Gladstone’s Library have announced their 2018 Writers in Residence, and the four successful applicants are Polly Atkin, Basic Nest Architecture (Seren, 2017); Rachel Malik, Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves (Penguin Random House, 2017); Cal Flyn, Thicker Than Water (Harper Collins, 2016); and Keggie Carew, Dadland (Vintage, 2016)
Now into its seventh year, Gladstone’s successful Writers in Residence programme was this year judged by Senior Strategy Director at FutureBrand and Trustee of Gladstone’s Library, Freddie Baveystock; poet Rebecca Farmer (Not Really); author Natasha Pulley (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street); literary agent Jenny Hewson (Rogers, Coleridge and White); Peter Francis, Warden of Gladstone’s Library and Director of Collections and Research at Gladstone’s Library; and Louisa Yates.
The authors will each receive a month’s residency at Gladstone’s Library, with the chance to use the Library’s tranquillity and resources to work on their current project. During this time, the authors will engage with the library’s creative community, running a creative writing masterclass, giving an evening talk, and submitting a blog to the Library’s website.
Find out more on the Gladstone’s Library website.
 
About Polly Atkin:
Polly Atkin lives in Cumbria. Her debut poetry pamphlet bone song (Clitheroe: Aussteiger, 2008) was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award, 2009. Her second poetry pamphlet Shadow Dispatches (Seren, 2013) won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize, 2012. In 2014 an extract from her first collection, Basic Nest Architecture, was awarded New Writing North’s Andrew Waterhouse Prize for ‘reflect[ing] a strong sense of place or the natural environment’. Polly has taught English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University and the Universities of Strathclyde and Cumbria.
About Basic Nest Architecture:
Polly Atkin’s first collection of poetry, Basic Nest Architecture, marks a startling new talent. Known already for her prize-winning pamphlets, and widely shortlisted for competitions, Atkin has already built up a loyal readership for her complex, intelligent, densely metaphorical lyrics, often inspired by the beauties of the Lake District where she has made her home for a decade.
 
 

Enter our giveaway to win a copy of Tony Conran’s milestone of translation, Welsh Verse.
To enter, simply sign up to the Seren newsletter before 1st October:https://www.serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup
About Welsh VerseWelsh Verse has made a triumphant return to print. Tony Conran’s unrivalled volume of Welsh poetry through the ages contains meticulous translations stretching from the sixth century to the late twentieth century. Virtually every significant poet (or poem: there are several Anonymous entries over the centuries) is present, and every poetic form: the epics of Taliesin and Aneurin, the poets of the medieval princes, Tudor poets, Non-conformist poets, hymn-writers, Romantics, Social Realists and political Nationalists.Welsh Verse also includes an influential Introduction full of insight into the history of poetry in the Welsh language, and into the challenges of translating it, particularly over so many centuries and styles.
 
The winner of this giveaway will be chosen at random from all our email subscribers on 1st October 2017, so make sure you sign up to Seren News before this deadline to be in with a chance of winning.
Feeling generous? Why not invite your friends to enter, by signing up using the link below:http://serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup
 

The Poetry Book Society have just revealed their Winter selections, and we are delighted to announce that Paul Deaton’s forthcoming debut collection, A Watchful Astronomy, has been named as a Recommendation, alongside books by Ahren Warner, Tim Dooley and Anne Michaels. A Watchful Astronomy is due for publication 30 October.
See the full Winter Selections announcement on the Poetry Book Society’s website.
 
About A Watchful Astronomy:The poems in A Watchful Astronomy, Paul Deaton’s debut collection, are precise, intricate as clockwork, full of powerful emotion artfully restrained. Deaton’s poems are finely attuned and alert to the tensions in relationships, partly attributable to a difficult father figure, ‘like a wounded bear’, who haunts much of this book. Part of the popular ‘Spoke’ performance group and frequently published in The Spectator, amongst other places, Deaton’s star has been on the rise in recent years.
 
 
 
 

Maggie Harris, poet and author of short story collection Writing on Water, has won third prize in the International Welsh Poetry Competition for her poem, ‘On watching a lemon sail the sea’.
See the full list of winners and commended poems on the Welsh Poetry Competition Website, and read Maggie’s prize-winning poem.