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Emyr Humphreys, the great novelist of twentieth century Wales died on 30 September, at the great age of 101. It is an irony that one of Emyr’s later story collections, published in 2003 when he was a mere 84 year old, was titled Old People Are a Problem, yet age was no problem for him: his final story collection, The Woman at the Window appeared in 2009, while a collection of unpublished poems, Shards of Lights was published to mark his centenary in 2019. It was the last book in a seventy-three year publishing career, in the two languages of Wales.
Emyr’s long career was marked by prize-winning novels and ambitious projects like the Land of the Living series, a seven novel sequence charting the history of Wales in the twentieth century. Wales and Welshness were his abiding subjects, perhaps most successfully distilled in an early rites of passage novel, A Toy Epic, and the sweeping Outside the House of Baal. He also wrote poetry, plays, a cultural history and scripted tv and radio programmes.
Seren was lucky enough to publish six original works including The Gift of a Daughter which won Welsh Book of the Year, plus his three classic books, and will be making more of his backlist available in the coming months. Emyr was delightful and professional to work with, as astute in his relationships as he was in his writing, generous in his dealings with people and wholehearted in his support of colleagues. We shall miss him, as a person and as an author; Wales will miss him as an unparalleled commentator on the country and people he loved.
Mick Felton
 
Photo by Bernard Mitchell. 

Last week, the Forward Arts Foundation published the Forward Book of Poetry 2021 containing the best poetry from 2020, including those shortlisted and highly commended in the 2020 Forward Prizes. 
We are delighted that ‘Our Front Garden’ from Cath Drake’s debut collection The Shaking City  and the title poem from Tamar Yoseloff’s most recent collection The Black Place are both amongst the poems which have been highly commended. 
The winners of the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2020 will be announced on 25 October. See the shortlists here.

Earlier this year a new Italian edition of The Immigration Handbook by Caroline Smith was published by Edizioni dell’asino. 
Il manuale dell’immigrazione  was translated by Prof Paola Splendor. Caroline thanks her for the hours spent ensuring “you have captured the spirit of my poems” on her website, adding “I have found the time we have spent deliberating over words fascinating and wonderful.”
She gives further thanks to Derek Duncan, Professor of Italian, School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews who initiated the project through The Press Play Conference at the British School of Rome in February 2019.
Il manuale dell’immigrazione can be bought here: https://asinoedizioni.it/libro/il-manuale-dellimmigrazione/

Robert Walton has been awarded first place in the North American Festival of Wales Eisteddfod Poetry Competition. Inaugurated this year, the competition asked for poems in Welsh or in English on the theme of Gobaith/Hope. The competition attracted entries in Welsh and English, from six nations spanning four continents. 
Robert’s winning poem is ‘Alphabet’ which features a beloved school teacher Mrs Jones who also appears in several poems in Robert’s collection Sax Burglar Blues. 
The North American Festival of Wales is an annual festival organised by the Welsh North American Association. The association’s aim is to preserve, develop and promote Welsh cultural heritage and traditions, including the Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu.
This year the festival is virtual and available to watch online between the 4th and 30th September 2020. Visit festivalofwales.org to enjoy.

On Thursday 3rd September, Virtual First Thursday will return after our short summer break. Unbelieveably, this will be the fifth First Thursday held online and although we can’t wait for the day we can once again get together in person, we’re delighted that we’ve been able to host so many fantastic events online since the beginning of lockdown. 
We’re extremely grateful to everyone who has joined us virtually in recent months. It’s been great to have people tuning in from all over the world, and to see the familiar faces of First Thursday regulars who have moved away. We’ve even welcomed new faces who we hope will continue to join us.
As we move into the autumn we are introducing a small charge so that we can continue supporting our guest readers. 
For our first event back, we are joined by three great authors – André Mangeot whose poetry collection Blood Rain came out in February, Euron Griffith whose novel Miriam, Daniel and Me was released at the end of July and poet Paul Henry whose most recently collection was The Glass Aisle. If you would like to join us, please register via Eventbrite here:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/virtual-first-thursday-september-tickets-117740257279. 
As usual we will host an open mic after the readers. Please sign up in advance by emailing [email protected].
We want to continue expanding the reach of our online events so please help us spread the word by inviting your friends and families to join us. Everyone is welcome!

On Friday 31 July, it was announced that Zoë Skoulding and her collection Footnotes to Water have won the poetry category in the Wales Book of the Year 2020. The English language winners were announced in a special awards programme on BBC Radio Wales hosted by Nicola Heywood Thomas. 
Zoë was shortlisted alongside two other titles, Erato by Deryn Rees-Jones and Fur Coats in Tahiti by Jeremy Over (Carcanet). We were delighted to host all three poets at a special online reading last week ahead of the announcement which you can watch back here.
Speaking about her win, Zoë said: “I’m delighted by this award, especially as Footnotes to Water is in conversation with Wales in all sorts of ways. Some of the poems grew out of dialogues with artists Ben Stammers and Miranda Whall, whose work explores Welsh landscapes through visual and performance art, while my own thinking about place and its relationships developed while I was editing Poetry Wales. I’m also glad that this award – and the shortlist – recognises the excellent work done by Seren Books in sustaining English-language poetry’s role in Wales’s cultural life.”
Amy Wack, poetry editor at Seren added: “Zoë Skoulding’s wonderfully inventive and subtly musical work remains both challenging and delightful, so pleased she has won this prize.” Lleucu Siencyn, CEO of Literature Wales, also commented that Zoë’s work “always feels fresh and new.” 
The winner of English-language Book of the Year was Niall Griffiths with his novel Broken Ghost (Jonathan Cape) and Babel by Ifan Morgan Jones (Y Lolfa) was the overall winner of the Welsh-language award.
Speaking about the awards, Lleucu Siencyn said: “Wales Book of the Year is one of the highlights of our cultural calendar, and this year more than ever we are extremely pleased to be able to continue to shine a light on our incredible literary talents. Literature helps to guide us through our darkest hours, as well as bringing joy and hope to readers of all ages. Wales consistently produces excellent writers, and this Award is testament to this each year. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners!”
Wales Book of the Year is an annual award hosted by Literature Wales. Other categories include Fiction, Creative Non-fiction and, new for this year, Children and Young People. You can see the full list of winners in both Welsh and English on the Literature Wales website. 

We are delighted to share that both Deryn Rees-Jones and Zoë Skoulding have been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year in the poetry category.
The judges for the English-language books this year were author and illustrator Ken Wilson-Max; author, teacher and translator Sampurna Chattarji; and Fulbright Scholar, Senior Lecturer and Hay Festival Fellow, Tiffany Murray. 
On behalf of the judging panel, Sampurna Chattarji said: “It’s been both a joy and a challenge being on the panel for WBOTY 2020. The quality of the poetry was consistently high, with a huge range of voices and concerns, so whittling the list down was quite a task! I’m very happy with the shortlists that we arrived at, across the categories.  The entire process of reading, thinking about and discussing poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children’s books with my co-judges has only deepened my long-term relationship with Wales, its literatures, and my appreciation of its commitment to a robust community of writers and readers, in English as well as in Welsh.”
You can see the full English and Welsh-language shortlists on the Literature Wales website here. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the winners will be announced on the BBC Radio Wales Arts Show on Friday 31 July from 6.00 pm. 
Poetry shortlist 
Fur Coats in Tahiti, Jeremy Over (Carcanet)
Erato, Deryn Rees-Jones (Seren)
Footnotes to Water, Zoë Skoulding (Seren)
 
Have your say and vote for your favourite book on the shortlist for the People’s Choice Award, vote now. 

Poetry Wales are raising money to set up a new bilingual competition and anthology for young people aged 10-17 across Wales and the UK, but they need your help.
In order to run the Wales Young Poets Award, which will be free to enter and have a theme of empathy, they need to raise a minimum of £3000 which will go towards prizes, judging, translation and the cost of a print anthology.
However, they’d also like to create a set of new accessible online resources that will give all students, whether in school or learning from home during the pandemic, a fair chance. These new resources will include activity plans and video lessons on writing and performing poetry, and will be designed to compliment the new Welsh national curriculum, whilst also giving priority to freelance poets who have lost income due to Coronavirus. Your support up to £6000 would help make this possible. 
Any additional funds over £6000, will be put towards subsidising free entries for low-income writers into the Wales Poetry Award which launched last year. 
Their crowdfunder is running until 8.59am on Friday 10th July so please donate today if you would like to support the campaign and don’t forget to share it with your friends and family. Help them support the next generation of poets.  
DONATE
 

 
What your support will fund
Your support up to £3000 will fund Wales Young Poets Award, including prizes, a print anthology sent to schools in Wales, judging and bilingual translation.
Your support up to £6000 will fund the creation of freely accessible poetry resources, including activity plans and video lessons for young poets. These are designed to complement the new Welsh national curriculum. 
Support exceeding £6000 will be used to subsidise free entry to Wales Poetry Award for those from low-income backgrounds, ensuring fair access for all.
 
DONATE
 

We are delighted to hear that Seren poet Polly Atkin has been awarded a Northern Writers’ Award for Poetry, 2020. 
Established in 2000 by New Writing North, the Northern Writers’ Awards supports work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England.
Of winning the award Polly said:
“Winning a Northern Writers’ Award would never not be a great boost to both morale and finances, but this year it feels like a life-saver. I had to keep re-reading the email to check it was real. Like many freelance writers, I lost most of paid work for the year in March. Like many disabled and chronically ill writers, I’m facing a long period of uncertainty, knowing it may not be save to resume face-to-face work for many months to come. This award not only offers creative encouragement when I really need it, but financial support which will make continuing to create possible. It has saved my year.”
Polly’s debut collection Basic Nest Architecture was longlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, 2019. We are due to publisher her second collection in 2021.