Skip to main content

GUARDIAN CARDIFF: Bright young things: Live literature


Bright young things: Live literature season returns to Cardiff

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/cardiff/2010/sep/16/bright-young-things-cardiff-literature-events?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487]

Autumn is here and the Literati are flocking back home to Cardiff to party. Guest blogger and Parthian Books' Bright Young ThingSusie Wild talks you through the best events of the new live literature season

susie wild
Susie Wild reading her poetry at Green Man Festival. The Cardiff poetry scene is picking up again this month Photo: Rosie Reed Gold

Midsummer and poets and authors find themselves in wellies, stood damp and shivering on stages, in flapping tents competing with the main stage band – and the wind – to be heard as we perform to crowds, large and small, at festivals across the UK.
September comes and the festivals thin out, returning to the warmer realms of indoors, and we too flood back to the towns and cities. A little shell-shocked and still wearing wellies, for this is Wales. We dry out. We prepare for book launches and book tours. At least, that is how it has panned out for me. After a summer of performing poems and stories at the likes of Hay Festival, Hay Poetry Jamboree, Glastonbury, and Green Man I am back to Terra Firma and gearing up for the new season.

New on the lit scene - Bright young things

bright young thingsBYT logo
My debut collection of short stories The Art of Contraception launches tonight at 7pm at Waterstone's, The Hayes. I share the launch with the three other Bright Young Things – Tyler Keevil, J.P. Smythe and Wil Gritten – and their brilliant debut books. I've read them all this week, and I am totally gobsmacked by how great they are, and I'm really not just saying that. If Tyler's Holden Caulfield meets Stand By Me novel Fireball isn't made into a film, I might eat my hats. All of them. After Cardiff we then tour to Swansea, Bangor, Aberystwyth and London. Like a rock band without a tour bus. If you come along for the ride we'll even try and turn it up to 11. Fun times.

Cardiff literature events

Elsewhere the Cardiff literati are also waking up from summer slumber Regular literary events that have taken a summer sabbatical now yawn and stretch out their arms, beckoning us back into the fold, warming us up. Hello Seren's First Thursday. Waves. The Chapter Arts Centre-held First Thursday of the Month poetry readings are back. October features Carol Rumens and Anne-Marie Fyfe while November will see readings from John Haynes and Pascale Petit. The events start at 7pm, entry is a bargain £2 and new and established poets can read in the open mike second half. Also at Chapter, the brilliant Cardiff poet David E. Opravalaunches his latest poetry collection sole (Blackheath Books) on 30 September at 7.30pm. He's a great reader, do go see.

The ongoing Cardiff festival season

Festivals are not entirely banished this autumn either. I shall be performing alongside other willing and able poets including MAO Jones (brother of the infamous Mab) and Nick Fisk at the third outing of Fair Play Festival on Saturday 25 September (from 3pm). The three day arts festival will be bringing together a bonanza of the finest musicians, artists, traders, comedians, poets, families and party-goers alike. It runs from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 September at The Boiler House and tactileBOSCH in Llandaff North and promises good times by the 10-pint-round full.
Roll on to October and the line-up for the Academi literature festivalBayLit: Shock of the New is looking pretty damn amazing, and not just because I'm on it, twice (October 13, October 30). The festival gathers together some of the best literary innovation around for, as Academi boss Peter Finch would say, the new is "still bloody shocking after all these years". I am really looking forward to seeing the innovative texting, performance, poetry and psych-pop event TXT2BayLit featuring a couple of my favourite performance poets Byron Vincent and 2009 John Tripp Award Audience Prize winner Liam Johnson. I'd also recommend the launch of the Seren series updating 'Mabinogion' stories by modern Welsh authors: Owen Sheers, Gwyneth Lewis, Niall Griffiths.
Elsewhere punk poet Attila the Stockbroker's 30th anniversary UK tourhits Cardiff Arts Institute on Mon 5 Oct and includes a poetry prize draw offering five lucky people to share some of the limelight. The Lyrical Design Slam on Sun 10 Oct at 10 Feet Tall also sounds interesting. Part of Cardiff Design Festival, it features design-themed poems in the first round and then anything goes in the final two rounds. Loving the poetry? There's more at the Made In Roath festival at The Gate on 15 October where Square presents J. Brookes, Mab Jones, Jack Pascoe, Gemma June Howell, Stuart Thomas and Aisling Tempany from 7.30pm.
susie wildSusie Wild
Susie Wild is a writer, poet, journalist and editor. She also has a book out. To buy it and to find out more information about Parthian's Bright Young Things visit their website here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PHOTO BLOG: Poetry at the Clocktower

We had a lovely day of poetry outside the Poetry Bookshop in Hay today and it stayed mostly dry too!  Here’s me telling the audience some things about Bert (Roberto Pastore). Thanks Sian Lile-Pastore for the photo. And the rest of the photos as promised... Imogen Davies, Richard Davies, Niall Griffiths, Nigel Jarrett and Ifor Thomas took the early spots... (thanks to Christina and Ifor for these photos...) Richard (Parthian) & crowd Niall Griffiths reading Niall Imogen Ifor Thomas reads Nigel Jarrett reads Next up we had readings from Christina Thatcher, Abigail Parry and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch,  followed by readings from Ness Owen, Mari Ellis Dunning, Jemma L. King, Tracey Rhys, Patrick Jones, Roberto Pastore and, drawing the short straw to go last, yours truly. Abigail reads Abigail again Roberto Pastore reads Ness Owen reads Everyone loves Bert Tracey Rhys reads Patrick Jones reads Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch A shot of Christina in red in the crowd Stalls at Hay Castle ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

GIG ALERT: Voicebox Wrexham

Celebrate 11 years... (11 YEARS!) of Voicebox with an absolute class creative cabaret of Wrexham's Arts Scene with the infamous Voicebox Open Mic with your host Natasha Borton! This month we have a very special takeover with Parthian Books. Parthian is an independent publisher based in Cardigan, Wales. Since its foundation in 1993, Parthian has published some of the best-known works of contemporary Welsh literature. Parthian's motto is “A Carnival of Voices in Independent  Publishing”. Monday 11th November at Rough Hands Tap, Wrexham Entry is £5 (£3 concessions) Doors: 7pm Open Mic 7:30 - 8:30 Susie Wild - 8:45 - 9:15 Patrick Jones - 9:15 - 9:45 Penblwydd Hapus Voicebox Headliners: 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 featured in many publications including Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat & Tears and The Atlanta Review and...
Post a Comment
Read more