Where Have All the Good Guys Gone? A Tribute to Norman Schwenk

I was so sad to hear that we had lost the poet Norman Schwenk this week. Norman was a wonderful encourager of my writing when I was starting out and a bright spark of a poet and educator. I enjoyed working with him over the years, including bringing out his last book with Parthian in 2016, Love What is Mortal: Selected Poems.

Norman was Parthian Publisher Director Richard Davies' PhD supervisor, and he pays a moving tribute to him in Wales Arts Review: Where Have All the Good Guys Gone? A Tribute to Norman Schwenk

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BOOK REVIEW: 'one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Welsh writing in English'

There is a wonderful extended review essay 'Ecological Literacy' by Steven Lovatt in the latest issue of New Welsh Review exploring recent books that seek to restore natural and cultural ecologies and recognise how the cultural nature of our landscapes is preserved in language. It offers an in-depth look at This Common Uncommon by Rae Howells, and here are three of our favourite snippets: "Rae Howells’ new poetry collection, This Common Uncommon , is a fierce and loving affirmation of the local, exemplifying the sort of care-full attention to the interdependence of people, other animals and plants that will be required if anything worthwhile is to be saved from the present ruin." "Howells confirms the evidence of her first collection, The Language of Bees, that she is a highly adept poet, possessing one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Welsh writing in English." "If West Cross Common is developed for housing, nobody can now claim ignoran...

Time to stand and stop and stare interview: Locked in to Lockdown with Susie Wild

I'm the featured artist in the new issue of Time to stand and stop and stare this week, a place where artists and makers share their experience of isolation and creativity during the Coronavirus lockdown 2020: Hello and welcome to issue 9! Something a little different today as we’re joined by the very talented Cardiff writer Susie Wildsmith, hope you enjoy! Locked in to Lockdown with Susie Wild (AKA Susie Wildsmith) Are you ready? Here goes... Can you tell us a little about your creative practice - what attracted you to this particular art form; when and how did you begin? I couldn’t not write poetry. I have written it since I was a little girl, secretly, and then less secretly, and less secretly again as I have grown. I was rarely bored as I learnt poems off by heart and recited them in my head, I wish I could learn words quite so quickly now. My first collections of poetry and short stories concern themselves with relationships, human quirks and oddness, the strange and the ma...

BOOK REVIEW: 'It deserves to be read far more widely.'

In her engaging review essay 'Fantastical Doubles and Split Selves' in the latest issue of New Welsh Review , author of The Word, JL George, looks at responses to trauma in three recent novels including Fox Bites by Lloyd Markham . Here are three of our favourite snippets: ‘Lloyd Markham’s first full-length novel Fox Bites , set in early-2000s Zimbabwe, takes a similar tack, colliding social upheaval – as viewed through the sometimes-uncomprehending eyes of a young, neurodivergent boy – with smaller, more personal disruptions. The young protagonist, Taban, suffers bullying and isolation among his peers after his family splits apart: his aunt, uncle, and beloved cousin Caleb moving away to a farm which will later be seized during land reforms.’ ‘Taban must resist the temptation to become part of a cycle of abuse, thereby becoming a conduit for the destruction of his world. Although the stakes of the book eventually become world-threatening in the expected way of science fiction...

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