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Help the Homeless: A Charity Evening with Rosie Shepperd

Rosie Shepperd is teaming up with Waterstones Guildford to present a charity launch of her debut collection, The Man at the Corner Table.

Join Rosie and the Waterstones team at 18:30 on Monday 7th December for a sophisticated evening that will include wine, canapés, and a talk from Rosie about her dazzling collection. The event itself is free, but any who wish to attend are encouraged to make a donation, however large or small, to the Number Five Project, a Guildford-based homeless shelter.

Number Five offers short-term emergency accommodation for homeless men and women over the age of 18; they provide a hot meal, a hot shower, a bed for the night and breakfast the next morning, as well as 1-2-1 key-worker support to all residents.

For those of us lucky enough to have never been homeless, we can’t possibly imagine just how awful homelessness is. People who are homeless are in danger of being attacked, abused or stigmatised, and as the weather gets colder, many homeless people will not survive the winter.

So if you can, attend the launch and make a donation – if you can’t make a donation, why not spread the word? You could make a difference!

 

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(Holly) Jolly Good Deal!

Christmas is on its way, and this festive season we want to see you ten lords a-leaping for joy. So because we’re such good eggs, we have a very exciting Christmas deal for you!

grinchmas

Buy any two books from our website and you’ll receive a free copy of Christmas in Wales! You can dip in and out of poetry, fiction and memoirs that celebrate Christmas the Welsh way, or you can pass it on as a cheeky present to a friend or loved one.

This offer ends at midnight on the 24th December – don’t miss out!

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Jonathan Edwards Shortlisted For The 2014 Costa Poetry Award

This cover shows a colourful painting of a school boy stomping with excitement viewed as if looking from the ground. The text reads: My Family and Other Superheroes, Jonathan Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards has been shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Poetry Award with his debut book of poetry, My Family and Other Superheroes. The news comes just a few months after the collection was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh Poetry Prize.

The Costa Book Awards honour some of the most outstanding books of the year written by authors based in the UK and Ireland. There are five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book.

Edward’s heroes are a motley crew: Sophia Loren, Marty Mcfly and Evel Knievel jostle for space on the pages alongside Valley’s mams and dads, The kebabby in Merthyr and the traditional Welsh costume.

The judges: Owen Sheers, Anna Dreda, and Charlotte Runcie said of Jonathan’s book:
“Joyful and dynamic – a collection that’ll make you laugh and make you think.”

Edward’s superheroes will have to fight it out with the likes of  Colette Bryce, Lavina Greenlaw and Kei Miller for the esteemed award. The category winner will be announced on 5th January with one of the five category winners chosen as the overall Costa Book of the Year later in the month.

Get a copy of Jonathan’s award worthy collection here. Save 20% when you join our online book club.

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Nine reasons to vote for The Rice Paper Diaries for the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award.

Francesca Rhydderch has been shortlisted for The Wales Book of The Year Award for her debut novel The Rice Paper Diaries.

Nine of the shortlisted English language titles will also compete for the People’s Choice Award, where you get to have your say and vote for your favourite.

Francesca faces stiff competition from the likes of Tessa Hadley and Owen Sheers for the honour and here’s nine reasons why we think The Rice Paper Diaries deserves your vote:

  1. It shows us a different side to the Second World War. We normally think of WW2 as affecting our troops and those at home in Britain. The Rice Paper Diaries gives us an insight into what it was like to be a British expatriate interned by the enemy far from home and the difficult process of repatriation after the war.
  1. The story is authentic. Brian Edgar a WW2 blogger, whose parents were interned at the same concentration camp as Francesca’s protagonists, described it as “A magnificent book that anyone who enjoys first-rate literary fiction should consider reading”.
  1. Its four stories for the price of one. We hear four sides of the story from the perspectives of Elsa, Tommy, their daughter Mari and their Chinese amah Lin.
  1. It was Seren’s best selling novel of 2013. Its first print run was a sell out! (Don’t worry you can still get your hands on a copy here).
  1. It was a Kindle best seller, reaching the number 4 spot in the Kindle top 100.
  1. It drew critical acclaim from reviewers. Adrian Masters couldn’t recommend it highly enough and Laura Wainwright described it as a “rare, brave and unforgettable novel”.
  1. Even the competition thinks it’s great! Tessa Hadley (also shortlisted for Clever Girl) endorsed the book as “ Very fine, so truthful-feeling and subtle”.
  1. It’s been shortlisted for The Wales Book of the Year Award and Longlisted for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize and The Author’s Club First Novel Awards.
  1. It’s international. Fran was invited to take part in the Beijing Book Fair and it’s currently being translated in to Mandarin!

What are you waiting for? Vote now!

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Francesca Rhydderch shortlisted for best Welsh-language playwright

The Rice Paper Diaries author Francesca Rhydderch is on the shortlist for Best Welsh Language Playwright for her play Cyfaill. The play, based on the life of author Kate Roberts and produced by Theatr Bara Caws, was performed in theatres across Wales in 2013.

Cyfaill has also been nominated in a host of other categories including; Best Production in the Welsh language, Female Performance in the Welsh language (Morfudd Hughes) and Best Ensemble.

The awards ceremony will take place on 25th January at the Sherman theatre in Cardiff.

Best of luck Fran!

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You are invited to Seren’s 30th Birthday Party

Seren would like to invite you to help celebrate 30 years of publishing.

We are having a street party here at Bridgend on the 1st October 2011.

There will be a slice of birthday cake and a soft drink for everyone, also a lucky dip – a free read on us!

Meet the editors and a few of the Seren authors. We will be selling Seren books at discounted prices. Special offers on a range of food all day from the deli based next door to Seren.

Please feel free to bring along family and friends – the more, the merrier.

Fixed Events throughout the day:

12pm-2pm: ‘Meet the Editor’ (Poetry, fiction and non-fiction). Get advice from Seren editors about your unpublished work – to book your 10 minute time slot please send your name and email address to [email protected] – we will allocate a time for you. Spaces are limited!

12pm-1pm and 2pm-3pm: Open Mic slots. Sign up on arrival and read your poetry, fiction or sing some songs. Mike Jenkins and Robert Minhinnick will also be reading at Open Mic.

3pm: Guest of Honour Dannie Abse, to make a speech and a short reading.

Raffle tickets on sale throughout the day some great prizes to win including:

A set of six books from the Seren’s Mabinogion series. Signed by authors Owen Sheers, Russell Celyn Jones, Gwyneth Lewis, Niall Griffiths, Horatio Clare and Fflur Dafydd.

A signed copy of the Man Booker Prize 2011 long-listed title ‘The Last Hundred Days’ by Patrick McGuinness.

This event is supported by Literature Wales www.literaturewales.org

This event coincides with Bridgend town’s annual ‘feastival’ – an alternative food festival http://feastival.moonfruit.com/

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Two Seren poetry titles up for Forward Prize ‘Best First Collection’ 2011

The Forward Prize shortlist has been announced today, and we here at Seren, are thrilled to see two of our poetry titles on the shortlist for ‘Best First Collection’ 2011.

Both Sound Archive by Nerys Williams and Loudness by Judy Brown find themselves shortlisted along with another four poets.

Sound Archive is a strikingly original first collection of poems. Using formal Sound Archivestrategies similar to modernist painting: abstraction, dislocation, surrealist juxtaposition, the poet conjures a complex music, intriguing narratives, and poems full of atmosphere that query identity, gender, and the dream of art as a vehicle for emotion and meaning.

Nerys Williams is originally from Pen-Y-Bont, Carmarthen in West Wales. A recent winner of the Ted McNulty Poetry Prize, she lectures in American Literature at University College, Dublin.

“Sound Archive is an innovative volume..”–– The Irish Times.

Video of Nerys Williams reading from Sound Archive

Judy Brown’s beautiful first collection Loudness, is a straightforward manner Loudness and a gift for ironic humour belie the artful complexities and the exacting observations evident in her work. Loudness will be available to buy at the end of September 2011.

Judy Brown was born in Cheshire and has lived in Northumbria, Cumbria and Hong Kong. She has studied English Literature at Cambridge and Newcastle-upon Tyne and now lives between London (where her ‘day job’ is working part-time as a lawyer) and Derbyshire. She has won the Poetry London and Manchester Festival Poetry prizes and she has placed in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and others. She is also the author of a prize-winning pamphlet, Pillars of Salt.

The Forward Prize for Best First Collection shortlist:

Rachael Boast Sidereal
Judy Brown Loudness
Nancy Gaffield Tokaido Road
Ahren Warner Confer
John Whale Waterloo Teeth
Nerys Williams Sound Archive

The Forward Prize Best Collection shortlist:

John Burnside  Black Cat Bone
David Harsent Night
Geoffrey Hill Clavics
Michael Longley A Hundred Doors 
D Nurkse Voices Over Water  
Sean O’Brien November 

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in memory of Michael Donaghy shortlist:

R. F. Langley To a Nightingale
Alan Jenkins Southern Rail (The Four Students) 
Sharon Olds Song the Breasts Sing to the Late-in-Life Boyfriend
Jo Shapcott Bees

Berg by Hilary Menos (Seren 2010) was winner of ‘Best First Collection’ 2010.

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John Llewellyn Rhys Prize ‘Suspended’

Sponsors of the John Llewellyn Rhys prize, Booktrust, suffered severe funding cuts, which has resulted in the suspension of the popular prize.

The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize is a literary prize and was created to award authors from the Commonwealth under the age of 35.

Jane Oliver initiated the prize for the her husband, John Llewellyn Rhys, a writer who died tragically young, serving in the RAF in 1940.

“The John Llewellyn Rhys prize is one of the most romantic and distinguished of prizes and its disappearance would be a great loss to hopeful authors and he literary world” says Margaret Drabble former John Llewellyn Rhys prize winner.

Booktrust state that they did not take the decision lightly, and they strongly intend to bring back the Prize with a bang in the very near future.

Previous winners of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize:

2010 – Amy Sackville The Still Point
2009 – Evie Wyld After the Fire, A Still Small Voice
2008 – Henry Hitchings The Secret Life of Words
2006/7 – Sarah Hall The Carhullan Army
2005 – Uzodinma Iweala Beasts of No Nation
2004 – Jonathan Trigell Boy A
2003 – Charlotte Mendelson Daughters of Jerusalem
2002 Mary Laven Virgins of Venice
2001 – Susanna Jones The Earthquake Bird
2000 – Edward Platt Leadville

We hope to see the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize return very soon.

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Pascale Petit Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2011

Pascale Petit has been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2011 for her latest collection What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo.

Literature Wales announced the 2011 shortlist in both Caernarfon and Cardiff.

Pascale Petit, who was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales, was named one of the Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society and Arts Council in 2004. What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, 2010) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and was a Book of the year in theObserver.  She has published five poetry books, three of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and which were also Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement, Observer and the Independent. Her second collection The Zoo Father was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was published in Mexico in a bilingual edition. A poem from it was shortlisted for a Forward Prize.

See who else made the shortlist – click here