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10 Deals for Black Friday

This Black Friday we’re offering 50% off these 10 fantastic Seren books – perfect for Christmas, or as a personal Black Friday Treat.  Offer ends Sunday 1st December.

This cover shows a painting of rolling golden fields stretching into the distance where a lake sits at the bottom of the valley. The text reads: A Last Respect

A Last Respect: The Roland Mathias Prize Anthology

Edited by Glyn Mathias & Daniel G. Williams

£9.99 – Reduced to £4.99

Celebrating the best of contemporary Welsh poetry, A Last Respect features poems from the eleven collections awarded the Roland Mathias Prize. Featuring work by Dannie Abse, Tiffany Atkinson, Ruth Bidgood, Ailbhe Darcy, Rhian Edwards, Christine Evans, John Freeman, Philip Gross, Gwyneth Lewis, Robert Minhinnick, and Owen Sheers, these poems cover a wide range of topics from relationships, nature and environmental issues, to mortality, time, war, Wales, and even the minefield of parents’ evenings. The perfect gift for any poetry lover.

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This cover has a bright pink background. A cut out image of a young Lucy Cannon wearing a white comunion gown with her hands raised in prayer and drawn devil horns is in the middle. The text reads: The Amazingly Astonishing Story by Lucy Gannon.

The Amazingly Astonishing Story

Lucy Gannon

£12.99 – Reduced to £6.49

Lucy Gannon is the writer of 8 plays and 18 TV dramas or series, including The Best of Men, Soldier Soldier, Peak Practice, Bramwell, and Dad. By turns laugh out loud funny and deeply sad, The Amazingly Astonishing Story is her childhood memoir, a classic story of a working-class girl growing up in the fifties and sixties, where dreams and reality seem irreconcilable. Her Catholic upbringing, a father torn between his daughter and his new wife, a chance meeting with The Beatles in the school playground and her irreverent imagination and determination to enjoy life, really does make this an amazing story.

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This cover shows a close up photo of a broken wire fence threaded with barbed wire. The text reads: What Remains at the End. Alexandra Ford.

What Remains at the End

Alexandra Ford

£9.99 – Reduced to £4.99

Marie Kohler’s grandparents didn’t talk about their past, or how they came to America. Wanting to know more about her own history, Marie travels to the former Yugoslavia where she learns of atrocities committed against Yugoslavia’s ethnic Germans, the Danube Swabians, in the aftermath of World War II by Tito’s Partisan regime. Stories of Tito’s victims – a young survivor who has lost his mother and his identity, a woman held captive in a sugar factory, a refugee girl living in Austria under the din of air raid sirens – merge with Marie’s own journey as she searches for truth and connection in the face of loss and long-held family secrets.

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This cover shows a watercolour illustration of a winding river surrounded by blank white space. The text reads: A Fold in the River. Phillip Gross. Valerie Coffin Price.

A Fold in the River

Philip Gross and Valerie Coffin Price

£12.99 – Reduced to £6.49

The result of a collaboration between T.S. Eliot prize-winning poet Philip Gross and visual artist Valerie Coffin Price, A Fold in the River is a creative conversation between words and paint, set on the banks of the River Taff. Considering the river, nature, landscape, history and ways of seeing, this book is for anyone who has experienced the beauty of our ancient waterways.

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This cover shows a paper cut out of a tree and a chapel casting shadow on a purple background. The text reads: The White Trail. Fflur Dafydd. New Stories From the Mabinogion.

The White Trail

Fflur Dafydd

£8.99 – Reduced to £4.49

Life is tough for Cilydd, after his wife Goleuddydd, who is nine months pregnant, seems to vanish into thin air at a supermarket one wintry afternoon. Cilydd gets his cousin, Arthur – a private eye who has never solved a single case – to help him with the investigation. So begins a tale of intrigue and confusion that ends with a wild boar chase and a dangerous journey to the House of the Missing. In this contemporary retelling, award-winning Welsh writer Fflur Dafydd transforms the medieval Welsh Arthurian myth of the Mabinogion’s ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ into a 21st century quest for love and revenge.

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This cover shows a black and white photograph of a boy sat alone on a hospital bed. One of his legs is missing from the knee down and he is resting on crutches. The text reads: Aperture: Life Through a Fleet Street Lens. John Downing.

Aperture: Life Through a Fleet Street Lens

John Downing with Wendy Holden

£19.99 – Reduced to £9.99

John Downing was the pre-eminent press photographer of his generation and seven-time winner of the British Press Photographer of the Year. Aperture: Life Through a Fleet Street Lens is an account of his life and a career which placed him at the forefront of photojournalism during one of the most interesting periods in world history. Exploring both the glamour of journalism at the time and the gruelling nature of assignments in places such as South Sudan, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Uganda, Bangladesh and Chernobyl, this is a unique and first-hand insight into life behind the Fleet Street lens during a ‘golden age’ of photojournalism.

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This cover shows an abstract painting of a fiery sun shining red, yellow and orange rays. The text reads: Kidnap Fury of the Smoking Lovers, Peter Benson

Kidnap Fury of the Smoking Lovers

Peter Benson

£9.99 – Reduced to £4.99

Fargo Hawkins dropped out of school. Now he is a gardener. He’s twenty years old, and works for Harry Swaine, an abusive butcher with a chain of shops on the south coast of England. After witnessing a fight between Harry and Anne (Harry’s wife) Fargo steals a car and together he, Anne and a dog called Radar go on the run. They have £9,653, a bag of apples, a penknife and three bottles of wine. Where will their journey take them, and what will they discover about themselves and each other along the way?

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This cover shows a photograph of James Roberts. The text reads: The Longest Farewell, James, Dementia and Me by Nula Suchet

The Longest Farewell

Nula Suchet

£12.99 – Reduced to £6.49

The Longest Farewell is Nula Suchet’s moving account of caring for her husband, James, after he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of early-onset dementia. Her account considers the effect this distressing disease had on both James and those around him as his condition worsened. Nula describes her initial shock and sadness, as well as her frustration and eventual feeling of guilt when faced with the difficult decision to place him in care. There, Nula meets Bonnie, another resident suffering from the same condition, and in turn her husband, broadcaster John Suchet. The similarities of Nula and John’s positions brings them closer together and after James and Bonnie have passed away, this heartbreaking story finds an unexpectedly happy ending.

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This cover shows a painting my Shani Rhys James of a child peering over the edge of a table where a jug balances on the edge of falling. The text reads: Women's Work. Edited Eva Salzman and Amy Wack.

Women’s Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English

Edited by Eva Salzman & Amy Wack

£14.99 – Reduced to £7.49

This landmark anthology is a touchstone of women’s experiences in the 21st century. Covering various topics from love, family and the body, to war, politics and displacement, Women’s Work brings together 250 of the best poems by women ever published. Eva Salzman’s introduction considers whether there is a need for such a book to exist, opening a conversation on what constitutes the literary canon. Exploring and illuminating women’s experiences and identities in all their rich and complex variety, this is a must-read anthology. 

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This cover shows a photograph of a barn own flying over a golden field, its wings illuminated against the dark background. The text reads: The Owl House. Daniel Butler.

The Owl House

Daniel Butler

£12.99 – Reduced to £6.49

For over twenty-five years Daniel Butler has lived in the Cambrian Mountains near Rhayader, absorbing the world around him and charting its changes, slow and rapid. His passion for keeping hawks was compounded by two wild birds, barn owls, which nested at his farm and became increasingly tame and familiar with him and his family. His relationship with the birds became the starting point for a pastoral exploration of mid-Wales and the flora and fauna which inhabit it, making this a rich and vividly written account of one of the most sparsely populated areas of Britain.

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Mick Felton Obituary

4 pointed star against a black background

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of our former Publisher Mick Felton. Mick was instrumental to the establishment of Seren and a supporter of many flourishing writers from Wales and beyond. It is hard to argue that anyone has done more for the heritage and sustenance of English-language publishing in Wales over the past forty years. We know there will be many both shocked and saddened by this news.

As a very private person, Mick would not want us to share too much about what a loss this is. His determination at holding the publishing house together, come what may, is deeply admired and is the reason why Seren is still here, providing opportunities for the next generation of writers. We’ll miss his dry sense of humour and his understated pride in the classics of Welsh literature which he had a hand in creating. Mick’s retirement was cruelly short, and we’re devastated that we won’t be sharing the future classics of Welsh literature with him to read at his leisure.

We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends.

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Friday Poem – ‘Afterwards’ by Betty Doyle

Image of a dying star in the middle of a swirling cloud of dust and light

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Afterwards’ by Betty Doyle from her newly published pamphlet Fruits of Labour. Join us on Wednesday 6th November for our joint online poetry launch celebrating Fruits of Labour and Portrait in Mustard by Wendy Allen.

Afterwards the pain was so much that I curled inwards as my breath was ripped out of me: the I of my body curved until my head was buried inside my belly, contracting to a dying star. I could see the implosion at my core, hot-white, radiating outwards with high winds, light waves flying out of me when all I wanted was to unfurl, straighten, stretch my spine beyond its half-moon, point my chin sunwards, uncross myself, stand palms-up, legs spread mouth wide, to let my face, chest belly see it all – and feel it.

Register via Eventbrite to join us online on Wednesday 6th November for the launch of Fruits of Labour and Portrait in Mustard.

Register for free
Join Poetry Launch. Portrait in Mustard by Wendy Allen and Fruits of Labour by Betty Doyle. 6pm Wednesday 6th November. Online via Zoom. All welcome. Book via Eventbrite.
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Taz Rahman longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2024

Flat lay image of East of the Sun West of the Moon against a navy background.

Congratulations Taz Rahman whose debut collection East of the Sun, West of the Moon has been longlisted for the Laurel Prize for Poetry 2024.

The prize, set up by poet laureate Simon Armitage and run by the Poetry School, is awarded annually to the best collection of environmental or nature poetry published that year. This year’s judges are Mona Arshi, Caroline Bird and Kwame Dawes.

The shortlist will be announced on Monday 7 October, with prizes of £5,000 (1st prize), £2,000 (2nd prize), and £1,000 (3rd prize) awarded to the winners. There’s also a £500 award for each of the Best First Collection UK and Best International First Collection. In addition, winners will receive a commission from National Landscapes to create a poem based on their favourite UK landscape.

Poets from the 21 strong longlist will be reading at the Laurel Prize Ceremony which is due to take place on Saturday 19th October at Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of the inaugural Poetry School Summit, as well as being live streamed.

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Three Seren poets Highly Commended in Forward Prizes 2024

Flat lay picture of Battery Rocks, Grief's Alphabet and The Butterfly House

Congratulations to Kathryn Bevis, Carrie Etter and Katrina Naomi who have all been highly commended in the 2024 Forward Prizes for Poetry.

The Forward Prizes recently announced the poems featured in the Forward Book of Poetry 2025, described as ‘a snapshot of the best poetry published and performed in Britain and Ireland in the past year’. Included amongst them are Katrina Naomi’s poem ‘Golden Shovel: After Iris Murdoch’ from her collection Battery Rocks, Carrie Etter’s poem ‘The Blood, Oh the Blood’ from her collection Grief’s Alphabet and Kathryn Bevis’ ‘Everyone will be there’ from The Butterfly House.

This is poetry for our times.
Full list of poets featured in the Forward Book of Poetry 2025

The Forward Book of Poetry 2025 is dedicated to Kathryn Bevis’ memory. Kathryn was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2023 with her poem ‘My Body is Filing for Divorce’. Kathryn sadly passed away earlier this year.

For more information about the Forward Prizes including the 2024 shortlists, please visit the Forward Prizes website.