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Guest Post – Alex Hubbard: Have you ever seen the rain?

Close up photo of raindrops on a window blurring the view outside

Have you ever wondered what writers listen to (if anything) when working on a book? In this guest post, Alex Hubbard shares some of the songs he listened to whilst writing his debut novel Storm. You can find his book in bookshops and here on our website from today!

A playlist for Storm: the novel

When writing Storm, I worked recklessly alongside endless streams of music. I’d put on my headphones and turn the volume up to max. This had such an effect on my already rather weak ears that I now avoid earpieces almost entirely. It was, however, an incredibly exhilarating and stimulating way to fire myself through the writing process.

Novels take a long time. Often, the writing process produces similar feelings to the daily grind of any other job which requires sitting at a desk and typing. So, when I think of a writing playlist, I think really of music’s effect on the mundane. I think of sitting in my dad’s car on a motorway flyover one Sunday night, looking out the window, seeing the rain coming down and all that red light from the cars beneath, made magic by Meatloaf’s ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Lights’. And I think that, really, reminds me of what is exciting about creativity: how it points to what we know is there and says, but what else could be?

So, with that in mind, I’d like to give you some insight into the music which helped make Storm. Now, to be clear, what you are about to read is not the authentic Storm playlist. There are in fact, four or five different ones, each with many overlaps and oddities. The longest clocks in at nearly 12 hours, altogether. In this one, you can listen to 13 songs which I think each represent about a thirteenth of the novel. 

Listen here

‘Walkin’ After Midnight’ by Patsy Cline

We meet Josephine in Aberystwyth, after midnight. A heavy rain is beginning to fall. She is walking the long stretch of road from the local night club where she works to the flat above the barber shop where she lives. It’s hardly ‘miles along the highway’, and Josephine is certainly not hoping to find a lost love. But, like Patsy, she is ‘lonesome […] as can be’. And loving it. For now.

‘Feels Nice’ by Clwb Chess

Like all cosmic, chaotic fever dreams, Storm is really a novel about nights out. Early on, Josephine, Glynn and their various connections go out-out in Aberystwyth. Nothing has ever captured the Aberystwyth night out quite like Clwb Chess’ 2025 EP, In Da Clwb. This Brummie-Cymraeg collaborative effort is forceful, fun and fabulous. ‘Feels Nice’ opens:

I caught you in the smoking cage
cornered in-between
the windy weather battering
and my suit-wearing shiny gleam

The smoking cage, I suspect, is belonging to Pier Pressure and overlooks the sea – a quite wonderful feature of an otherwise God-awful night club. And there is perhaps not a better image of an Aberystwyth night out than the one imagined here – stuck between the harsh wind and some smart-dressed idiot. I’d rather the clowns and jokers.

‘The Whale Has Swallowed Me’ by J.B. Lenoir

And then comes the next morning. If you’ve ever indulged a little too much in vices of the alcohol, you might also feel that ‘the same old whale’ that ‘swallowed Jonah’ has ‘swallowed’ you. You’re far less likely, however, to find that a whale has actually washed up right on your doorstep. Yet, come the dawn of Storm’s second day, that’s exactly what happens. At least whales don’t actually generally swallow people. I think.

‘Drowning (feat. BADBADNOTGOOD) by Mick Jenkins

House parties, though, are fundamentally different ontologically to night clubs. They are slower, stranger and illicit, like some stripped back version of a speakeasy. At the end of the novel’s second day, Josephine finds herself at a house party full of strangers. Just as Jenkins croons ‘we gon’ need some drugs/for this situation’, Josephine finds herself floating into more surreal substances than alcohol and nicotine.

‘Dafydd Iwan Yn Y Glaw’ by Datblygu

But descend to what? Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but something like this. Glaw, cerainly, but unfortunately Dafydd Iwan does not make a cameo. Fear not, there are plenty of other Welsh icons making appearances. If I could, I’d make sure all readers listened to this song on loop from pages 182 to 208.

‘The Winner Takes It All’ by Abba

And then, we come to Abba, as all things must. This song joined the Storm playlist quite late, when I was re-writing parts in relation to Josephine’s relationship with her mother. I went to see Tai Haf Heb Drigoyln perform at the Bank Vault’s experimental music night, and they covered the song in a manner simultaneously silly and sincere, comic and sad. Fundamentally, this is a song about futures: about what continues, what ends, what is remembered, what is lost. I heard it anew at just the right time to realise that this is what Storm is about, too.

Still with me?

Well, fair play, because I assumed that having someone tell you why they listen to certain songs when they write was one of the circles of hell. Still, I hope you enjoy the playlist. I think it holds up. You can read my breakdown on every song on my Substack. And if you’d like to read some prose which has a similar vibe, my book is available now!

Alex Hubbard

This cover shows the clock tower in Aberystwyth standing ominously tall in the midst of a violent storm. A young woman with an umbrella walks along the promenade. The text reads: Storm, Alex Hubbard.

Check out a longer version of this post on Alex’s Substack.

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Poetry Wales Press awarded $30,000 Grant from Hawthornden Foundation

Photo showing issues of Poetry Wales alongside recent poetry books by Seren

Poetry Wales Press, which includes Seren Books and Poetry Wales magazine, has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the US-based Hawthornden Foundation. We are one of only two UK-based publishers to be approached by the foundation for this round of funding.

The award has been allocated in recognition of our reputation for serving underserved literary communities in a part of the world deemed to have “weak or non-existent literary infrastructures”.

The funding will go towards organisational overheads at a moment when we – along with the rest of the sector in Wales – faces unprecedented financial pressure. Some spend will also go towards projects which support our growth, such as professional training for staff, workshops for magazine subscribers and a Cymraeg Editor and proof-reader for Poetry Wales magazine, to be implemented in 2026.

The Hawthornden Foundation is a private charity supporting contemporary writers and the literary arts. Established by Drue Heinz, the noted philanthropist and patron of the arts, the Foundation runs an international residency program, conferences and literary retreats. It also sponsors the annual Hawthornden Prize, one of Britain’s oldest and foremost literary awards, which was won by Emyr Humphreys in 1958 for his novel A Toy Epic, later republished within the Seren Classics series.

Our CEO Bronwen Price says: “We are delighted to receive this incredibly generous grant, especially given all the work we have put in to creating a future for the company over the past few difficult years. This support will make the world of difference to us. It reinforces that we’re on the right track and will ensure we are in the best possible position to continue offering innovative, equitable and engaged publishing from and for Wales and the world.”

Zoë Brigley, editor of Poetry Wales adds: “That the Hawthornden Foundation chose Poetry Wales for one these grants is hugely encouraging to us. One of my main goals on becoming editor was to make the magazine a welcoming space for everyone, a place where Welsh writers and international poets could know that their work would be read carefully and respectfully, offering a large variety of voices from around the world. This grant will be such a huge help in our missions, as we seek to foster new writing by emerging and established poets from all kinds of backgrounds.”

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Bethany Handley and Alison Binney are Highly Commended by the Forward Prizes 2025

Photo of the Forward Book of Poetry, The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning and Cling Film

On National Poetry Day, the Forward Prizes for Poetry published their annual anthology, the Forward Book of Poetry which brings together the best contemporary poetry published in the UK that year, as chosen by the Forward Prize judges.

We’re delighted that both Bethany Handley and Alison Binney feature on its pages having been Highly Commended in this year’s prize. Bethany’s poem ‘Limbs not walked on’ is published in her pamphlet Cling Film and Alison’s poem ‘Testimony’ appears in The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning.

We’ve also got our fingers crossed for Abeer Ameer who is shortlisted for Best Single Poem – Written for ‘At Least’ which was first published by MODRON. The winners of the Forward Prizes will be announced at the award ceremony in London on 26 October 2025.