Uncategorized

Francesca Rhydderch’s debut novel The Rice Paper Diaries, has been awarded the prestigious Wales Book of the Year English Language Fiction Prize.
Owen Sheers scooped the overall prize of Wales Book of the Year as well as the Roland Mathais prize for poetry for his collection Pink Mist.
The awards are presented annually to the best Welsh and English language works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. This year’s winners were announced at ceremony at Galei Arts Centre in Caernarfon, with each category winner awarded £2000, along with a stainless steel trophy to celebrate their success. Designed by Angharad Pearce Jones, the trophy took the form of an open book.
Rhydderch’s novel dramatically brings to life the events of wartime Hong Kong. Literature Wales Chief Executive Lleucu Siencyn highlighted the international theme that had run through the judging panel’s favoured works, saying “The 2014 winners have guided readers to near and distant lands” and offered her congratulations.
Nadia Kamil, speaking on behalf of the English Language judging panel said, “We were looking for books that excited us and ones that made us want to continue reading. Francesca Rhydderch impressed us with emotional depth which carries the reader deep into the interior of the main characters.”
All of us at Seren extend our congratulations to Francesca for her well-earned success.

Francesca Rhydderch needs your votes to help her come out on top in the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award.
Nine of the shortlisted Wales Book of the Year English language titles will complete for the People’s Choice Award, and we need you to vote for your favorite. (Fran obviously!)
 
Francesca has been shortlisted with her debut novel The Rice Paper Diaries and faces stiff competition from Tessa Hadley and Tyler Keevil to be named as winner of the best English language fiction book. The winner of each category will receive £2000, with the overall Book of the Year winner receiving an additional £6000.
This year’s judges include journalist Jasper Rees, lecturer Andrew Webb, and comedian Nadia Kamil.  The winners of the 2014 prizes, including the Peoples Choice Award, will be announced at an award ceremony at Galeri Caernarfon on 10 July.
 
Voting for the Peoples Choice Award finishes at midnight on 7th July. Vote for your favorite book here
 
You can get tickets for the ceremony from the  Galeri Caernarfon website www.galericaernarfon.com 

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