Wildlife

Saturday June 14th, Storyville Books, 8-10 Mill Street, CF37 2SN Pontypridd, United Kingdom From 1pm on the day we will be hosting poets Joshua Jones and Christina Thatcher who will be doing a reading of their poetry followed by a short discussion and Q&A session! They will also be available to sign copies of their work after. Christina Thatcher grew up between a farm and a ranch house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She won a Marshall Scholarship to undertake two MAs in the UK, after which she completed a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at Cardiff University, where she is now a lecturer. Her poetry and short stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including Ambit, Butcher’s Dog, Magma, Poetry Wales, The North, The Poetry Review and more. She has two previous poetry collections with Parthian Books: More than you were (2017) and How to Carry Fire (2020). Christina has toured internationally, reading her work in the UK, USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland, and ...

It is so lovely to be a finalist for Small Press of the Year (Wales). Congratulations to all the other finalists! https://www.thebookseller.com/british-book-awards-content/small-press-of-the-year

Congratulations to these lovely bookshops - all Independent Bookshop of the Year Wales finalists at the British Book Awards 2025!! https://www.thebookseller.com/british-book-awards-content/independent-bookshop-of-the-year

  A bit of vibrant colour from this Asian green bee-eater on a wire on our trip to Goa last year...

 

 

Don't forget to get your entries in. The New Welsh Writing Awards close at midnight tonight! https://newwelshreview.com/new-welsh-writing-awards/awards

In The Spotlight, is a series of podcast interviews with artists and figures, where Bill Cummings finds out more about their lives and work. For the second episode, he is joined by Patrick Jones. Jones is a poet and playwright who has brought the struggles and contradictions of life in the Welsh Valleys to new audiences. He was voted the most innovative poet and playwright in the ‘Top 100 heroes of Wales’. He has collaborated with Amy Wadge, John Robb, Martyn Joseph, Beverley Humphreys and provided the words for James Dean Bradfield's Top 10 homage to Victor Jara, 'Even in Exile'. He talks about his powerful new album 'A Constellation of Sorrows', out this week on Repeat Records. He says “The album is my small act of resistance, of solidarity with the Palestinian people". It's also about the futility of wars worldwide and the lessons we can learn from history. He also touches on his trip to Palestine, Elon Musk, twitter and the post-truth world, his cultura...

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...

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...

  All three are available to pre-order from Parthian Books... 

One to add to your diaries! Join us for the Bristol launch of Robert Minhinnick's important climate-change anthology Gorwelion: Shared Horizons at The Greenbank, Easton on the 29th of January for a 7.30pm start.

 

A snow-dusted weekend thinking about the year ahead in literature, reading these and making a dent on the submissions, drinking tea…

Just a reminder that the Borzello Trust Prize for Poetry is open for entries until 31 January 2025. Niall and I look forward to reading your words... This year we are thrilled to open a second category of the New Welsh Writing Awards with many thanks to the generous support from The Borzello Trust. Supporting in the development of yet unpublished poets living, working or from Wales, the winner of The Borzello Trust Prize for Poetry will receive a £500 development publishing contract with Parthian Books/The Borzello Trust. Including mentorship from Susie Wild to develop a poetry collection that (following publication) will be distributed via The Borzello Trust to over 250 Welsh libraries and schools. There will be a £150 cash prize to the five highly commended entries and publication in a special anthology collection published by Parthian Books. Winner: £500 as an advance on a book development contract with Parthian Books, for publication on their poetry list, plus mentorship/developm...

  Two gigs. Chase away those January Blues with an evening (or two) of poetry... 

'Continuing with the themes of nature, the writer and poet Rae Howells wrote her poetry collection This Common Uncommon, as a response to the threat of a housing estate being built on a piece of common land near to where she lives, in West Cross, Swansea. We discover the creatures which make the common their home as well as the people that walk there and delight in the life they find. Life that may soon be covered by concrete. To me, the book is an example of how words can be a powerful tool of communicating these ever-present issues, how words can be used as an act of resistance.' Thanks to Gaynor Funnell for picking Rae Howells' poetry collection This Common Uncommon as a Cultural Highlight of 2024. available now from Parthian Books.

Ben’s new book has arrived, if you want it in the first post after Xmas and a video message for the day get in touch! Signed copies now available in Storyville Books, Pontypridd.

'The collection hopes to give the West Cross Common a voice, to speak to for it as it cannot speak for, or defend, itself. The poems themselves leap from the pages just like the sky larks and blackbirds and wrens and bats and frogs they so beautifully describe, all of whom are set to lose their homes. 'It is lyrical and whimsical and serious. Some of the more poignant poems use personification as a clever tool that implores you to empathise with the common by thinking of it as a mother, a woman, or to simply hear it speak as if it was able to.' Thanks so much to Rhian Elizabeth for this wonderful review of Rae Howells' second poetry collection This Common Uncommon on Nation.Cymru .

1996, Sam Adams’s ‘Letter from Wales’ column has been appearing in PN Review , one of the most highly regarded UK poetry magazines, offering insight and appreciation of Welsh writing, culture and history. Now out in paperback, Letters from Wales: Memories and Encounters in Literature and Life collects a quarter century of work and offers one of the most unique, independent and passionate critical voices on the writing and cultural output of Wales during this period. Turning 90 last week, Adams offers his reflections on a life in letters…