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Pascale Petit Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2011

Pascale Petit has been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2011 for her latest collection What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo.

Literature Wales announced the 2011 shortlist in both Caernarfon and Cardiff.

Pascale Petit, who was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales, was named one of the Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society and Arts Council in 2004. What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, 2010) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and was a Book of the year in theObserver.  She has published five poetry books, three of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and which were also Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement, Observer and the Independent. Her second collection The Zoo Father was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was published in Mexico in a bilingual edition. A poem from it was shortlisted for a Forward Prize.

See who else made the shortlist – click here

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Seren Authors at the Hay Festival

A whole host of Seren authors will be appearing at this year’s Telegraph Hay Festival from 30th May to 4th June – Gwyneth Lewis, Niall Griffiths, Ken Elias, Ceri Thomas, Paul Henry, Mavis Nicholson, Peter J. Conradi and Grahame Davies. Book your tickets now on the Hay Festival website: www.hayfestival.com

Gwyneth Lewis and Niall Griffiths
New Stories from the Mabinogion
Event 146 • Monday 30 May 2011, 2.30pm • Venue: Summer House
Two more new versions of the Welsh mythologies. Lewis spins the tale of Blodeuwedd, the woman made of flowers, into a sci-fi setting in The Meat Tree. Griffiths conjures an Iraq-bound squaddie and a Cardiff gangsta in The Dreams of Max and Ronnie.
Price: £6.00

Ken Elias talks to Ceri Thomas
Thin Partitions
Event 178 • Tuesday 31 May 2011, 11:30am • Venue: Elmley Foundation Theatre
An illustrated conversation surveying forty years of the esteemed Glynneath artist’s work in painting, collage and photomontage.
Price: £5.00

Paul Henry & Patrick Jones
The Brittle Sea, Hafan Cymru
Event 257 • Thursday 2 June 2011, 1pm • Venue: The Moot
Paul Henry reads and discusses his New and Selected Poems. The individual human voice, the ragged vagaries of the heart and soul, the joys and sorrows of family life feature here but this poetry is personal without being confessional, preferring tender observation to sensationalism or didacticism. Jones reads writing arising from his work with victims of domestic abuse. Chaired by Benna Waites.
Price: £4.00

Mavis Nicholson talks to Sarah Crompton
What Did You Do in the War, Mummy?
Event 275 • Thursday 2 June 2011, 6.45pm • Venue: Sky Arts Studio
The broadcaster has interviewed women from lumber-jills and landgirls to undercover spies and entertainers about the new freedoms, the make-do and mend, the hopes and the fears, as well as the post-war adjustments they had to make.
Price: £6.00

Brenda Maddox, Peter J Conradi, Tom Bullough
At the Bright Hem of God: Radnorshire Pastoral
Event 291 • Friday 3 June 2011, 10am • Venue: Elmley Foundation Theatre
The authors discuss how the wild, rural landscape of Radnorshire inspires their work and that of others before them, from Gerald of Wales to Vaughan and Traherne, Francis Kilvert, Eric Gill, David Jones and Bruce Chatwin.
Price: £5.00

Grahame Davies talks to Merryl Wyn Davies
The Dragon and the Crescent
Event 340 • Saturday 4 June 2011, 10am • Venue: Elmley Foundation Theatre
Nine centuries of contact between Wales and Islam. Chaired by the Director of the Muslim Institute.
Price: £5.00

Seren hopes to see as many of you there as possible!

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Ruth Bidgood wins the Roland Mathias Prize 2011

Ruth Bidgood wins the Roland Mathias Prize 2011 with her collection of poetry Time Being, published by Seren (2009).

The £3,000 prize was awarded to Ruth Bidgood at ceremony in Roland Mathias’ home town of Brecon, supported by BBC Wales and hosted by Nicola Heywood Thomas, presenter of Radio Wales’ Arts Show.

In future years, it is to be incorporated into the Wales Book of the Year.

Congratulations Ruth!

Ruth Bidgood with editor Amy Wack at the prize giving event in Brecon.


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Pascale Petit at Bath Spa University

Poet Pascale Petit will be reading her poetry on Monday 11th April, 8pm, at Bath Spa University Stand Up Poetry Series reading. The Duncan Room, Bath Royal Scientific and Literary Institution, Queen’s Square, Bath BA1 2HN. Entrance £7.50 (£5 concs). Doors open 7.30pm Phone: 01225 312084 [email protected]

www.brlsi.org/index.html

For more information on poet Pascale Petit check out our website or look under ‘Seren Authors’ on our blog.

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Ruth Bidgood, Reading at Oriel Davies Gallery

Friday 1st April, 7 pm. Ruth Bidgood will be reading at Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown with Jan Fortune-Wood.-Ruth’s most recent collection Time Being is shortlisted for the Roland Mathias Prize.

Find out more about Ruth Bidgood the poet and her published works with Seren on our website www.serenbooks.com or under our ‘Seren Authors’ category on our blog.

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Bruce Cardwell Launches Noteworthy – Machynlleth

Bruce Cardwell will exhibit a selection of pictures from the Noteworthy: Images of Welsh Music project at Moma Wales. Mavis Nicholson will open the exhibition at 12pm Saturday 2nd April 2011.

Bruce Cardwell will then celebrate the publication of Noteworthy at 1pm at Y Tabernacl auditorium and will be signing books early afternoon. Robin Huw Bowen will be playing the triple harp, Bowen’s influence on the worlds of Welsh folk music and harping has been far-reaching.

For more information please visit www.momawales.org.uk or call 01654 703355

Bruce Cardwell author of Hoofpicks: Photographs of Horse in Wales, is also celebrating a birthday concert at Y Tabernaci, 8th April which includes an excellent programme of Celtic Music.

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The Roland Mathias Prize 2011

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROLAND MATHIAS PRIZE

Seren author Ruth Bidgood has been shortlisted for the Roland Mathias Prize 2011.

The event which will take place 7.oopm Friday 8th April, The Guildhall Brecon, recognises works published in the fields of poetry, short stories, literary criticism and Welsh history.

The event hosted by BBC Cymru/Wales will include readings by the shortlisted authors.

A Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
Time Being is Ruth Bidgood’s  10th collection in a career that spans almost 40 years. It has been said, rightly, that Bidgood’s work is ‘emphatically a poetry of location’ and it is the history and nature of her particular region of mid-Wales that most inspire the author. Her narratives are often literally exploratory and discursive as in ‘Viewpoint’ where a walk in the countryside revives both personal memories and knowledge of the stories associated with a place. Her distinctive voice has a quiet authority but also a subtle, conspiratory edge, as if she is letting one in on a secret, unveiling a hidden fact, or making a discovery. She avoids sentimentality, but – unfashionably – not sentiment; an observation can engender joy or sorrow or fear uncluttered by irony.  Her descriptions are sharp and memorable, tending to a cool accuracy. Nature is not always a benign presence but also often inescapably dark and mysterious as in’ Illusion’ where “A goshawk climbs a tower of air and is gone”. Also notable here are several substantial sequences: ‘Gaps’, ‘Time Being’, ‘Reading a Landscape’. These are ambitious attempts to transcend the lyric and move towards a more epic, multi-faceted form equal to the many experiences of her long life.


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David Hurn and John Fuller present ‘Writing the Picture’

Join Seren in celebrating Writing the Picture with authors David Hurn and John Fuller Thursday April 7th 2011, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 7.30pm and Tuesday 12th April 2011 at the Drill Hall, Chepstow. Admission £2.00, redeemable against purchase at the event.

David Hurn, well known for his Magnum photographs and the iconic Sean Connery image as James Bond.  John Fuller is an acclaimed poet and novelist, author of fourteen volumes of poetry and several works of fiction including “Flying to Nowhere” shortlisted for the Booker and winner of the Whitbread Award.

Writing the Picture is a rare and fascinating collaboration. Even more rare, it is a collaboration in which the poet responds to images, rather than a photographer or artists ‘illustrating’ a poem.

“This brave volume offers a proud collaboration between two masters of their chosen arts.”  The Independent

If you are unable to attend this event, ‘Writing the Picture’ is available at www.serenbooks.com – join the book club and receive 20% off all purchases.

This event is supported by Academi
www.academi.org

We look forward to seeing you in Cardiff and Chepstow!

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‘The Colour of Grass’ book launch

Nia Williams The Colour of Grass book launch

You are invited to celebrate the publication of The Colour of Grass by Nia Williams at George & Delila Café, 104 Crowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JE  April 5th 2011 5.30pm

Who did she think she was? Helen’s family is falling apart. There will be no answers from her husband anymore and she can’t communicate with her grown-up daughter. She’s not sure of anything anymore. So she turns to the relatives: the ones who are dead and gone.
Straight away she finds herself floundering in a new world of friends, secrets, enemies and family history enthusiasts. Clandestine meetings, a mugging, and the surprisingly tragic story of her mystery grandmother – all these weave themselves into Helen’s present and past.

With family history flourishing online, on TV and in magazines, The Colour of Grass is a gentle and touching story of families past and present, the identities we create for life’s unexpected connections and ourselves.

Refreshments available.

Seren hopes to see as many of you that can make it!