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Lost & Found

Recent years have been fantastic for Wales in the literary world. 2014 saw the centenary of Dylan Thomas, this year we’re celebrating the centenary of Alun Lewis, and next year, 2016, marks the centenary of Roald Dahl.

This year in particular has been a big year for the publishing world as a whole. As well as our centenary celebrations for WW2 writer Alun Lewis, 2015 marks 150 years since the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and has even seen the publication of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set A Watchman, 55 years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird.

But Go Set A Watchman isn’t the only “lost” novel to be published this year. This year at Seren we’re publishing Morlais, a novel by Alun Lewis that was thought lost until last year.

Morlais cover

Following in the footsteps of Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley, Morlais is set during the Depression in south Wales, and follows Morlais Jenkins and his struggle when he finds himself caught in the middle of the class divide. From a long line of miners, Morlais finds his talents lean more towards poetry and academia, and when he is adopted by the local colliery owner’s wife after the death of her own son his struggle with his identity begins.

Will you be reading Morlais this year?

Don’t forget to follow our Alun Lewis Twitter and Facebook, and check out the Alun Lewis website!

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Friday Poem – Post-Script: For Gweno

This week’s poem is another taken from WW2 writer Alun Lewis’s Collected Poems, to celebrate the launch of Dr. John Pikoulis’s latest biography, Alun, Gweno & Freda, which is now available to order from our website.

For more information about Alun Lewis and the ongoing centenary celebrations, be sure to check out the Alun Lewis website, Twitter and Facebook.

Post-Script: For Gweno

If I should go away,
Beloved, do not say
‘He has forgotten me’.
For you abide,
A singing rib within my dreaming side;
You always stay.
And in the mad tormented valley
Where blood and hunger rally
And Death the wild beast is uncaught, untamed,
Our soul withstands the terror
And has its quiet honour
Among the glittering stars your voices named.

Order Alun Lewis’s Collected Poems from our website.

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Friday Poem – A Brief History of Topiary

This week’s poem comes from the late Ellie Evans’s collection, The Ivy Hides the Fig-ripe Duchess, published in 2011.

The Ivy Hides the Fig-ripe Duchess is an exhilarating first collection of poems from Ellie Evans. Using a surrealist palette of imagery and a tightly focused idiom, the author takes us on strange journeys:to the post-apocalyptic world of the title poem, or into a skewed 18th century Venice in ‘The Zograscope’. These strange worlds are always to the purpose, they are, as Marianne Moore famously said of poetry ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them.’ We obliquely unearth childhood trauma, fraught or intense relationships and also a singular (and perhaps also Welsh?) delight in rebellion, and in escape through the imagination. Poems like ‘Picnic with Earthquakes’ and ‘Jekyl Island, Georgia’ deftly align exotic locales (Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Greece and the USA,) with intimate states of mind. A fascination with art and history emerge in: ‘A Brief History of Topiary’ and ‘Two Monologues from The Odyssey’. There is also a palpable delight in technique: you will find a sonnet, a villanelle, triolets and a concise free verse where she employs rhyme, half-rhyme, and subtle alliteration.

A Brief History of Topiary

That September, in the Garden Nursery
three hundred yew cuttings, Taxus baccata,
stubbled in green, were ranked
in rows of fifty, in identical brown pots.

They were like schoolgirls waiting in Assembly
cross-legged and silent in the new Sports Hall
where the morning sun cast shadows on looped ropes
and blue lines on the floor for goals and penalties.

Years later, the young yews were planted out as hedges,
so they grew together sideways, twined, supported
each other. They made a garden room for picnics,
plays, dalliance and tennis. Some had alcoves

gouged out of them, to enclose pillars or gods,
satyrs and herms. Others were cut through, so
you could look out to another garden
or to a borrowed view. A few were special:

allowed to grow above the rest, until
frames were bolted round them. When they’re mature,
you don’t see these underlying structures for cones,
or balls, or obelisks, or whatever.

Purists won’t use frames, of course, but rely
on frequent trimming, checking from all angles.
Whichever method you chose, remember:
all stray shoots must be pinched out.

At night, the moon plays tricks on topiary,
on the giant women with their stove-pipe hats,
their capes and skirts like bells, who look as though
they’ll stride off to the woods, tearing the garden down.

Order The Ivy Hides the Fig-ripe Duchess from our website.

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Five Tips for Budding Interns

Our Marketing Assistant, Jess, shares some tips for people seeking work experience in the publishing industry.

I’ve been lucky enough to witness both ends of the spectrum in the publishing industry; I’ve been an intern, and I’ve met several interns since I started working for Seren in December 2014. This doesn’t make me a publishing expert by a long shot, but all the same there are a few tips I can offer to those of you currently seeking work experience in the publishing industry.

1) Think Ahead

Most publishing houses are very busy, and slots for work experience fill up quickly. If you want some work experience for the first week in August, you’re not going to get it if you email a publishing house in the last week of July.

I’d recommend looking into internships around a year in advance. That might sound crazy, but that year will give you plenty of time to plan your transport and possibly your accommodation – all of the major publishing houses are in London, but not everyone lives there!

To give you an idea of the timescale you’re looking at, I interned with Parthian Books in the last week of July 2014, and I first contacted them in September 2013.

2) Look outside London

I know from experience that when you start looking into publishing work experience it can feel like every single publishing house that has ever existed is in London, but that’s not the case at all. If you’re a little concerned about seeking work experience because of your finances – paying to stay in London only to work for free isn’t ideal for most people – there is a solution: look for your nearest independent publishing houses.

There are independent publishing houses all over the UK, without exception; England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have their own independent publishing houses, and most of them will accept interns. In Wales alone Seren, Parthian, Honno, and the University of Wales Press all offer work experience.

We’re based in Bridgend, which is ideal for any of you who happen to live or study in south Wales; we’re only 20 minutes away from Cardiff on the train, so we get quite a few students from the Cardiff area, though anyone’s welcome to apply just so long as you’ve completed your A Levels!

Parthian Books‘ Marketing and Editorial Office, where I interned, is based on the Swansea University campus itself, so it’s ideal for those of you who study at Swansea or live in the area.

Honno Press specialises in books written by women and is based in the Aberystwyth Arts Centre – perfect for those of you who live or study in Aberystwyth!

University of Wales Press is based in Cardiff, and is ideal for anyone interested in academic publishing.

3) Research

You don’t have to read every single book that’s ever been published by the company you’re looking into – in fact you don’t have to read any unless you want to! – but at least give their website a little browse so you know the kind of books they publish; if you’re interested in academic publishing, you might not find a fortnight at a publishing house that specialises in children’s fiction all that helpful. (Although I have to admit that, personally, I think experience is experience, and you might discover a real passion for an area of publishing you hadn’t even considered before if you try something new!)

4) Don’t panic, Mr. Mainwaring!

When you at last secure that internship, I know it can be a little nerve-wracking stepping into a professional environment, no matter how many part time jobs you’ve had. Just remember: it’s work experience. Nobody expects you to be an expert in the publishing industry, otherwise there’d be no point in work experience at all, so don’t be afraid to ask questions – in fact we love it when people ask questions! The interns that want to know more about the industry are the interns we tend to remember most vividly, and if you make a real impression you might find yourself being considered for a job a little further down the line.

So smile, talk to us and ask questions – we don’t bite!

5) Do it all again!

Never stop looking for work experience, because every placement looks impressive on your CV, regardless of what it is. Perhaps you do a week of work experience in publishing and then a week on a hotel reception desk – that’s not going to lower your chances of getting a job in publishing! All that shows is that you’re willing to work; trust me, nothing will put your potential boss off hiring you more than a huge gap on your CV where you haven’t been at university, haven’t been employed, and haven’t done any internships or voluntary work.

The more work experience you do, the more networking you’ll do, and if you manage to secure several bouts of work experience in various different publishing houses you’ll have a whole host of professionals under your belt, and if they can’t offer you a job they can at least give you a glowing reference.

Tl;dr: Plan in advance, look all over the UK, do your research, ask questions, and keep on looking!

Good luck!

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The Centenary of Alun Lewis

100 years ago today, the 1st July 1915, Alun Lewis was born. No one could have known then that he would grow into one of the most remarkable writers of the Second World War, nor that he would die under tragic circumstances at just 28 years old.

Though short, Lewis’s life was tumultuous; he was a talented academic, a gifted writer, a depressive personality, and a pacifist by nature who was faced with a war against fascism. And yet despite all that there aren’t many outside of Wales who’ve even heard his name.

At Seren, that’s something we’ve been trying to change this year.

So if you’d like to celebrate the centenary of this outstanding writer, come and join us in Aberdare today for a whole array of celebrations including the unveiling of a Royal Welsh Regiment blue plaque, re-dedications of the Lewis Bronze in Aberdare Library, an address by National Poet Gillian Clarke, and a reading of Lewis’s poetry by Brigadier Philip Napier as well as contributions from local schools.

Join us at 10:30am at Glynhafod Junior School from where the celebrations will begin, and help us to mark this occasion and remember one of the greatest writers Wales has ever produced.

Order Alun Lewis’s work from our website.

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Friday Poem – Moving In

Boy Running, Paul Henry

This week’s poem is all about books, in celebration of Independent Bookshop Week 2015! ‘Moving In’ is from Paul Henry’s latest collection, Boy Running, published earlier this year. Earlier this week Paul read at Griffin Books, an independent bookshop in Penarth, and today he and fellow Seren poet Jonathan Edwards are reading some of their poetry at the NATE conference in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Paul Henry has gained a reputation as one of of the best poets in the UK. Boy Running is his beautiful sixth collection and the first to follow  ‘The Brittle Sea: New and Selected Poems’. We begin in a ‘Studio Flat’. Cut adrift by marital break-up, the poet must sort through the emotional fallout and the various ‘chattels’ left behind; a sea of characteristic props: tables, lamps, metronomes, pianos, guitars. The poet’s sons are at the heart of this section where pathos is balanced by humour amidst the characters of a small country town.

A second section moves to the Welsh coastal town of Henry’s childhood, Aberystywth, opening with a long poem, ‘Kicking the Stone’ set in the summer of 1969. Also in this section are some familiar characters from earlier poems such as Brown Helen and Catrin Sands.

In the final sequence we meet ‘Davy Blackrock’: washed-up songwriter and modern day alter ego of Dafydd y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock), alias David Owen (1720-1749), the blind, 18th century harpist and composer who fell asleep on a hill and dreamt the famous song which bears his name. In contrast to David of the White Rock, Davy Blackrock, ‘star of an ashen town’, drags his guitar from street to hotel to bedsit, an unsettled ghost who dreams of the perfect song.

Moving In

I cannot see the flowers at my feet…
Keats – ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’

They look and wonder what they’re doing here,
those who’ve moved with me across the years –
Dylan Thomas, Picasso, Nightingale Ann,
Goble, David Trevorrow, young Fanny Brawne…
all strewn about this flat where I hide.
(Did I dream, last night, of a tide
laying its artefacts on sand?) They stare
but do not judge, or change, or care.

Dylan’s just opened Manhattan’s cigar box.
‘Try one,’ he says, ‘before you die. Fuck books.’
Pablo’s still pushing against his pane.
He listens for a nightingale in vain.
Goble tilts back in his top hat.
He and Trevorrow could not have shared a flat
but I loved them both, and Fanny Brawne.
There are crows on my roof. The light has gone.

Order Boy Running from our website.

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Independent Bookshop Week 2015

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This week it’s Independent Bookshop Week! But I’m sure you already knew that, because you’re all good eggs.

From the 20th-27th June it’s Independent Bookshop Week in Britain and Ireland. Part of the Books Are My Bag campaign, the celebrations include reading groups, author signings, and literary lunches, amongst other things, all across the country, with the aim of encouraging people to visit, and buy from, their local independent bookshop.

And you can join in!

Seren are an independent publishing house, and as such we’re delighted to have the chance to celebrate Britain’s independent bookshops. So if you’re feeling especially supportive when you pop down to your independent bookshop of choice this week, why not buy a book published by an independent publisher, too?

Here are some of our favourite independent bookshops, many of whom stock Seren titles!

Richard Booth’s Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye

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Palas Print, Caernarfon

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The Hours, Brecon

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Griffin Books, Penarth

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Book-ish, Crickhowell

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Books & Pontyclun, Pontyclun

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The Chepstow Bookshop, Chepstow

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Cover to Cover, Swansea

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Rossiter Books, Ross-on-Wye

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Booka Bookshop, Oswestry

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Burway Books, Church Stretton

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Find out more about Independent Bookshop Week by following the campaign on Twitter at @IndieBound_UK, and don’t forget to follow us at @SerenBooks, too!

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Friday Poem – Bob’s Dogs

Red Devon by Hilary Menos

This week’s poem is from Hilary Menos’s Red Devon, first published in 2013.

In the late 90’s the poet Hilary Menos moved from Camden Town in London to a farmhouse two miles from a small village in Devon. Over the next ten years, together with her husband Andy Brodie and three sons, she turned this into a 100 acre organic farm with a herd of pedigree Red Devon cows and a flock of Wiltshire Horn sheep.

In Red Devon, her second collection, Menos reveals her experiences as a “blow in” from upcountry moving into a tight-knit rural community and seeing at first hand some of the human and animal costs of the conflict between traditional farming methods and the demands of modern commercial agriculture. She also tells the story of a burgeoning love affair between farmer Grunt Garvey and haulier Jo Tucker, a romance which ends in tragedy. Alongside these two stories, one fictional and one very real, runs a concern for farmers around the world whose livelihoods – and lives – are threatened by global changes in agriculture.

Bob’s Dogs

There was the one dog, neither use nor ornament.
Each morning he lurked by the tanker’s dribbling spout
licking his chops. Spawned every cur in the district.
Bit the postman, once, and got away with it.

There was the other dog, two-bit brother to the first,
eyes like spilt milk. Danced on the slurry pit’s crust
one time too many, said Bob, and no good since.
Bit the builder’s foreman twice, and got away with it.

There was the third dog, each month went walk about
under a chicken moon, fetching and shedding stars.
Deaf to everyone but Bob’s dad, now four years
bed-bound. What shall I say? Bit nobody, yet.

And lastly there was the bitch. Bit the child.
The four shots blew through the lanes and echoed loud
in the neighbour’s eyes. Only Bob shook my hand,
hitching his trousers up with a “Welcome, my friend.”

Order Red Devon from our website.

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Friday Poem – On Becoming a Fish

This week’s poem is from Emily Hinshelwood’s second collection, On Becoming a Fish, published in 2012.

Emily Hinshelwood’s On Becoming a Fish was inspired by a series of walks around the 186 mile Pembrokeshire coastal path in West Wales, known for its spectacular views from cliffside paths skirting the Irish sea and the Bristol Channel. Deeply engaged with environmental issues through her work in community energy and climate change, the author is also a keen observer of human nature in the context of this beautiful coastline.

The poems feature: ghosts, quarries, shipwrecks, pirates, fishermen, sailors; the remnants of industrial industry as well as monuments from the past: neolithic burial sites, forts, caves, graves, memorials. Also present are characters conjured from history such as the ‘four hundred Welsh Women wearing stovepipe hats’ who foiled the last invasion of Britain at Carregwastad in 1797, as well as contemporary encounters: a retired fisherman, lifeboat crew, a lighthouse keeper and a skinny dipper.

The author says: “This collection explores ‘what happens at the boundary’ – not just the topographical boundary of sea meeting land – but the concept of boundary in itself: political borders, social barriers, environmental limits, historical divisions; the boundary between fact and fiction, between you and I.”

On Becoming a Fish

Milford Haven

Tales of the sea didn’t prepare me for this.
It all seemed so Jack Sparrow, so Barti Du,
perhaps a mermaid flung on a rock,
whales. Jonah.
You know what I mean.
Even the fish stall with its ice trays
and neat lines of flat eyes, even he spins yarns
as he slices heads into a bucket.

When you stop coming up for air,
when your lungs implode to a stillness
all that talking ceases.
All that endless talking.
And you half-remember poking
at a lobster with rubberbanded claws
noting how prehistoric it was
and someone said something about the future.

Sounds now are just noise
against my body.
This is my story.
I keep telling it over and over.
For it’s just me
defying gravity.
The swish of my tail
darting.

It’s starting to feel like I’m dancing.

Order On Becoming a Fish from our website.

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What Editors Want – Poetry

This year we’re doing a series of blog posts on what editors in the publishing world are looking for. In February we heard from our fiction editor, Penny Thomas, and today our poetry editor, Amy Wack, lets us know what she looks for in submissions.

Dazzle me.

Isn’t this what everyone wants out of art? I want the book that makes me sit up at my desk, that makes my skull tingle, that intrigues and enlightens me, that seduces me with a fiercely intelligent music.

There is also a sense that someone has put the hours in. This is the 10,000 hours that it takes to become proficient at any art or skill. It involves a lot of reading, thinking and writing every day, often for something like a decade.

Sometimes, a writer will show evidence of talent or flair, but just hasn’t put the hours in yet. Sometimes a writer will show evidence of having put the hours in, but they need something else, that elusive spark that ignites language with feeling and relevance.

Some artists are gifted (or cursed) with a strong, sometimes tragic subject matter: a dark past, a difficult childhood, a divorce, or death, a powerfully dark story. These poems can feel like they’ve come from a pressure-cooker. There is a powerful sense of inevitability about them. They aren’t just asking for our attention, they are compelling it.

Others are gifted with a more work-a-day talent, are slow burners, and their work will build in layers, become more consistent, and over time will come to encompass a distinctive body of work. They have the luck of not needing tragedy to evolve.

Do I really need to say anything about presentation? White paper, black ink, one page cover letter, large return envelope, enough return postage. Get poems in magazines before you dream of approaching a publisher. Get used to multiple rejections. Do not take it personally. Keep your day job. Be polite to the Editor, be polite to staff.

I love classical poetic form and rhyme used well. But I also liked to be surprised out of my inclinations and persuaded by new forms. I also really like poems that speak to the average reader and not just to some esoteric coeterie, so I have time for the whole spoken-word scene, as I feel like this is entirely the point of poetry.

So, speak some words to me!

Amy Wack, Poetry Editor