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The shortlist for the inaugural Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize has just been announced, and Seren poet Judy Brown’s collection Crowd Sensations is in the running, alongside five other great collections. In the words of the Ledbury Forte panel, the shortlist recognises the work of ‘serious writers’ and ‘ethical word-wizards’ whose poetry made the judges ‘rethink what a book, or collection, of poetry can be’.
The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize shortlist is entirely made up of collections published by independent publishing houses. Chloe Garner, Artistic Director of Ledbury Poetry Festival, notes that ‘this perhaps reflects the particular commitment of independent publishers to nurturing poets beyond their debuts and to supporting poets who take risks with their work, pushing their themes, style and language into new and exciting territories’.
The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize is the first in the UK to celebrate poets’ second collections. The £5,000 prize will be awarded at the 21st Ledbury Poetry Festival in July at a reading given by the winning poet and this year’s two main poet judges, Vahni Capildeo and Tara Bergin.
Find the full shortlist on the Ledbury Festival website.
 
 
 
 

Enter our giveaway to win a copy of Newspaper Taxis, an anthology of poems inspired by The Beatles.
To enter, simply sign up to the Seren newsletter before 1st July:https://www.serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup
 
About Newspaper Taxis:In January 1963 the single ‘Please, Please Me’ shot to number one, heralding the start of both Beatlemania and the swinging sixties. In the next few years The Beatles wrote the template for pop music. Their songs defined popular culture at a time when it was inspiring social change in Europe and North America, and this book collects poems that both respond to the music and to their influence on the way we lived then and the way we live now.With contributions by a myriad of poets, young and old, including Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy, Elaine Feinstein, Peter Finch, Adrian Henri, Philip Larkin, Lachlan Mackinnon, Roger McGough, Sheenagh Pugh, Jeremy Reed and Carol Rumens, this book is a response to The Beatles’ creativity and capacity to influence successive generations.
(All royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to Claire House Children’s Hospice)
 
The winner of this giveaway will be chosen at random from all our email subscribers on 1st July 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
 
 
 

In the 2017 election of new Fellows to the Learned Society of Wales, two Seren writers are among the 44 to have been elected: Jasmine Donahaye and Christopher Meredith.
Election to Fellowship is a public recognition of academic excellence, and LSW Fellowship is keenly competed. Fellows are elected following a rigorous examination of their achievements in their relevant fields.  This election further strengthened the Society’s Fellowship by adding 44 new Fellows to its ranks, including two new Honorary Fellows, the former President of Ireland Professor Mary McAleese and Lord Stewart Sutherland, Baron Sutherland of Houndwood. The Society now has more than 460 Fellows, distinguished men and women from all branches of learning who are prominent figures within their respective academic disciplines or professions.
Dr Jasmine Donahaye is among the new Fellows working in Welsh culture. Her memoir Losing Israel was the 2016 winner of the Wales Book of the Year Open University in Wales Creative Non-Fiction Award. She has eight years working in Welsh publishing, including two years as editor of Planet, and is Associate Professor at Swansea University.
Christopher Meredith joins the Fellows working in Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences. He is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, University of South Wales. He is an award-winning author of four novels and three collections of poetry and also tranlsates Welsh to English. Prizes include an Eric Gregory Award, the Arts Council of Wales Young Writer Prize and the Fiction Prize. His most recent novel is The Book of Idiots (2012).
 
 
 
 
 
 

Today is Dylan Day – an international day celebrating the life and work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, held on 14 May each year to mark the date Under Milk Wood was first read on stage at 92Y The Poetry Center, New York in 1953.
 
Why not celebrate Dylan Day with one of our Dylan Thomas related titles – 50% off for today only. 
 
Find out more about Dylan Thomas through Dylan Remembered: Volume One: 1914-1934 and Dylan Remembered: Volume Two: 1914-1934, which collect together transcribed interviews about the poet. Journalist, broadcaster, and author Colin Edwards interviewed numerous sources close to Thomas for a planned biography of the poet, but he was unable to begin work before his early death. The transcribed tapes disclose startling new information about Thomas’s life and writing, including influences on his writing and the sources from which he drew inspiration and storylines.
 
Read David N. Thomas’ Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas, which draws on the author’s extensive research, and uncovers startling new evidence, to produce the definitive answers in a superbly written account which balances historical context with forensic detail, Thomas’ character with the demands made upon him by friends, lovers and his reading public.
 
For something more lighthearted, enjoy Gwyneth Lewis’ novella, Advantages of the Older Man, in which a Swansea woman believes she is possessed by the spirit of Dylan Thomas. Naturally all is not as it seems. The woman, who works in the Dylan Thomas Centre, meets a rather different Dylan from the one she knows by repute, one who doesn’t really fit in with the ghosts of other poets in heaven and is desperate to train himself to join the fitter shades of the long distance runners instead. Her own life, which has been lonely and sad, is completely transformed by the encounter.
 
All books mentioned above are 50% off until midnight tonight.