Bad Ideas\Chemicals Shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize 2018

Proud Editor Moment:

Congratulations to Lloyd Markham, Bad Ideas\Chemicals is one of six debut novels by writers under 35 shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize 2018, announced today.

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are presented for a first novel by a writer under 35. ​Past winners include Zadie Smith, David Szalay, Hari Kunzru and Sarah Waters. Total prize and award fund is £26,250. The Authors’ Awards, presented by Stephen Fry, will take place at RIBA on the evening of Thursday 19 July.

Read more on the Parthian blog

The 2018 shortlist:

• Mussolini’s Island by Sarah Day (Tinder Press)
• All the Good Things by Clare Fisher (Viking)
• Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone (Granta)
• The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton (Faber and Faber)
• Bad Ideas/Chemicals by Lloyd Markham (Parthian)
• The Reactive by Masanda Ntshanga (Jacaranda)

The Trask shortlist is always very strong, very original, and this year is no different – six books reflecting the excellent quality and diversity of new writers today. We have Clare Fisher's touching, tough and incisive view of what it's like to be a child in care, robbed of choices; Eli Goldstone's fable-like tale that spirits the reader from London to the deep forests of Latvia; Lloyd Markham's death stare at society, sharp as a syringe and gloriously weird; Masande Ntshanga depiction of the gritty reality of Cape Town in 2003 through the smoky lens of the young and high; Omar Robert Hamilton's tough, bleak and relentless work – a challenging, heart-wrenching and in many ways, necessary novel; while Sarah Day presents a powerful but little-known historical narrative that needed to be told.

Judges Ben Brooks, Joanne Harris and Samantha Shannon.

Poeting: A lovely time was had in Llansteffan

I'll be reading new poems at these two lovely events...

This Friday 18 May (7.30 - 9.30PM) I'm looking forward to reading a couple of new poems at this splendid Penned on the Bont celebration of 100 years of the Women's Vote in the UK in Bridgend this Friday alongside Gillian Clarke, Rufus Mufasa, Rhian Edwards, Amanda Rackstraw, Julie Elizabeth Griffiths, Tracey Rhys, Emily Cotterill, Emily Blewitt, Kali Hughes, Claire Williamson and Lizzie Parker. Do come along... tickets are £5 and can be booked online, or bought on the door.

I'm also looking forward to reading new poems along with Kate North, Mari Ellis, Natalie Ann Holborow, and Rhys Owain Williams at this year's Llansteffan Literary Festival on Sat 9 June, 4.30pm, Pound Gallery (entry £3). Come along to this and other great events!

Lloyd Markham's Bad Ideas\Chemicals shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2018

I'm really pleased that Lloyd Markham's debut novel has been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year! #proudeditormoment We've worked long and hard on this book and it is great that it is starting to get the recognition I feel it deserves! As his housemate Crystal Jeans is also shortlisted, it'll be fun to see their friendship break into tatters as the announcement day gets closer too ;)

& I'm chuffed for Tristan Hughes and Hummingbird too, an enchanting, haunting exploration of place and the personal that I urge you all to read.

More info on the Literature Wales website

Gig Alert: Melville Centre, Abergavenny

Roll up, roll up for my 22nd and very last date of the Better Houses tour in Abergavenny on Sunday 22 April at 11.30am!

 

Susie Wild reads from her new volume of poetry, talks about writing it, and discusses questions raised by the audience.

She says: ‘I will be reading from my debut poetry collection. Better Houses is about the places we inhabit in life, about relationships and the extraordinary in the everyday. It has all the key subjects: birth, death, sex, love and loss. At the book’s core, it is as much about moving house as it is about trying to centre yourself somewhere, to find a place to call home, to be still. I have moved at least every six months to two years in my adult life, sometimes through choice and often not. This draws on those experiences of packing and unpacking boxes, but it also employs fiction, humour and imagination. Other poems escape fires and great white sharks, test beds and language barriers and hunt fossils and comets, spells and adventures.’

Praise for Better Houses:

'Wild clearly has a sense of fun. Her poem, "Pub Crawl Date" – cataloguing a nine-pint epic evening out – had me chuckling out loud. So too, ‘The Bed Testers’. But, in my view, Wild is at her best when she is more serious and, to this end, there were several stand-out poems. [...] Similarly, there is a Plath-like forensic quality to ‘The Lash Museum’ which I also really enjoyed. It opens with "A gutsy Cornish wind / slammed the caravan door shut, / skinning a birthmark, / my head / a blood fountain." The poem’s protagonist is then raced to hospital for attention and when the stitches are removed, she keeps them as morbid reminders of her pain: "clumped lashes a-flutter / in a plastic pot."' – New Welsh Review

'As the title hints, Susie Wild’s book Better Houses touches on some of the pressing concerns of the era (the housing crisis, social inequality). In "Gentrifying the Area" she reflects on the rate of change ("three short months") that puts "tumbledown terraces" "on / the up, like the house prices". The poet reflects on her part in the process. She presents herself as the artist type whose cultivation of an area increases its value [...] Forced out in search of lower rent, the poem ends: "There are worse ways to be going, going / gone." It’s an interesting angle to take and reflects the book’s insistence to make the most of things, being whimsically enthused or tuttingly aggrieved with one’s (always temporary) lot in life.' – Edward Doegar, Poetry Wales

'Perhaps this is the message she wants to leave us with, the importance of opening doors and allowing for reintegration within an individual as well as across relationships through decency and kindness. Readers of all types will find something marvellous here.' – Mary Jacob, Gwales

'exuberant and smart [...] Half-remembered, half-invented, but wholly charismatic.' – Sophie Baggott, Wales Arts Review

Tickets: £8 (u18s and students: £4). To reserve a ticket, telephone 01873 853167 or email melvillecentrearts@gmail.com.

The cafe/bar is open for refreshments from 11.00am.

Some Snaps from The Forecourt Fringe and The Laugharne Weekend

Well that was a Laugharne Weekend! Thanks to the lovely Meinir Min Evans for having us at the beautiful draped The Forecourt Fringe on Saturday and Sunday. Such a pretty stage to perform on. Thanks to my co-host, driver and star poet Natalie Ann Holborow and to my wonderful readers including Oliver James Lomax, Mari Ellis, Rhys Owain Williams, Tyler Keevil, Sion Tomos Owen, Anne Pelleschi and Lee Prosser. 

Beautiful music from Sion and the man forever to be known as Tyler's (no good) brother. Thanks to Emyr Young for the photo studio Parthian is 25 shoot, and to Jeff Towns and Huw Davie for the book bus gig and gifts and to all of you who bought our books / us drinks and entertained/charmed/impressed us over the weekend. 

I also really enjoyed seeing other acts at The Laugharne Weekend as well including Euros Childs (favourite gig of the year so far), Joe Dunthorne, Garth Cartwright and Travis Elborough and having a really good dance to Eugene Defreine French.

The Parthian 25 celebrations continue at London Book Fair on Wednesday. See some of you there.

Credits: Lee Prosser, Natalie Ann Holborow, Siôn Tomos Owen and myself

Now: Recovery position! (And marking student work).

Next Gigs: The Forecourt Fringe, Laugharne

This is going to be great! Readers added include Mari Ellis, Natalie Ann Holborow, Mark Blayney, Rhys Owain Williams, Tracey Rhys, Lee Prosser plus music and readings from Siôn Tomos Owen and Tyler Keevil and his brother. More TBA! We are there 11am-12noon Sat and 11am-3pm Sun (music on Sunday too) and as a bonus, I'll be reading too. Come along! (Friends who fancy reading too drop me a line and I'll see if I can fit you in).