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This year’s Man Booker long list was notable for its inclusion of first novelists and small publishers. In this piece on the Book Brunch website, Mick Felton, Publisher of Bridgend-based indie Seren, reflects on a sudden appearance on a lot of radars. Full interview on www.bookbrunch.co.uk

To celebrate our 30th birthday, we’re giving people in Bridgend Borough the chance to read a Seren book for free.*
White Ravens is “a spellbinding fable about male self-destructiveness and the effects of the war on those who return home”. (FT) by award-winning author, Owen Sheers.
One of Seren’s series of New Stories from the Mabinogion, it is set partly in World War Two, in the recent past.
“Fuses Welsh myth and modern macabre into a superb, bewitching whole.” (Sunday Times)
“Sheers writes with dazzle and poetic economy.” (The Times)
“…a gripping contemporary story that brilliantly adsorbs the magical elements of the original.” (Guardian)
Get hold of your copy* for your local library, or contact Seren on 01656 663 018 or [email protected].
Read the book, pass it around your friends, review it on Amazon or send your comments to Seren’s Facebook Page.
* one coy per person, subject to availability

Titles that are included in the 3 for 2 offer at selected local book stores:
Touch by Graham Mort – Winner of the Edge Hill Univeristy Short Story Prize 2011. Also includes 2007 Bridport winning short story ‘The Prince’. “A true pleasure from first page to last” New Welsh Review
The Colour of Grass by Nia Williams – “This read will draw you into its story within minutes” Woman Magazine”..witty, wry and charming” Western Mail
Sing Sorrow Sorrow by Gwen Davies – a chilling collection of supernatural myth and otherworldly horror stories from some of Wales’ most exciting new and established authors. “Excellent collection” bookgeeks.co.uk
The Brittle Sea: New and Selected Poems by Paul Henry – “The new, previously unpublished poems…represent the best work of a lyric poet who deserves a wider readership.” TLS
“There’s a consistency of tone and voice in Paul Henry’s work – gentle, regretful and effortlessly musical – stretching from the earliest poems in 1991’s Time Pieces right through to the present day” Magma
Fire Drill: Notes on the twenty-first century by John Barnie – “This reasoned, readable atheistic and humanist collection stares the world uncompromisingly in the face – something most of us try to avoid” Western Mail
Time Being by Ruth Bidgood – WINNER of the Roland Mathias Prize 2011 and also a Poetry Society Recommendation.
The Mabinogion Series – Retelling of the Mabingogion stories
White Ravens by Owen Sheers – “a gripping tale of the unexpected that fuses Welsh myth and modern macabre into a superb, bewitching whole” Sunday Times
“a gripping contemporary story… brilliantly absorbs the magical elements of the original” The Guardian
The Ninth Wave by Russell Celyn Jones – The Ninth Wave is an arresting, contemporary retelling of a centuries-old Welsh myth.
The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis – “It provides a satisfying bizarre context for a narrative about an unfaithful woman made of flowers who turns into an owl, while Lewis’s inspector observes events from a hilariously jobs-worth perspective” The Guardian
“The successful recreation of myth requires a wiliness that exceeds that of the original; myth makers, and Lewis patiently and skillfully demonstrates that wiliness in presenting to her readers” TLS
The Dreams of Max and Ronnie by Niall Griffiths – “..both tales include passages of razor-sharp humour as well as great beauty and poignancy…” New Welsh Review
“Griffiths also supplies the best sign-off of the series so far” The Guardian
Brand New! The White Trail by Fflur Dafydd – Life is tough for Cilydd’s, 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.
Brand New! The Prince’s Pen by Horatio Clare – Award-winning author Horatio Clare refracts politics, faith and the contemporary world order through the prism of some of the earliest British myth, the Mabinogion, to ask who are the outsiders, the infidels and who the enemy within.
BOOKSHOPS:
Palas Print – Caernarfon, Palas Print Pendref – Bangor, The Hours – Brecon, Book-ish – Crickhowell, Chepstow Bookshop, Caban – Cardiff, National Musuem of Wales St Fagans – Cardiff, National Musuem of Wales Main Gallery – Cardiff, National Musuem of Wales Roman Legion – Caerleon, Wales Millennium Centre – Portmeirion, Nickleby’s – Llantwit Major, Verzon Books – Llandrindod Wells, Siop Hen Bont – Bridgend, Senedd Bookshop – Cardiff, Siop y Ganolfan – Merthyr, Burway Books – Church Stretton, Pemberton’s – Hay, Arts Centre Bookshop – Aberystwyth,
Tenby Bookshop, Cover to Cover – Mumbles (Swansea), Awen Teifi – Cardigan, National Library of Wales – Aberystwyth, National Museum of Wales Waterfront Museum – Swansea and Siop Sian – Crymych

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

Guest of Honour Dannie Abse.
We are having a street party here at Bridgend on the 1st October 2011, 11am – 4pm.
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/

Join Robert Seatter at the official launch of his latest poetry collection Writing King Kong at RADA in London.Friday September 16th 2011 7pm-9pm The Foyer, RADA, Malet Street, London WC1 7JN
Nearest Tube: Goodge Street, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road

Tony Curtis will be signing copies of Real South Pembrokeshire at the Tenby Bookshop, Tudor Square, Tenby Saturday  17th September 11am.
Poet, and past resident and frequent visitor Tony Curtis roams south Pembrokeshire, from costal resorts of Tenby and Saundersfoot, west to the surfers of Stackpole and Barafundle and north to the Landsker, the cultural boundary between English speaking south Pembs and the Welsh speaking north.

Join Seren author Barry Plummer in conversation with Roy Noble on the recent publication of Evan Walters: Moments of Vision.
Waterstone’s The Hayes, Cardiff 1st September 2011 6pm-8pm
Evan Walters (1893-1951) is perhaps the great hidden secret of Welsh painting in the twentieth century, an outstanding artist who awaits discovery beyond Wales. This book presents, for the first time, a generous selection of colour reproductions of his paintings – portraits, landscapes, still lives – with a biographical essay on the artist. The bulk of the book, however, is taken up by a host of responses to the paintings by leading artists, writers, poets and academics including Shani Rhys James, Iwan Bala, Mary Lloyd Jones, Jan Morris, Twm Morys, Nigel Jenkins, Rowan Williams, Dannie Abse, Peter Stead, Prys Morgan, Gillian Clarke, Tim Davies, Mererid Hopwood, Karen Ingham, John Barnie, Jon Gower, Peter Finch, Joe Dunthorne, Menna Elfyn, Janet Dube, Osi Rhys Osmond, Mel Gooding and many others.
The book is unique in one other respect in that all the royalties are being donated to the Noah’s Ark Appeal for the Children’s Hospital of Wales.
www.noahs-ark-appeal.org

First time novelist Patrick McGuinness is one of the Man Booker dozen on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize 2011 for fiction announced today.

The Last Hundred Days a literary spy thriller and novel of place, is set in 1989 Bucharest, in the last days of Ceasescu and creates a world of intensity and ravaged beauty as the demolition squads race to destroy the old city and replace it with a sinister Stalinist Legoland. Into this paranoia walks a young English student with a damaged past and an uncertain future to take up a job he never applied for and whose duties are never made clear. He finds dissidents, party apparatchiks, black-marketeers, diplomats, spies and ordinary Romanians, all watching each other as Europe’s most paranoid regime plays out its bloody endgame.

“We are absolutely delighted for Patrick,” said Seren fiction editor Penny Thomas. “This is a stunning debut novel and we are so pleased that it has been recognised by the Man Booker judges. It’s also excellent news for a small independent Welsh press such as Seren.’

The full longlist is:

• Julian Barnes  The Sense of an Ending
• Sebastian Barry On Canaan’s Side
• Carol Birch Jamrach’s Menagerie
• Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers
• Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues
• Yvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats
• Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger’s Child
• Stephen Kelman  Pigeon English
• Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days
• AD Miller Snowdrops
• Alison Pick Far to Go
• Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb
• DJ Taylor Derby Day

Patrick McGuinness, poet and Professor or Literature at Oxford University, lived in Romania in the years leading up to the revolution.

The Last Hundred Days is available at www.serenbooks.com at £8.99

TONY CURTIS LAUNCHES REAL SOUTH PEMBROKESHIRE
Join Tony Curtis at the Oriel Queens Gallery, Narberth this Saturday (20th August) for the official launch of the latest addition to the Seren Real Series. 12pm – 2pm with a talk at 1pm. Refreshments. More…
THE LAST HUNDRED DAYS BY PATRICK MCGUINNESS LONG-LISTED FOR MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2011
Patrick McGuinness’s debut novel has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011. The Last Hundred Days is on the longlist with 12 other titles. More…
FORWARD PRIZE SHORTLIST
Nerys Williams Sound Archive and Judy Brown Loudness, both shortlisted for the Forward Prize ‘Best First Collection’ 2011. More…
GRAHAM MORT WINS EDGE HILL UNIVERSITY SHORT STORY PRIZE 2011
Graham Mort scooped the Edge Hill Short Story prize 2011, with his collection Touch. The winner was announced at Blackwells, Charing Cross Road in London. More…