The Scattering by Jaki McCarrick has been shortlisted for the 2014 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Jaki’s story The Visit has already won the Wasafari prize for new fiction.
Joining Jaki on the £5000 prize shortlist is fellow Welsh publisher Parthian’s Rachel Trezise as well as David Rose, Bernie McGill and John Burnside. The 2014 judging panel includes Kevin Barry, winner of the 2013 Edge Hill Prize, Carys Bray, winner of the inaugural Edge Hill MA Prize in 2010 and Katie Allen, editor of welovethisbook.com.
The winners will be announced on 3rd July, at an awards ceremony at Free Word Centre in London.
Set on the Irish Border, The Scattering explores states of liminality: life on the Irish border, dual identities, emigration, being between states – certainty and doubt, codependency and freedom. Some explore themes of catastrophe and constraint. All explore what it means to be alive in a fraught and ever-changing world.
Best of luck Jaki!

We have Hay fever! And not the runny nose, red eyed kind! May can only mean one thing: the annual Hay literature festival.  The 2014 festival promises to be a scorcher, with a plethora of Seren authors discussing their fantastic books.
 Sat 24th May: Emma Healey and Tiffany Murray – Fictions Memory
Tiffany Murray and Emma Healey talk about the disturbance of the past in Fictions Memory. Tiffany’s chilling new novel, Sugar Hall, sees Lilia Sugar and her children uncover a past hidden deep within the red gardens of Sugar Hall. Based on the stories of the slave boy that haunt Littledean Hall in the Forest of Dean, this is a truly spooky tale.
10 AM GOOD ENERGY STAGE £5
 Tues 27th May: Tishani Doshi, Owen Sheers and Fflur Dafydd The Women in the Mabinogion
Doshi, Sheers and Dafydd talk about the leading ladies in their Mabinogion re-tellings.
5.30 PM GOOD ENERGY STAGE £5
 Wednesday 28th  May:  Shani Rhys James, Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke and Francesca Rhydderch – Florilingua
A celebration of art and poetry. Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke read work that responds to the characteristic wild wallpapers and menacing chandeliers of Rhys James’ new touring exhibition of paintings.
8.30PM STARLIGHT STAGE £7
 Saturday 31st May Jim Saunders Hay: Landscape, Literature and the Town of Books
Jim Saunders has lived and worked for 25 years in the border country around Hay. In this, his third book, he homes in on the town itself, along with the landscapes, literature and people of this most beautiful part of Britain.
9AM OXFAM MOOT £6
 Sunday 1st June  Matthew Francis and Rhian Elizabeth – Deeply Unreliable Narrators
Rhian Elizabeth and Matthew Francis talk unreliable narrators. In her debut novel, Six Pounds Eight Ounces, Rhian opens up Hannah King’s diary on to her crazy world of glitter and galmrock, candyfloss and serial killers, but beware, not all of Hannah’s stories are strictly true…
4PM THE CUBE £5
 
In addition, Patrick McGuinness, Cynan Jones, Peter Finch,  Horatio Clare, Rhian Edwards and Damian Walford-Davies will all be at this years festival.
 
To see the full program or to book tickets visit www.hayfestival.com

Francesca Rhydderch’s debut novel, The Rice Paper Diaries has been longlisted for the Authors Club First Novel Award. Francesca joins names such as Lucy Cruickshanks and Kevin Maher as well as Costa first novel award winner Nathan Filer.
The shortlist will be announced on Friday 25 April, and the winner of the 2014  Authors Club First Novel will be awarded a £2,500 prize at a reception on 3rd June at the National Liberal Club by this years guest adjudicator, novelist Isabel Wolff.
Set in 1940s Hong Kong, The Rice Paper Diaries follows the lives of Elsa Jones, her husband Tommy, daughter Mari and their amah Lin. When Hong Kong falls to the Japanese, Elsa and Tommy are captured and interned in a makeshift camp on the southern side of the island, and their relationship is tested to the limit.
The Rice Paper Diaries is available to buy from our website for £8.99. Sign up to our book club to get 20% off!

The longstanding creative relationship between poetry and painting is in evidence once again in a new exhibition by artist Sara Philpott, whose latest show What the Earth Thought, is inspired by the poem of that title by Christopher Meredith. The poem, from Meredith’s most recent collection, Air Histories, is a litany of elemental relationships to which Philpott has responded in her characteristically luminous and organic style.The resulting exhibition is held at The Hours Café and Bookshop, in Ship Street, Brecon from 4 April to 2nd May. It’s a place to stumble upon and cherish, says The Guardian. See  www.the-hours.co.uk/  for details.

Gwyn Emberton and his company of international dancers delve into the dark, turbulent, and oftentimes mythical world of Manteg in their latest production, My People, inspired by the short story collection written by Caradoc Evans, 

Combined with a new cinematic score by composers Benjamin Talbott and Victoria Ashfield (Y Gwyll/Hinterland), the haunting world of Evans’ most memorable characters unravels, as sexual and gender politics collide with social and religious hierarchy.

the group will be performing across Wales, at the following venues:
Thursday 20th March, 7.30pm – Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
Saturday 22nd March, 7.30pm  – The Hafren, Newtown
Tuesday 25th March, 7.45pm  – Theatre Harlech
Thursday 27th March, 7.30pm – Dance House, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

 
The xx women’s writing festival is back, following a hugely successful début year.
Seren authors will feature strongly at the second-ever xx women’s writing festival at Chapter Arts Centre between 6-8th March.
Tiffany Murray will talk about her forthcoming novel, the ghost story, Sugar Hall at the xx literary salon on Friday March 7th. Also at the salon is debut Rhondda writer Rhian Elizabeth, whose novel about two girls growing up in Tonypandy, Six Pounds Eight Ounces,  is published in April.
Saturday 8th March, sees a session on fiction and memoir inspired by life abroad and featuring new Seren writer Karen Fielding, whose debut novel American Sycamore comes out next month.
Kathryn Simmonds, Rhian Edwards, Zillah Bethell and Francesca Rhydderch will also be there, alongside AL Kennedy, Melissa Benn and Lennie Goodings of Virago. Painter Shani Rhys James whose book Florilingua, featuring poetry and paintings, has just been published, will also be at the festival as well as new Poetry Wales editor, Nia Davies.
The festival aims to highlight women authors from Wales and the world.
“While women authors are hugely influential in the literary world, books by women are still reviewed less than books by men, and women do less reviewing,” said Susie Wild, one of four organisers of xx. “Rather than just complain, we decided to bring more attention to the excellent writing by women that is out there and encourage men and women to come and hear these writers at xx.”
A full line up can be viewed at xxwales.wordpress.com, or you can follow xx on Twitter for updates @xx Wales. Tickets are available from the Chapter Arts box office.