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Breaking News: 10.6% Funding Cut to Welsh Books Industry Revoked

Following a popular campaign from Welsh publishers, authors and supporters throughout the UK and beyond, Ken Skates and the Welsh Government have announced that the proposed 10.6% cut to the Welsh Books Council will not go ahead. 
The announcement that there will be no funding cuts to the Welsh books industry for 2016/17 makes clear that our voices have been heard, and that the Welsh Government understands how detrimental the cuts would have been to Welsh literature and culture.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in organising the campaign, and to everyone who showed their support either by signing the online petition or by engaging with the #WelshBooksMatter conversation on Twitter. Special mentions should go to Kathryn Gray, who was a driving force behind the campaign’s success, and to Richard Houdmont, Chair of our Board of Directors, who spoke today at the Wales National Assembly. Authors Philip Pullman, Sarah Waters and Gillian Clarke were among the many well-known names to publicly lend their support to the cause. David Williamson of Wales Online, The Guardian’s Alison Flood, Natasha Onwuemezi from The Bookseller and Carolyn Hitt of Wales Online are just some of many who gave excellent media coverage to the issue. 
Finally, thanks must go to Ken Skates and the Welsh Government for overturning the cuts. This is a great day for Welsh publishing and literature, and we couldn’t be happier.

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Seren stands against proposed 10.6% cut threat to Welsh books industry

The future of publishing in Wales and with it ‘a distinctive literature from Wales’ could be under threat if the Welsh Government agrees a proposed 10.6% cut to industry funding, and we at Seren stand with our fellow publishers, with authors and with the literary community of Wales in opposition to these cuts.
The unprecedented 10.6% cut (£374,000) to the Welsh Books Council is more than twice that of planned cuts to other cultural organisations such as the Arts Council of Wales. Coming after a decade of standstill funding, grants to Welsh publishing in English will have been cut by 21% – £158,050 – in the last three years if these latest plans go through.
Wales’ small but vibrant and diverse publishing industry produces everything from Costa prize-winning poetry titles to young adult novels, from books about sporting and music legends to Welsh history and art, from prize-winning literature: fiction, biography, travel and memoir, academic titles and Welsh classics, to richly illustrated titles and books for children, in English and Welsh.
Its independent publishing companies are spread across the country, providing skilled work for an estimated 1000 plus people, from authors to publishers, freelance editors, designers, illustrators, printers, booksellers and many others, often in areas of high unemployment.
Publishing is an essential part of a vibrant and dynamic Welsh culture within a diverse UK, which can cover all aspects of life from literacy to putting great Welsh writing on the world stage. Welsh Government support, via the Welsh Books Council, contributes towards a ‘level playing field’, allowing publishers like Seren to compete by publishing attractive, high-quality titles which have an important economic, educational and cultural impact.
To safeguard the future of Welsh publishing, please stand with us in opposition to the proposed cuts. Sign the petition online now.
You can join in with the conversation online by using the hashtag #WelshBooksMatter. Why not tweet directly to Ken Skates (@WG_CultureMin), Welsh Government Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism, the name of a favourite title by Welsh publishers?
 

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Friday Poem – Skeeter Syndrome

Clueless Dogs Rhian Edwards

For our Friday Poem this week we have ‘Skeeter Syndrome’ from Rhian Edwards’ dark and sensual debut collection Clueless Dogs.

Winner of Wales Book of the Year 2013
Winner of the Roland Mathias Prize for Poetry 2013
Winner of Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice 2013
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2012

Full of verve and humour, with a spiky syntax featuring hard-edged consonants, Rhian Edwards’ language has a winning honesty and intensity. Poems like ‘The Welshman Who Couldn’t Sing’ chronicle a fraught childhood in Bridgend, south Wales, where the sensitive child escapes through imaginative games of ‘Playing Dead’ and ‘Broken Lifeboat’. Later poems confidently explore teenage lusts, student rivalries, damaged peers and tense situations. Although the author doesn’t flinch from ruthless depictions in which we are often implicated by her use of the second person ‘You’, there is an underlying sweetness, an elegiac thread most evident in the poems of maturity.

Skeeter Syndrome

I felt a tickle to my ankle,
saw her, dithering in the air
light as dandelion snow,
a winged needle, a mother-to-be
clumsy with the harvest of my blood.

I caught her dancing on the wall,
crushed her with a single applaud.
I opened my hand to a mangle of limbs,
a patch of my own blood – the stigma
of killing something full of me.

Buy Clueless Dogs on our website.

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First Thursday Returns for 2016

After a break this month, First Thursday will return on 4th February! 
First Thursday is our monthly celebration of new poetry and fiction, held at Chapter, Cardiff. February’s event will feature Peter Finch, whose new book The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back charts the evolution of popular music, and Mulfran author Jenny Lewis.
Tickets are £2.50 on the door and redeemable upon purchase of a book.

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Friday Poem — Making Love

Masculine happiness

This week’s poem is from Cardiff-based David Foster-Morgan’s provocative debut, Masculine Happiness. The collection is half price until midnight, Sunday 10th January. You can find the book here.

Born and based in Wales, Foster-Morgan has long been a presence in the poetry world, having had poems published widely in magazines and with appearances at workshops, festivals, and events including ‘slams’ where his quiet style and obvious integrity frequently beat louder and less subtle voices to a prize. His debut collection, some years in the making, is inspired in part by his reading of American literature: the conversational tone of Frank O’Hara (‘F’OH’) and the long-lined garrulity of Allen Ginsberg, (‘Allen Ginsberg returns to Llantony Priory’) as well as the models of masculinity handed out to us by Hollywood characters like John Wayne (‘Masculine Happiness’). His ambivalence toward the idea of the ‘hero’ and his observation of the fate of those who have been lauded, like the conflicted protagonist of ‘The City Legend’, is a fruitful area for exposition.

Making Love

I think that we were meant to…
Is it treat as if we were nations
or better meet as friends.
To have no buts
and simply wait ’til fate instructs.
Fate though never interrupts.
Oh: sighs, eyes, easy, thighs.

Oh: find, kind, miss, bliss.

In exquisite orbit on your…
Is it rim
or better promise held within.
Both pleasure and pain
in equal measure, at once the same.
With no words the meaning plain.
Oh: insane, flame, be, flee.

Oh: quest, rest, crux, stuck.

You are…
Is it everything I lack
or better welcome heart and hurry back.
Your soft magnetic air sublime,
wraps me in an ecstasy so kind.
That is I like your style.
Oh: start, apart, qualm, charm.

Oh: light, flight, sun, undone.

I fear you sense my…
Is it following cloud
or better stubborn doubt.
It is a flinching habit to say no
and pinch new love before it can grow.
Give no the elbow.
Oh: aloud, shroud, spite, blight.

Oh: cruel, duel, bequeathed, heed.

Banish fear with…
Is it yes
nothing better than yes.
Defeat strange love with a yes,
fate and doubt distress with a yes.
I would really like you to say yes.
Oh: finesse, mistress, conquest, bless.

Oh: fair, dare, rare, flare.

I watch your hair…
Is it coil like a snake
or better hang at your nape.
High on oblivion’s plain,
a wordless freedom we will claim.
Enjoy the moment, don’t explain.
Oh: arms, charms, find, unconfined
Oh: sublime, entwine, sun, outdone.
Oh: me, thee, we.

Masculine_happiness_72dpirgb
Order David Foster-Morgan’s Masculine Happiness from our website (half-price until midnight, Sunday 10th January).
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50% Off All Books: Editors’ Picks

50% off all books this week

2016 has arrived and with it, our January sale. For one week only, enjoy 50% off all books available on our website!

That being said, we know choosing which books to buy can be a little tricky so our three editors are on hand to give their book recommendations. Be it poetry, fiction or non-fiction that tickles your fancy, we have suggestions for one and all.

Mick Felton Non-Fiction Editor
Mick Felton – Non-Fiction Editor

As our non-fiction editor, Mick sees a wide variety of books each year, including everything from history, crime, autobiography, music and sport. So which two books does Mick think you need most on your shelf?

 

The Road to Zagora by Richard Collins
The Road to Zagora

After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, Richard Collins sets off with his partner Flic on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. The Road to Zagora is a singular travel book which takes in India, Nepal, Turkey, Morocco, Peru, Equador and Wales.
Though not shy about the hardships of the disease, any sentiment of self-pity is denied through Collins’s resolute and independent-mindedness and the quality of writing.
£9.99  £5.00

Losing Israel by Jasmine Donahaye
Losing Israel

After discovering by chance that her family had colluded in the eviction of Palestinians in 1948, Jasmine Donahaye set out to learn the story of what happened. Her discoveries challenged everything she thought she knew about the country and her family. Losing Israel is a moving and honest account which spans travel writing, nature writing and memoir. Jasmine explores the powerful and competing attachments people feel for their country and its history, by attempting to understand and reconcile her conflicted attachments, rooted in her family story – and in a love of Israel’s birds.
£12.99 £6.50

 

Amy Wack Poetry Editor
Amy Wack – Poetry Editor

Amy has read and enjoyed a dazzling array of poetry over the twenty-plus years she’s been with us. Trying to narrow down her choices to just two books was hard, but here goes…

 

A Formula for Night: New and Selected Poems by Tamar YoseloffTamar_quicksand cover

The eagerly awaited summation of Tamar’ work, encompassing selections from four published print volumes: Sweetheart, Barnard’s Star, Fetch and The City with Horns; and poems from her collaborations with artists: Formerly, Marks and Desire Paths.
The book also includes a generous selection of beautiful new poems, which are often artful explorations of paradox: death/birth, dark/light, clarity/mystery.
£12.99 £6.50

House of Small Absences by Anne-Marie Fyfe
House of small absences
Anne-Marie Fyfe’s poems have long dwelt on the role that the spaces we inhabit, the places in which we find security, play in our lives: House of Small Absences is an observation window into strange, unsettling spaces—a deserted stage-set, our own personalised ‘museum’, a Piedmont albergo, underground cities, Midtown roof-gardens, convent orchards, houseboats, a foldaway circus, a Romanian sleeper-carriage—the familiar rendered uncanny through the distorting lenses of distance and life’s exigencies, its inevitable lettings-go.
£9.99 £5.00
Penny Thomas

 

Penny Thomas – Fiction Editor

Which fictional words would Penny have you delve into first? We’ve published a beautifully varied range of books, and below are just two of Penny’s favourites.

Swimming on Dry Land by Helen Blackhurst
swimming_on_dry_land_72
Twelve-year-old Monica Harvey is looking for her sister Georgie, who has disappeared. The Harvey family has recently moved to Akarula, south-west Australia, having been persuaded to set out in search of a new life by their rich Uncle Eddie, who owns the town. Unbeknownst to them, Georgie isn’t the first person to vanish.
As their dream-like vision of life in outback Australia begins to be tainted my mystery and deceit, the history of the land unfolds and answers to the strange disappearances slowly suggest themselves.
£9.99 £5.00

Foreign Bodies by Candy Neubert
foreign bodies
Fresh from the UK, Emma thinks she has fallen in love with a place, a person, and pursues the man of her dreams with a colonial zeal. But for all her poetic sensibilities, she seems unaware of the destruction she is capable of leaving in her wake.

A beautifully written first novel, Foreign Bodies explores the spaces between people, and the nature of encounters in romantic idylls on the other side of the world.
£7.99 £4.00

 

Don’t forget, absolutely everything on our website is 50% off– so if you’re eager to see beyond our suggestions, then go forth and discover a new read for the New Year on our website.

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Half price offer ends midnight, Sunday 10th January. Happy book hunting!

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50% off everything, this week only!

The New Year has arrived and with it, our January sale. For one week only, please enjoy 50% off all our books, including even the very newest titles!
If you’re a poetry reader, then why not buy a copy of Kim Moore’s acclaimed debut The Art of Falling, and a copy of Tamar Yoseloff’s highly anticipated new and selected collection A Formula for Night? Jonathan Edwards’ Costa Award-winning My Family and Other Superheroes is also sure to delight. For non-fiction fans, why not investigate one of Wales’ most haunting unsolved murders with Steve Adams in his gripping Murder at the Star: Who Killed Thomas Thomas? Or dive into the history of popular music in Peter Finch’s highly entertaining new book, The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back. If instead you’re on the hunt for new fiction, then Mary-Ann Constantine’s stunning Star-Shot, set in Cardiff, is a great selection. Newly available too is The World, the Lizard and Me, a novel of testament to the plight of children caught up in the wars of Central Africa, written by Gil Courtemanche, author of A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Canongate).
 
The sale ends at midnight on Sunday 10th January, so don’t wait to take advantage of this fleeting offer.

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Friday Poem – The Red Aeroplane

house of small absences

Our first Friday Poem of 2016 is from Anne-Marie Fyfe’s new collection, House of Small Absences. We hope you enjoy it, and happy New Year!

Anne-Marie Fyfe’s poems have long dwelt on the role that the spaces we inhabit, the places in which we find security, play in our lives: House of Small Absences is an observation window into strange, unsettling spaces—a deserted stage-set, our own personalised ‘museum’, a Piedmont albergo, underground cities, Midtown roof-gardens, convent orchards, houseboats, a foldaway circus, a Romanian sleeper-carriage—the familiar rendered uncanny through the distorting lenses of distance and life’s exigencies, its inevitable lettings-go…

The book opens with ‘The Red Aeroplane’ where witnessing an apparent plane crash sparks a vertiginous sequence of image and memory. We will follow the author in exploring not just specific places and memories but the ‘exponential function of tangents’, all that is implied and suggested.

The Red Aeroplane

From the oratory window I witness
mid-air doom, a slew of concentric
swirls, a trail of forge-sparks,
and that’s it. A vermilion two-seater
stagger-wing loops earthbound,
so much depending upon centrifugal
drive. Slivers of toughened glass
spangle the outer stone sill,
the vacant co-pilot seat
is plummeted deep in rosebed mulch.

I question now if the red bi-plane
ever was, the way sureties tilt
and untangle from any one freezeframe
to its sequel. Maybe I was glimpsing
that two-seater red pedal car
– injection-moulded plastic –
collected one Christmas Eve night
for a fevered child? Or conflating
the replica cherry-red sixty-three
we’d toyed with, tinkered with, briefly
on a tinsmith’s covered stall
that drenched Saturday?
What can’t be
cast in any doubt is the wreckage,
a fragmentary scattering,
the mangledness on the far side
of glass. And how a Galway blue
skyscape proves ineluctably
the exponential function of tangents.

Order Anne-Marie Fyfe’s House of Small Absences from our website.

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Friday Poem – Christmas Holiday

This week’s poem is from Alun Lewis’ Collected Poems. Merry Christmas!

Alun Lewis (1915-1944), the remarkable poet and story writer, died, aged 28, in Burma during the Second World War. Some critics see him as the last of the great Romantic poets, a twentieth century Keats. Others view him as the bridge between pre-war poets like Auden and Yeats to post-war poets such as Hughes and Gunn. He was born and raised in Depression-struck south Wales and, following degrees in history at Aberystwyth and Manchester, became a teacher there. Early in 1940, despite his pacifist inclinations he enlisted and, after long periods of training, joined the war in India.

Becoming a soldier galvanised Lewis’s writing. By 1944 he had written two collections of poems and one of short stories, all published to considerable acclaim. Firmly established with Keith Douglas as the leading writer of the Second World War, Lewis’s death in an accident while on active service was huge loss to English literature. This Collected Poems comprises a body of work which has endured and which transcends the label ‘war poetry’; it is complete in itself and full of promise of greater things.

Christmas Holiday

Big-uddered piebald cattle low
The shivering chestnut stallion dozes
The fat wife sighs in her chair
Her lap is filled with paper roses
The poacher sleeps in the goose-girl’s arms
Incurious after so much eating
All human beings are replete.

But the cock upon the dunghill feels
God’s needle quiver in his brain
And thrice he crows: and at the sound
The sober and the tipsy men
Jump out of the bed with one accord
And start the war again.

The fat wife comfortably sleeping
Sighs and licks her lips and smiles

But the goose-girl is weeping.

Order Alun Lewis’ Collected Poems from our website.