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David Hurn

David Hurn was born in England in 1934 of Welsh parentage. It was as a freelancer that he gained an international reputation for his reportage of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. He later gave up current-affairs coverage for a more personal perspective on photography. He became a member of the prestigious Magnum Agency in 1967, and during the seventies established the acclaimed School of Documentary Photography at Newport, Wales. Since leaving there he has photographed and taught around the world.

Books by David Hurn
Living in Wales
Writing the Picture

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John Fuller

John Fuller is a prize-winning poet and novelist. The author of eighteen collections of poems, most recently Pebble and I (2010), his work is known for a strong humanistic civic note and a formal skill, both of which are to the fore in Writing the Picture. A professor at Magdalen College, Oxford, his novel Flying to Nowhere was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

“John Fuller is a virtuoso in whom remarkable stanzaic skill is allied to a playful intellectual stance. His work has order, clarity, empirical veracity but also a far playfulness and inventiveness.” – Peter Forbes
“Fuller’s poetry can be seen to build a bridge of boats between light verse and solemn elegy with the best technique of anyone writing in Britain now.” – Peter Porter

Books by John Fuller
Writing the Picture


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David Hurn and John Fuller present ‘Writing the Picture’

Join Seren in celebrating Writing the Picture with authors David Hurn and John Fuller Thursday April 7th 2011, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 7.30pm and Tuesday 12th April 2011 at the Drill Hall, Chepstow. Admission £2.00, redeemable against purchase at the event.

David Hurn, well known for his Magnum photographs and the iconic Sean Connery image as James Bond.  John Fuller is an acclaimed poet and novelist, author of fourteen volumes of poetry and several works of fiction including “Flying to Nowhere” shortlisted for the Booker and winner of the Whitbread Award.

Writing the Picture is a rare and fascinating collaboration. Even more rare, it is a collaboration in which the poet responds to images, rather than a photographer or artists ‘illustrating’ a poem.

“This brave volume offers a proud collaboration between two masters of their chosen arts.”  The Independent

If you are unable to attend this event, ‘Writing the Picture’ is available at www.serenbooks.com – join the book club and receive 20% off all purchases.

This event is supported by Academi
www.academi.org

We look forward to seeing you in Cardiff and Chepstow!

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Clare Dudman

Clare Dudman was born in North Wales. She has a PhD in Chemistry and has worked as a postdoctoral Research Associate in UMIST, a development scientist in industry, a science teacher, a lecturer and as a creative writing tutor for the WEA and the MA in creative writing at University College Chester. She is a member of the Welsh Academy.

In 1995 her children’s novel Edge of Danger won the Kathleen Fidler award and in 2001 an excerpt fromWegener’s Jigsaw won an Arts Council of England Writers award. A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees is her first book for Seren.

Visit Clare’s literary blog Keeper of The Snails

Books by Clare Dudman
A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees


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Nia Williams

Nia Williams is a freelance author and musician, living in Oxford and originally from Cardiff. She is the author of two other novels, The Pier Glass and Persons Living or Dead, which was longlisted for Wales Book of the Year and her short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on BBC radio. For more information about her work see www.niawilliams.com

Books by Nia Williams
The Colour of Grass

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‘The Colour of Grass’ book launch

Nia Williams The Colour of Grass book launch

You are invited to celebrate the publication of The Colour of Grass by Nia Williams at George & Delila Café, 104 Crowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JE  April 5th 2011 5.30pm

Who did she think she was? Helen’s family is falling apart. There will be no answers from her husband anymore and she can’t communicate with her grown-up daughter. She’s not sure of anything anymore. So she turns to the relatives: the ones who are dead and gone.
Straight away she finds herself floundering in a new world of friends, secrets, enemies and family history enthusiasts. Clandestine meetings, a mugging, and the surprisingly tragic story of her mystery grandmother – all these weave themselves into Helen’s present and past.

With family history flourishing online, on TV and in magazines, The Colour of Grass is a gentle and touching story of families past and present, the identities we create for life’s unexpected connections and ourselves.

Refreshments available.

Seren hopes to see as many of you that can make it!

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‘The Colour of Grass’

Seren has a new release The Colour of Grass by Welsh author Nia Williams.

The Colour of Grass by Nia Williams is a story about families, past and present, and life’s unexpected connections.

Helen’s family is falling apart. There are no answers from her husband. She can’t communicate with her daughter. So she turns to other relatives: the ones who are dead and gone. Straightaway she finds herself floundering in a new world of friends, secrets, enemies and family history enthusiasts. Clandestine meetings, a mugging, and the surprisingly tragic story of her mystery grandmother – all of these weave themselves into Helen’s present and her unknown past.

With family history flourishing online, on TV and in Magazines, The Colour of Grass is a gentle and touching story of families past and present, the identites we create for life’s unexpected connections and ourselves.

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Roshi Fernando shortlisted for 2011 Sunday Times EFG Bank Short Story Award

Swansea-based author Roshi Fernando is one of six authors shortlisted for the 2011 Sunday Times EFG Bank Short Story Award, with the winner to be announced at the Oxford Literary Festival on April 8th 2011.
Roshi, whose work was first anthologised by Seren has been shortlisted for her story ‘The Fluorescent Jacket’, part of her first novel Homesick which won the Impress Prize for New Writers in 2009 and was published by Impress last year.
The novel is composite of seventeen interwoven short stories about a community of Sri Lankan immigrants carving out new lives in a hostile Britain.
“Three Cuts”, her bloody retelling of the Cinderella story, was published last October in the Seren anthology of myth and horror stories Sing Sorrow Sorrow, edited by Gwen Davies.
Roshi, born in London 1966, is currently finishing a PhD in Creative Writing at Swansea University.
Judges, including Melvyn Bragg and AS Byatt, announced the shortlist on March 13, with the top contenders are Booker prizewinner Hilary Mantel, Will Cohu, Gerard Woodward, Anthony Doerr and Yiyun Li.
 

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Ruth Bidgood’s ‘Time Being’ Shortlisted for the Roland Mathias Prize

Ruth Bidgood’s 10th collection Time Being (Seren 2009) has been shortlisted for one of Wales’ top literary prizes to be awarded next month. The £3,000 Roland Mathias Prize for Welsh writing in English will be awarded on 8 April 2011. The biennial prize is awarded for a work published during the last two years in the field of poetry, short stories, literary criticism or Welsh history. To qualify, the author must live, or have been born, in Wales.

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Peter Conradi becomes Fellow of Royal Society of Literature

Congratulations to Peter Conradi who has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Newly elected Fellows are inducted in a ceremony which takes place at the Society’s AGM and summer party. While the President reads a citation for each, they are invited to sign their names in the roll book which dates back to 1820 using either Dickens’s pen or Byron’s quill. Peter’s book, At the Bright Hem of God: Radnorshire Pastoral, is available from Seren.