - Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces 

About the Author

Nat Reeve is novelist from Gower, currently finishing a PhD in Victorian art, literature and queerness at Royal Holloway, University of London. In academical guise, they mostly write about Elizabeth Siddal causing havoc with medieval objects, or horrible geese invading Pre-Raphaelite artworks. They have also been known to edit, perform in and direct Victorian plays and operas, to the sideburn-stricken bafflement of their audiences. Their debut novel Nettleblack was published by Cipher Press in 2022, with a sequel to follow in 2024. 

Nat's work on Siddal can be found in Word & Image (Vol. 38, 2022) and Pre-Raphaelite Sisters: Art, Poetry and Female Agency in Victorian Britain, edited by Glenda Youde and Robert Wilkes (forthcoming). Nat was also the 2020/21 Amy P. Goldman Pre-Raphaelite Fellow at the University of Delaware and Delaware Art Museum.

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Book Synopsis
‘Here’s to a full life, a heck of a life… a Dylan life!’
As the ultimate Rock ‘n' Roll Poets, Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas represent two sides of the same coin. Bob Dylan made the music. Dylan Thomas lived the lifestyle. Both perfected the art of performed literature. Bringing together two of the foremost writers on each artist for the first time, The Two Dylans takes us on a literary and literal path taken by Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas.

There are so many strange and wonderful connections and coincidences; shared passions and associations that tie these two cultural icons – Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas together. This provides a rich tapestry – from the ancient Welsh folk tales of the Mabinogion to the poems of the Beat Generation; from Stravinsky to John Cale; from Johnnie Ray to Charlie Chaplin. Rimbaud and Lorca, Sgt. Pepper’s and ‘The Bells of Rhymney’, Nelson Algren and Tennessee Williams and much more.

And the wonderful connections between authors K G Miles and Jeff Towns makes it the perfect partnership to write this book. Fifty-two years ago, Jeff Towns opened his first bookstore in Swansea – he called it Dylans Bookshop – a youthful homage to the poet Dylan Thomas born and raised in Swansea. Eight years before, in 1962, (when he had never heard of Dylan Thomas), he bought Bob Dylan’s first ever LP called Bob Dylan with a track list; In My Time of Dyin’, Fixin’ to Die, See That My Grave is Kept Clean and so on; baker’s dozen of powerful songs. Jeff read that his new hero was born Robert Zimmerman but changed his name to Bob Dylan, a homage to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. From that moment The Two Dylans became a constant backdrop to Jeff’s life. And the two Dylans kept on giving - both on the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album. Peter Blake who fashioned the cover of Pepper, was a huge fan of Dylan Thomas’ radio play Under Milk Wood. Jeff went to see Peter, they became friends and still are. Peter gave permission to use his wonderful Tiny Tina image for the cover of this book.

London co-author K G Miles has been inspired by Bob Dylan since seeing Bob at his Isle of Wight Festival in 1969. He is now the co-curator the of the Dylan Room at London's Troubadour Club and was honoured to address the inaugural conference at the Tulsa Archive in 2019.

‘…why, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a Dylan… male and female, such are the influences of these two cultural giants. Why did Dylan choose Dylan as his name, where do the worlds of these colossal culture vultures and wordsmiths collide? Some of the answers are found in the pages of this book and a lot more besides. I hope you enjoy the trip as much as I do.’ From the Foreword by Cerys Matthews

About the authors

Jeff Towns is one of the world’s leading Dylan Thomas experts. He is a speaker, documentary maker and media commentator, and antiquarian bookdealer by trade, based in the poet’s home-town of Swansea. Jeff was originally known, both locally and globally as Jeff the Books. He is now known affectionately and professionally as The Dylan Thomas Guy. www.dylans.com

Co-author K G Miles is a leading authority on Bob Dylan and co-curator of the Dylan Room at London's Troubadour Club. Through writing, podcasts and Dylan tours, K G Miles is able to share his knowledge and experience of Bob Dylan with music lovers throughout the world.
Twitter: @barberville

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As part of the Literary Salon Series, Jane Fraser will be in conversation with Alan Bilton, author and Senior Lecturer of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

Book Synopsis
This collection of short fiction aims to define the sometimes indefinable and to give voice to those struggling to make sense of what life throws at them. There are those who travel in a continuous loop on London’s underground and those who dance at night with the departed. A woman confronts herself in a bedroom mirror after decades of denial and a widow finds comfort in an osteopath’s consulting room. And then there is a strange creature who falls to earth; dreams and portents; crows and folklore, and much more.

The stories are tragic and comi-tragic, but all reveal the strength and complexity of the human spirit. They bring poignant insights on grief, loss and longing and the depths and strangeness of the human psyche and how we manage to survive and just about cope.

About the author
Jane Fraser lives, works and writes fiction in a house facing the sea in the village of Llangennith, in the Gower peninsula, south Wales. In 2017 she was a finalist for the Manchester Fiction Prize and in 2018 was a prize-winner for the Fish Memoir Prize and selected as a Hay Festival Writer at Work. Her first collection of short fiction, The South Westerlies was published by UK indie, SALT, in 2019. In 2022, she was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 for the first time to write a short story which was broadcast as part of its Short Works series. In 2022, she was also awarded The Paul Torday Memorial Prize for her debut novel, Advent, published by Welsh women’s press, HONNO, in 2021. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University, is wife to Philip and co-director of NB:Design, a business they share, and importantly, grandmother to Megan, Florence and Alice. She is a firm believer that there’s a right time in life to do things, rather than a right age. She is delighted that SALT has reinvested in her for her second collection of short stories, Connective Tissue, publishing in October, 2022.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

As part of the Literary Salon Series, Ray Cluley will be in conversation with Dr Alan Bilton, author and Senior Lecturer of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

"There's a tiny gap between the stories we tell ourselves and those we tell others and that's where you'll find the truth."

All That's Lost is the second collection from award-winning horror writer Ray Cluley, bringing together 17 stories exploring the haunted, the strange, and the uncanny.

Lose yourself in the darkness here, and find yourself changed...

"Without doubt the best that horror can give you" (Stephen Volk)

About the Author

Ray Cluley’s work has appeared in a various magazines and anthologies and has been reprinted several times, including in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series, Steve Berman’s Wilde Stories: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction, and in Benoît Domis’s Ténèbres series. He has been translated into French, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, and Chinese. He won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story (‘Shark! Shark!’) and has since been nominated for Best Novella (Water For Drowning) and Best Collection (Probably Monsters). His second collection, All That’s Lost, will be available in May 2022. 

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How does it feel to live on the edge of your own life? Cassie discovers she can fly but has no-one to tell. Christine has been in her friend’s shadow for far too long, Bernard loses his job through no fault of his own and, in the title story, Hannah struggles with the pressure of her father waiting for her to sort his life out.

Ranging from teenage experiences in the 1960’s to an older woman looking back on her life and reflecting on chances not taken and opportunities missed, this deeply moving short story collection is inhabited by a rich cast of characters who feel as if they never quite belong, outsiders looking on as their lives subtly unravel around them. Combining pathos, humour and wisdom, these twelve stories explore how the ordinary can be strange, the mundane heartbreaking and the tragic, comic.

‘At last a storyteller who gets us, gets our lives and weaves her stories with breathtaking truth. The random, strange events that upend us, the fears that hold us back, the humanity that brings us together and how we find the courage to be ourselves. An outrageous, funny and triumphant collection.’ - Geraldine Taylor MA Bristol University, Multi-award winning children’s author

About the author
Born in Cardiff, Carolyn’s work has appeared in previous Honno anthologies. Her first novel, Missing Nancy was published by Accent Press in 2008. She gained an MPhil in Writing at Glamorgan University (now the University of South Wales). Her stories have won national and local prizes and have appeared in The New Welsh Review, Mslexia and Route Magazine amongst others. She’s worked as a creative writing tutor for many years and two text books have been published based on her teaching methods. Currently she’s taking a PhD at Swansea University for which she’s writing a new novel.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

As part of the Literary Salon series, The Cultural Institute and Culture Matters invite you to the launch of Land of Change: Stories of Struggle and Solidarity from Wales. Edited by Gemma June Howell, Land of Change is a colourful anthology of bold artworks and documentary photography as well as insightful, enlightening and poignant creative pieces, speeches, journalism and memoir. It is a celebration of the diverse collectanea of underrepresented and working-class voices from Wales.

Panel members include anthology contributors, Kate Cleaver, Rhoda Thomas and Rhys Trimble, Gemma June Howell, Associate Editor at Culture Matters and Daniel G. Williams, Professor of English Literature and Co-Director of the Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales at Swansea University.

Kate Cleaver

Kate is an Anglo-Indian writer studying for a PhD with Swansea University. She is researching the lives of ordinary people who found themselves incarcerated in the Briton Ferry Insane Asylum, Vernon House. She is creating stories and has found that linking her stories to historical fact is a way to bring people from the past to life. In 2019 she was longlisted for the New Welsh Writers’ Award and has had a memoir published by Parthian in Just So You Know, and another in Painting the Beauty Queens Orange: Women’s Lives in the 1970s (Honno Welsh Women’s Press, 2021).

Rhys Trimble

Rhys is a neurodiverse, bilingual poet, teacher, translator, performer, critic, musician, sound artist, visual artist, shaman, pastynwr, performance artist, publisher, editor and activist who provided a speech at the Banthebill protest in Bangor. Born in Zambia, raised in South Wales and resident in North Wales, he is the author of 20 or so books.

Rhoda Thomas

Originally from London, Rhoda has been settled in Wales for 40 years, contributing to the training of social workers, counsellors and doctors as a psychologist and sociologist. She has held office in student and trade unions, and with Tim Evans, she convenes the annual Llanelli 1911 Railway Strike Commemoration Festival. She is a founding member of the Live Poets Society, which brings together poets from across south Wales for workshops and open-mic events. A member of the Socialist Workers Party, she gives talks and writes on subjects such as the lives of female revolutionaries and the damage to our health from the food industry. She reads regularly at poetry groups and events. She is the author of Survive and grow in difficult times, and her poetry can be found in recent anthologies, in Red Poets, and in her poetry collections. In this prose-piece she writes about the challenges she has faced in life as a working-class woman, and the value of solidarity.

Gemma June Howell (Editor)

Gemma is a grass-roots activist, writer, poet, tutor, academic, Associate Editor for Culture Matters and regular contributor to Nation Cymru. Co-founder of the CSOS, she co-organised the Sister March (Cardiff, 2017). Previously published in Onward/Ymlaen! and with the Red Poets, she performs annually at the Merthyr Rising Festival. Her work has appeared in Bloodaxe Books (2015), The London Magazine (2020) and Tongue & Talk, (Made in Manchester, for BBC Radio 4, 2021). Gemma has recently submitted her PhD: an emancipatory project exploring collective trauma, and transcendence. Entitled Concrete Diamonds, it’s a hybrid novel, featuring an interwoven, eco-feminist mythopoeic tale, punctuated with graffiti, punk-style concrete poetry. Essentially a polyphonic homage to working-class people living in post-industrial Britain, the work captures the life worlds of five generations and encompasses a range of literary styles: from steam-of-consciousness to polemic, melodic and poetic, gritty realist and dark comedic. Underpinned with critical theory, the novel illuminates the past origins and present conditions of poverty, discrimination, and subjugation of underrepresented and marginalised people. 

Daniel G. Williams 

Daniel is Professor of English Literature and Co-Director of the Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales at Swansea University. He is also Co-director with Kirsti Bohata of CREW – the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Langauge of Wales. He has edited several books and is the author of Ethnicity and Cultural Authority: From Arnold to Du Bois (2006), Black Skin, Blue Books: African Americans and Wales (2012) and Wales Unchained: Literature, Politics and Identity in the American Century (2015). 2021 saw the publication of a new edition of his collection of Raymond Williams’s writings, Who Speaks for Wales? Nation, Culture, Identity. It first appeared in 2003 and the new expanded edition marked the Centenary of Raymond Williams’s birth.

*Please note this is an online event* 

New research suggests that Welsh literary tastes - even in English - differ from those of the rest of the UK. How do Welsh readers see the world differently? What roles do local reading and writing communities play in this?  

As part of the AHRC-funded Big Book Review project, join authors Cynan Jones and Manon Steffan Ros in conversation with Professor Kirsti Bohata and Dr Richard Robinson (Prifysgol Abertawe/Swansea University) and Dr Aidan Byrne (Prifysgol Wolverhampton University) as they discuss the relationship between story and place, the importance of Welsh writing and Welsh literary identity. 

Aidan will also reveal findings about Welsh reading habits indicated by our work with the BBC's Novels That Shaped Our World, and invite you to take part in our research to tell us what really makes a good book.

Cynan Jones is an acclaimed fiction writer from Wales. His work has appeared in over twenty countries, and in journals and magazines including Granta and The New Yorker. He is the winner of a number of awards including the BBC National Short Story Award and the Jerwood Fiction Prize, and has also written for television and radio. 

Manon Steffan Ros is an author and scriptwriter. She has written more than 40 books and has been awarded prizes including Wales Book of the Year and the Tir Na N’Og prize for children’s literature. Her novel, Llyfr Glas Nebo, has been translated into eight languages. She lives in Meirionnydd with her sons. 

Professor Kirsti Bohata is a leading scholar in the field of Welsh writing in English, and has published on postcolonial theory, queer literature, disability studies and literary geography from the late nineteenth-century to the present. Her most recent books are Queer Square Mile, an anthology of queer short stories from Wales (Parthian, 2022) and Disability in Industrial Britain (Manchester University Press, 2020) which is fully open access. She is Co-Director of CREW (the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales) and the multidisciplinary Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales at Swansea University and co-Chair of the Association for Welsh Writing in English. 

Dr Richard Robinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Literature, Media and Language. He works in twentieth-century and contemporary literature, with a particular interest in modernism and its afterlife, style, Irish writing, and literary representations of central Europe. He is the author of two monographs, Narratives of the European Border: A History of Nowhere (Palgrave, 2007) and John McGahern and Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2017). He has published on writers such as John McGahern, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Joyce, Italo Svevo, Elena Ferrante, Rebecca West, Ian McEwan and Edward St Aubyn. 

Dr Aidan Byrne is senior lecturer in English Literatures at Wolverhampton University. His research includes Welsh literatures, politicians’ fiction and popular culture. He is currently co-investigator on the AHRC-funded Novel Perceptions digital humanities project exploring canonical anxieties, literary tastes and popular ideas about literary quality. He is secretary of the Association for Welsh Writing in English / Cymdeithas Llen Saesneg Cymru and can be found @plashingvole.

In this special online event, Dr Rachel Farebrother and Dr Miriam Thaggert discuss co-editing A History of the Harlem Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 (CUP, 2022)

The Cambridge History of the Harlem Renaissance presents new essays that explore the unprecedented flowering of African American cultural expression in the 1920s and 1930s that is now known as the Harlem Renaissance. In its attention to a wide range of genres and forms – from the roman à clef and the bildungsroman to dance and book illustrations – the volume seeks to at once encapsulate and analyze the eclecticism of Harlem Renaissance cultural expression. It takes stock of nearly a hundred years of “Harlem Renaissance studies” and considers what the future augurs for the study of “the New Negro.”

African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 presents original essays that map ideological, historical, and cultural shifts in the 1920s. Complicating the familiar reading of the 1920s as a decade that began with a spectacular boom and ended with disillusionment and bust, the collection explores the range and diversity of Black cultural production. Emphasizing a generative contrast between the ephemeral qualities of periodicals, clothes, and décor and the relative fixity of canonical texts, the volume captures in its dynamics a cultural movement that was fluid and expansive.

Miriam Thaggert is Associate Professor of African American Literature at SUNY-Buffalo. She is the author of Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010). With Rachel Farebrother, she is co-editor of A History of the Harlem Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 (CUP, 2022).  Her essays have appeared in African American Review, American Quarterly, American Literary History, Feminist Modernist Studies, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, and the edited volume New Modernist Studies. Her new monograph, Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad (University of Illinois) will be published in June, 2022.  

Rachel Farebrother is a Senior Lecturer in American Studies at Swansea University. She is the author of The Collage Aesthetic in the Harlem Renaissance (Ashgate, 2009). Her essays have appeared in Comparative American Studies, Journal of American Studies, MELUS, Modernism/modernity, and various edited collections. With Miriam Thaggert (SUNY-Buffalo), she has co-edited The History of the Harlem Renaissance (CUP, 2021) and African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 (CUP, 2022).

*In association with the Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales*
Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

Richard King will be in conversation with Kirsti Bohata, Professor of English Literature and Director of CREW (Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales) at Swansea University.

A landmark history of the people of Wales during a period of great national change.

In the closing third of the twentieth century, Wales experienced the simultaneous effects of deindustrialisation, the subsequent loss of employment and community cohesion, and the struggle for its language and identity. These changes were largely forced upon the country, whose own voice, rarely agreed upon within its borders, had to fight to be heard outside of Wales.

Brittle with Relics is a history of the people of Wales undergoing some of the country's most seismic and traumatic events: the disasters of Aberfan and Tryweryn; the rise of the Welsh language movement; the Miners' Strike and its aftermath; and the narrow vote in favour of partial devolution.

Featuring the voices of Neil Kinnock, Rowan Williams, Leanne Wood, Gruff Rhys, Michael Sheen, Nicky Wire, Sian James, Welsh language activists, members of former mining communities and many more, this is a vital history of a nation determined to survive, while maintaining the hope that Wales will one day thrive on its own terms.

About the author
Richard King is the author of Original Rockers (shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and a Rough Trade, The Times and Uncut Book of the Year), How Soon Is Now? (the Sunday Times Music Book of the Year) and The Lark Ascending (a Rough Trade, Mojo and Evening Standard Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Penderyn Prize), all published by Faber & Faber. He was born into a bilingual family in South Wales and for the last twenty years has lived in the rural county of Powys, in mid-Wales.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

As part of the Literary Salon Series, Ellie Rees will be in conversation with Dr Alan Bilton, author and Senior Lecturer of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

The poems in Ticking deep map a beautiful but apparently empty strip of the South Wales coastline that looks across the Bristol Channel to Exmoor. The collection could be classified as nature writing, though the term, deep mapping is a more accurate description of the eclectic subject matter: there are ghosts, suicides, and ruins as well as dung spiders, stone masons and insect apprehension. Many of the poems focus on the history and geography, archaeology and wild life of a two-mile stretch of the Welsh coastline. However, the mapping in Ticking is not only confined to the tangible or material, it includes the intangible, the dreams and hopes, imaginations and fears of its residents both in the past and the present.

About the author
After retiring as a teacher in 2009, Ellie realised that there was more to life than gardening and so decided to become a student once more. She gained an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University, and her work is now widely published. She writes memoir, creative-non-fiction and essays but her main love is poetry. Ellie’s poems have been published in such places as The New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, The Lonely Crowd, Black Bough Poems, The Cabinet of Heed, Trestle Ties and The Broken Spine. She has been shortlisted in several prestigious competitions and in 2020 won the Selected or Neglected Competition run by The Hedgehog Press. Ellie’s first poetry collection titled Ticking was published on January 14th 2022 by The Hedgehog Press.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

The '70s wasn’t all glam rock and flares, punk and pogo-ing… In Painting the Beauty Queens Orange, the women who lived the decade reveal what it meant to push boundaries, claim your identity, and carve out your place amidst the winter of discontent, the scorching summer of ‘76 and the rise of Thatcherism. One young woman says a forced goodbye to her newborn baby. Another grasps new opportunities and sets sail on a LGP Tanker with a crew of men. A third asserts her sexual identity. A fourth sets up a kitchen table business that launches an international brand. These stories of ambition and adventure, motherhood and marriage, are by turns heart-breaking, humorous, and honest.

Contributors Carolyn Lewis ‘The Sound of Water’ and Kate Cleaver ‘Firsts’, along with the book’s editor, Rebecca F. John, were in conversation with Dr Alan Bilton, author and Senior Lecturer of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

Kate Cleaver

Kate Cleaver is an Anglo-Indian writer studying for a PhD with Swansea University. She is researching the lives of ordinary people who found themselves incarcerated in the Briton Ferry Insane Asylum, Vernon House. She has begun to create stories and has found that linking her stories to historical fact is a way to bring people from the past to life; she is asking if those ghosts can be recreated into stories, into creative history. In 2019 she was long listed in the New Welsh Writers Award and has just had a memoir published by Parthian in ‘Just So You Know’.

Carolyn Lewis

Born in Cardiff, Carolyn’s work has appeared in previous Honno anthologies. Her first novel, Missing Nancy was published by Accent Press in 2008. She gained an MPhil in Writing at Glamorgan University (now the University of South Wales). Her stories have won national and local prizes and have appeared in The New Welsh Review, Mslexia and Route Magazine amongst others. She’s worked as a creative writing tutor for many years and two text books have been published based on her teaching methods. Currently she’s taking a PhD at Swansea University for which she’s writing a new novel.

Rebecca F. John

Rebecca F. John was born in 1986, and grew up in Pwll, a small village on the south Wales coast. She holds a BA in English with Creative Writing and an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University, as well as a PGCE PCET from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4Extra. In 2015, her short story ‘The Glove Maker's Numbers’ was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. She is the winner of the PEN International New Voices Award 2015. Her first short story collection, Clown's Shoes, was published through Parthian in 2015. Her first novel, The Haunting of Henry Twist, was published through Serpent's Tail in July 2017. It was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. In 2022, she will publish her first children's book with Firefly Press, as well as a second adult novel, The Empty Greatcoat, and a short novel, Fannie, with Honno Press.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

Poets Patrick Jones and Susie Wild read from their latest collections ‘Fuse/Fracture (Poems 2001-2021)' and ‘Windfalls’

Patrick Jones is author of six plays, three spoken word albums, nine books of poetry and lyricist on the Even in Exile album (James Dean Bradfield). He is currently Writer in Residence with The Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales and adapting his 2016 play, Before I Leave, into a film. He was born in Tredegar, Wales. His latest book is a special 20th anniversary edition Fuse/Fracture (Poems 2001-2021). He has four children and two cats and lives at the foot of a mountain. 
patrick-jones.info
twitter: @heretic101 

FUSE / FRACTURE (POEMS 2001-2021):
A 20th anniversary edition with a foreword by James Dean Bradfield. These are elegies, protest songs and battle cries as Jones speaks to and for the disaffected, bearing witness to contemporary and political concerns. 28 new poems also turn their gaze to the personal; haunted by ghosts of both the living and the dead. An inventory of scars where love once lived. 
 

Susie Wild is author of the poetry collections Windfalls and Better Houses, the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals. Her work has recently featured in Poetry Wales, Carol Ann Duffy’s pandemic project Write Where We Are Now, The Atlanta Review and Ink, Sweat & Tears. She is also Publishing Editor at Parthian Books specialising in poetry and fiction. She currently lives in a garret on a leafy avenue in Cardiff.
http://susiewild.blogspot.com
twitter: @Soozerama

WINDFALLS:
In Windfalls, Wild writes of fruit blown down by the wind, of unexpected and unearned gains which renew the beauty and joy of life. These are also stories of heroines who fall or jump from pedestals, taking risks in a world that is often dangerous for women, but refusing to settle for the conventional. Wild continues to bring us her refreshingly slant world view, whether unpicking the domestic, the political or the environmental.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Park Campus, Swansea University

Dusking Through Waves is an eclectic mix of short stories written over several years. From the mountains and parks of Wales to the scrub lands of Africa; from Dylan Thomas' Wales to Lawrence Durrell's Corfu, some have been placed in competitions and published in reputable literary journals, others have been adapted into stage plays and performed by a professional theatre company. The stories deal with subjects such as domestic violence, loneliness, dementia, war and famine, and love.

About the Author
Wendy Holborow was born and now lives back in South Wales, UK, but lived in Greece for fourteen years, where she founded and co-edited Poetry Greece. She has won prizes for her short stories, notably the Philip Good Memorial Prize, The Aber Valley Competition, The Island Magazine and most recently a first prize in the Allen Rayne competition. Her stories have appeared in numerous journals. She has completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at Swansea University. She has had ten poetry collections published, two children’s novels and a short story collection, Dusking Through Waves. She has also had several plays performed professionally.

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University

In this collection of thrilling short stories, Rachael Llewellyn adeptly traverses the outer edges of human experience and the horror that often comes with it. Twisting between the disturbing, the humorous, and the heartbreaking, Human Beings will forever change the way you look at your neighbour, how you treat your coworker, and even make you second guess the person lying next to you in bed. Because real monsters aren't what you see on late night television . . . the real monsters live just around the corner.

About the Author
Rachael Llewellyn is a novelist living in Wales. Her work includes The Red Creek series, Down Red Creek and Impulse Control (Sulis International Press, 2019/2020), and Human Beings (Bear Hills Books, 2021), a collection of short stories. Her fiction has been featured in numerous magazines and journals including The Heartland Society of Women Writers, The Spectre Review, and Crow & Cross Keys, as well as anthologies including Creating In Crisis (Polari Press, 2021), Twisted Love (Jazz House Publications, 2021), and The Speculative Book 2021 (Speculative Books, 2021). She is currently completing a PhD in memory, trauma, and folklore at Swansea University.

In this special online event, five critically-acclaimed women authors from Wales and Europe discussed and read from their work. Rebecca F John, Caryl Lewis and Efa Lois (Wales) came together with Nora Ikstena (Latvia) and Alena Mornštajnová (Czech Republic) to explore approaches to fictionalising history and writing family, community and place. 

Chaired by Dr Kathryn Jones

The Panelists:

Nora Ikstena is one of the most visible and influential prose writers in Latvia. After obtaining a degree in Philology from the University of Latvia in 1992, she went on to study English literature at Columbia University. In her prose, Nora Ikstena often reflects on life, love, death and faith. Soviet Milk(2015, shortlisted for the Annual Literature Award for best prose and translated into numerous languages including Japanese, German, Croatian, English, Hungarian, Italian and Russian), Besa (2012), Celebration of Life (1998, translated into Norwegian, Italian, Danish, Swedish), and The Virgin's Lesson (2001) are some of her most widely appreciated novels. The novel Amour Fou has been adapted for theatre and published in Russian (2010). Ikstena is also a prolific author of biographical fiction, non-fiction, scripts, essays and collections of short prose. She is an active participant in Latvia's cultural and political life and a co-founder of the International Writers and Translators’ House in Ventspils. In 2006, she received the Baltic Assembly Prize in literature.

Alena Mornštajnová is a teacher of English and translator and author of five successful novels. Her most recent novel, Tiché roky (Years of Silence, 2019), has confirmed her position as a critically acclaimed, bestselling novelist with more than 500,000 copies of her books sold in the Czech Republic alone. Rights for her most successful novel Hana have been sold to nineteen countries including United Kingdom, Austria, Italy, France, Poland, The Netherlands and Russia.

Rebecca F. John was born in 1986, and grew up in Pwll, a small village on the south Wales coast.  She holds a BA in English with Creative Writing and an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University, as well as a PGCE PCET from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4Extra.  In 2015, her short story ‘The Glove Maker's Numbers’ was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.  She is the winner of the PEN International New Voices Award 2015. Her first short story collection, Clown's Shoes, was published through Parthian in 2015. Her first novel, The Haunting of Henry Twist, was published through Serpent's Tail in July 2017.  It was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. In 2022, she will publish her first children's book with Firefly Press, as well as a second adult novel, The Empty Greatcoat, and a short novel, Fannie, with Honno Press. 

Efa Lois is an artist and writer originally from Ceredigion. Her work focuses primarily on mythology, the history of Welsh women, and the natural world and the importance of preserving it. She was awarded the Literature Wales New Writer's Bursary Award in 2020. She was the official artist of Tafwyl in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Her artwork has appeared in Cadw's' Welsh Women Making History', 'Henriet y Syffrajet' by Angharad Tomos (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2018), '10 o Sir Benfro' (Narberth Museum, 2021), and 'Y Stori Orau' by Lleucu Roberts (2021 National Eisteddfod Prose Medal Winner, Y Lolfa). Her paintings will also appear in Jon Gower's volume 'Cymry o Fri' (Y Lolfa, 2021). She is currently working on writing and drawing two volumes for children.

Caryl Lewis is a Welsh novelist. She has won Wales Book of the Year twice for her literary fiction and the Tir na n-Og Award for best children’s fiction in 2004 and 2015. Her novel Martha, Jac a Sianco was adapted for film and won 6 Welsh BAFTAS and the Spirit of the Festival Award at the 2010 Celtic Media Festival. Her work is on the Welsh curriculum and is a successful screenwriter (working on BBC/S4C thrillers Hinterland and Hidden). Her debut English language novel DRIFT will be published by Penguin in April 2022 and Seed, her debut English novel for readers of 8+ will be published by MacMillan UK and MacMillan US in May 2022. She lives with her family on a farm near Aberystwyth in Wales.

Dr Kathryn Jones is Associate Professor of French at Swansea University. She chairs the national panel for Welsh-medium Modern Languages. She has published in the fields of French and German contemporary culture, francophone and French female postcolonial writers and travel writers, conflict studies and memory studies. Her most recent book, Hidden Text: Hidden Nation: (Re)Discoveries of Wales in Travel Writing in French and German (1780-2018), which she co-wrote with Carol Tully and Heather Williams, was published by Liverpool University Press in 2020.  

'European Writers' is an on-going project by EUNIC London aiming to promote European Literature in the UK. This event is supported by the Czech Centre London, Latvian Literature and the Embassy of Latvia.
In partnership with Literature Wales and Swansea University's Cultural Institute.

'The Dirt': Marianne Tuckman in conversation with  David Britton

Many Rivers to Cross is the debut novel from Dylan Moore, editor of the welsh agenda, and Hay Festival International Fellow. Written following a period volunteering at the Sanctuary Project in Newport, and partly based on interviews with asylum seekers and refugees, the novel traces a series of journeys – migrations across time and space – from the streets of Pillgwenlly, Newport to the ‘Jungle’ camp at Calais, and from Ethiopia to the island of Lampedusa.

About the Author
Dylan Moore has worked as a magazine editor, comprehensive school teacher, refugee support worker and chip shop counter assistant. His first book was Driving Home Both Ways, a collection of travel essays; his journalism has appeared in Lonely Planet, Vanity Fair, Times Educational Supplement and on BBC Radio 4. He is a Hay Festival International Fellow.

Contained in Ice by Lizzie Fincham

Poignant, elegant and timely, Lizzie Fincham's acute senses and imagistic rhythms give us glimpses beneath the surface of life, to the deeper connections. And always, running through the beauty and the evocation of the natural world, are warnings: 'The woods are turning to smoke'; 'As it always has, the bell tolls'… The delicacy of the poetry belies the magnitude of the themes: the losses and the hope — Contained in Ice contains 'All the small stuff. All the big stuff.'

Small by Natalie Ann Holborow
We all have our favourite demons. Weaved throughout poems on mythology, literary figures and other shores, the narrator is haunted by her biggest demon of all: the gargantuan Small. Told with rawness and honesty, the secretive nature of living with an eating disorder is yanked out into the open and given physical form and voice. Through relationship breakdowns, bath-times, the cacophonous dazzle of Delhi and the fug of hospital waiting rooms, Small is there, slyly riding on the shoulders of a woman running for miles to get away ‒ yet forever haunted by a shadow far larger than her own.

Author Biographies
Gower born poet Lizzie Fincham is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Swansea University. She has had 80 poems published in various journals and collections including New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, North, French Literary Review, New Zealand Review. Lizzie has been shortlisted for many prizes, including the prestigious Bridport Poetry Prize on three occasions. In 2017 she was awarded First prize for Brexit Blues in Brighton Poetry Competition. Her first collection Green Figs and Blue Jazz was published by Cinnamon Press in 2017. Her latest pamphlet, Contained in Ice, was published by Cinnamon Press in 2020.

Natalie Ann Holborow is an award-winning writer whose debut collection, And Suddenly You Find Yourself, was launched at the International Kolkata Literary Festival and listed as Wales Arts Review’s ‘Best of 2017’. She is co-editor of the Cheval anthology. Winner of the 2015 Terry Hetherington Award and a recent finalist in the Cursed Murphy Spoken Word competition, her second book Small (Parthian) and collaborative pamphlet with Mari Ellis Dunning The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass (Black Rabbit Press) were both published in 2020.

THIS EVENT WILL BE CARRIED OUT IN THE MEDIUM OF  RUSSIAN, WITH SIMULTANEOUS ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Russian literature is going through a unique period of complete freedom and independence from authorities in history. In this lecture, Professor Aleksey Varlamov will focus on new trends in Russian literature, including the role of the writer as storyteller rather than as prophet or ideologist, as well as the current literary landscape in Russia, with a focus on non-fiction, biography and the status of movements such as Realism, Post-Realism and Postmodernism. The extent to which we can comprehend the present through the works of Zakhar Prilepin, R. Senchin, A. Salnikov and Grigorij Sluzhitel will also be discussed.

Professor Aleksey Varlamov is Rector of the Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing, Moscow. He is also a prominent writer, publicist and researcher of the history of 20th Century Russian literature and his books have been translated into several languages.

The event is part of the UK-Russia Creative Bridge Programme 2020-21 organised by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Moscow with the support of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing Moscow

Book Synopsis
Winter, 1904, and feisty twenty-one-year-old Ellen has been summoned back from her new life in Hoboken, New Jersey, to the family farm on windswept Gower, in a last bid to prevent the impending death of her alcoholic father. On her return, she finds the family in disarray. Ailing William is gambling away large swathes of Thomas land; frustrated Eleanor is mourning the husband she once knew; and Ellen’s younger twin brothers face difficult choices. Ellen, tasked with putting her family’s lives in order, finds herself battling one impossible decision after another. Resourceful, passionate, and forthright, can she remain in Gower, where being female still brings with it so many limitations? Can she endure being so close to her lost love? Will she choose home and duty, or excitement and opportunity across the Atlantic?

About the Author
Jane Fraser lives, work and writes in the Gower peninsula, south Wales, in a house facing the sea. Her first collection of short fiction, ‘The South Westerlies’ was published by SALT in 2019. Her debut novel, ‘Advent’ is forthcoming from HONNO, the UK’s longest-standing independent women’s press, in January 2021. In 2017 she was a finalist in the Manchester Fiction Prize; and in 2018 a prize winner in the Fish Memoir Prize’. She is an alumni of Swansea University with an MA (distinction) and PhD in Creative Writing. She was a Hay Festival Writer at Work in 2018 and 2019. She is grandmother to Megan, Florence and Alice.

www.janefraserwriter.com
Twitter @jfraserwriter

In association with Honno Press

Alexander S. Pushkin was called the “Sun of Russian Poetry” by his contemporaries. The poet had an extraordinary pedigree. His mother's great-grandfather, one of the most educated people of his time, descended from a noble princely Abyssinian family and served faithfully to the Russian tsar Peter the Great. The biographies of Pushkin’s ancestors are as interesting as the novels of the 18-19th centuries. Pushkin wrote:

My pride of blood I have subdued;
I'm but an unknown singer
Simply Pushkin, not Moussin,
My strength is mine, not from court:
I am a writer, a citizen.

The prominent Russian writer Ivan Turgenev maintained that one of the distinctive features of Pushkin's poetry was graceful and smart simplicity. In his writing he was engaged in a gratifying creative dialogue with Western poets -  Shakespeare, Voltaire, Byron, and Walter Scott among them.

Pushkin’s polyphonic lyrics largely influenced a great number of  Russian poets and created a new poetic language. The poet was also an efficient historian: his heroes of Russian antiquity laid the foundations of the Russian historical novel.

The poet’s dynamic descriptions of various characters of his life and times helped create a highly animated image of Russia which made it possible to name his main work Eugene Onegin “the encyclopedia of Russian life."

The lecture will also explain why Pushkin's poetry is so difficult to translate, and his writing has not become a revelation to Western readership.

The event is part of the UK-Russia Creative Bridge Programme 2020-21 organised by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Moscow with the support of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing Moscow

Book Synopsis
In the aftermath of catastrophic religious wars, God has been banned. As snow begins to fall, a young woman – Jem – arrives in Underhill. The isolated community offers her shelter, unwittingly unleashing events that threaten their very existence. Jem announces that she has been sent to Underhill by God to prepare the villagers to fulfil a devastating purpose. Some believe she is a prophet and defy the law to join her God's Threads religion. Others are certain she is lying. With their fragile community beginning to fracture, Eileen, the first and most devoted of the believers, decides to record the birth of this new religion in her own Book of Jem. As God’s Threads gather for the apocalypse, the words Eileen has written will determine the fate of Underhill and, ultimately, of Jem herself. But can Eileen be trusted to tell the truth? And how can anyone know what to believe?

About the Author
After years of failing to write in the middle of the night, Carole Hailey abandoned a lucrative career as a lawyer to become an impoverished novelist. She subsequently accumulated an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths and a PhD from Swansea University in 2020. Carole was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award 2020 and is a London Library Emerging Writer 2020/21. The Book of Jem is her first novel.

In association with Watermark Press

In this special online event, a panel of experts in crime fiction, thriller writing and Law discuss the intersection between crime fiction and legal truth. What is the relationship between crime fiction and true crime? And to what extent must the crime writer become a legal expert? A session full of suspense focusing on European crime fiction featuring eminent barrister and Head of Swansea University's Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law, Professor Elwen Evans KC, along with Swansea-born Philip Gwynne Jones, author of the hugely successful "Nathan Sutherland" crime novels (set in Venice), and translator and editor Dr Kat Hall, a specialist in German thriller writing and creator of 'Mrs Peabody Investigates.' In conversation with Professor D.J. Britton, Playwright and Head of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University.

The Panelists


Professor Elwen Evans KC is Pro Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean for the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She also holds the University portfolio for Welsh Language and Culture.

Elwen read Law at Girton College, Cambridge graduating with a double first: M.A. (Cantab). She was fortunate to receive a range of Scholarships from her College, University and professional body. On graduating she attended the Inns of Court School of Law and was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1980. She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2002. Elwen has enjoyed a very successful career as a barrister choosing to practice mainly in Wales. She has undertaken a wide range of legal work, specialising in criminal law at trial and appellate levels. Her work has included many serious, complex, sensitive and high profile cases such as leading the prosecution team in the April Jones case and the defence team in the Gleision mine disaster case. She sits as a Crown Court Recorder having been appointed in 2001. She was Head of Iscoed Chambers for over 15 years, stepping down on her appointment to Swansea University. She is a Bencher of her Inn, has been honoured by Gorsedd y Beirdd for her services to Law in Wales and was a Commissioner on the Commission on Justice in Wales. She has served on a wide range of external bodies and committees reflecting her areas of professional experience and interest. In 2018 she was in the top 10 of a list celebrating 100 of Wales’ most inspirational women.

Elwen joined Swansea University in 2015 when she was appointed as Head of the College of Law & Criminology where she supported its growth and transformation into an exciting and dynamic centre for learning, teaching, research, impact and engagement. Today, the University’s Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law is recognised as being at the forefront of innovation in legal education and practice.

Philip Gwynne Jones was born in Swansea in 1966, and now works as a writer, teacher and translator in Venice. His first novel, “The Venetian Game”, was Waterstones Thriller of the Month for March 2018, and a Times Top 5 bestseller. His most recent novel, “Venetian Gothic”, is now available, with a further four titles scheduled. He has written for the Sunday Times and the Big Issue, and is a frequent guest on BBC Radio Wales. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, art, classical music and opera; and can occasionally be seen and heard singing bass with the Cantori Veneziani.
Philip is published by Little, Brown under the Constable imprint


Dr Kat Hall is a translator and editor. She is an Honorary Research Associate in Modern Languages at Swansea University, where she worked as a lecturer for many years. She is the editor of Crime Fiction in German: Der Krimi (UWP 2016) and runs the ‘Mrs Peabody Investigates’ crime blog. She is currently translating Punishment, by German barrister turned crime writer Ferdinand von Schirach.

The event is part of the UK-Russia Creative Bridge Programme 2020-21 organised by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Moscow with the support of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing Moscow

'Anna Karenina: Screen Adaptations of the Novel': Andrey Gelasimov

The first screen adaptation of “Anna Karenina” was produced in the very beginning of the 20th century. Since then this Russian novel became one of the most popular sources for inspiration of cinematographers all over the world. The most beautiful and absolutely legendary actresses were involved in visualisation of that stunning and suffering character created by Leo Tolstoy almost a century and a half ago. During our conversation we’ll try to understand reasons of such durable attraction comparing different film versions between each other and the novel itself.

The event is part of the UK-Russia Creative Bridge Programme 2020-21 organised by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Moscow with the support of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing Moscow

In this special online event, Max Porter talks about his career as an editor, bookseller and critically-acclaimed British writer, before discussing the changing shape of the English novel, myth and modern forms, his bestselling works and approach to writing and the relationship between literature and literacy.

The event will include special readings by Max from his award-winning works Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, as well as his new book The Death of Francis Bacon, 'an attempt to write as painting, not about it'.

In conversation with Dr Elaine Canning, Head of Cultural Engagement and Development at Swansea University.

Award-winning Max Porter is one of Britain’s most original and innovative writers. Max's first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, won the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Sunday Times/Peters, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers' Award, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. It has been translated into twenty-nine languages. Enda Walsh’s stage adaptation starting Cillian Murphy toured in 2019. Max's second novel Lanny (Faber, 2019) was a Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller and longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. His highly anticipated third book, The Death of Francis Bacon, will be published by Faber in January 2021. Max lives in Bath with his family.

‘It’s hard to express how much I loved Lanny. Books this good don’t come along very often. It’s a novel like no other, an exhilarating, disquieting, joyous read. It will reach into your chest and take hold of your heart. It’s a novel to press into the hands of everyone you know and say, read this.’ - MAGGIE O’FARRELL

A luminous reading experience - (Grief is the Thing with Feathers) (TLS)

An agile, life-affirming account of mourning. (Grief is the Thing with Feathers) (Sunday Times)

The event is part of the UK-Russia Creative Bridge Programme 2020-21 organised by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Moscow with the support of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
The Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writing Moscow

Book Synopsis

Born in 1373, Margery Kempe is the writer of the first known female-authored autobiography in the English language. As an effusive, often rambunctious, visionary woman living in the lay world, her particular mode of spirituality was not always well-received in a cultural milieu that frequently pathologized, or deemed heretical, ‘excessive’ female expression. Margery Kempe’s Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation and the Life-Course (D.S. Brewer) is the first full-length study of The Book of Margery Kempe from a medical humanities perspective. Harnessing the ubiquitous medieval notion of Christ the Physician, it offers a new way of reading the Book as a narrative of Kempe's own engagement with the medical paradigms of which she has previously been a passive subject. Focusing on the interactions of medicine, mysticism and reproduction as a feminist project, the book is a broad traverse through the life course, exploring Kempe's persistent attendance to her mystical body and refusal to compromise her instinct to authentically show how she feels.

About the Author
Laura Kalas is a Lecturer in Medieval literature in the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing at Swansea University. She has published in several academic journals, contributed to The Literary Encyclopedia, and has articles in The Conversation and The Independent. Her work on the medical recipe at the end of The Book of Margery Kempe has been featured in The Guardian and in the BBC History Magazine. Margery Kempe’s Spiritual Medicine is her first book.

In association with Boydell and Brewer.

Dai Smith reflects on the intellectual cross currents of his life as both historian and novelist as he launches his latest novel, The Crossing, in conversation with Jon Gower.

The novel builds upon and completes Dai’s trilogy on the fictive history of Industrial South Wales. The Crossing, polyphonic and multi-vocal, is a startling and provocative mix of the actual and imaginative in its intertwining of individual destinies, real and fictional ones, with a society’s fated and shaping direction.

Dai is now writing a work of memory making which, he says, is neither autobiography nor memoir but, rather, both forms held in suspension in the mind of recall.

In association with PARTHIAN

In this podcast, Owen Sheers reads from and discusses his award-winning poetry collection, Skirrid Hill.

Skirrid Hill revolves around the two poems Y Gaer and The Hillfort, the titles themselves suggesting the linguistic divide in Wales, from poems concerned with childhood, a Welsh landscape and family, to a more outward-looking vision both geographically and historically.