Wales
Nerys Williams debut poetry collection ‘Sound Archive’
Sound Archive by Nerys Williams has arrived into the Seren office this morning.
A striking original first collection of poems from Nerys Williams. Using formal strategies similar to modernist painting: abstraction, dislocation, surrealist juxtaposition, the poet conjures a complex music, intriguing narratives, andpoems full of atmosphere that query identity, gender, and the dream of art as a vehicle for emotion and meaning. There is a playful lightness of touch and tone and for every serious inquisition like ‘An Anatomy of Arguments’ or‘Conversations with Cocteau’, there is a poem that will muse on ‘Canter’s Starstruck Diner, L.A.’ or on the ‘artifacts’ left by Marilyn Monroe, in ‘Marilyn’s Auction House’.
Available now at www.serenbooks.com – Join our online book club and get 20% off every purchase, including Sound Archive.
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.
David Hurn
David Hurn was born in England in 1934 of Welsh parentage. It was as a freelancer that he gained an international reputation for his reportage of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. He later gave up current-affairs coverage for a more personal perspective on photography. He became a member of the prestigious Magnum Agency in 1967, and during the seventies established the acclaimed School of Documentary Photography at Newport, Wales. Since leaving there he has photographed and taught around the world.
Books by David Hurn
Living in Wales
Writing the Picture
John Fuller
John Fuller is a prize-winning poet and novelist. The author of eighteen collections of poems, most recently Pebble and I (2010), his work is known for a strong humanistic civic note and a formal skill, both of which are to the fore in Writing the Picture. A professor at Magdalen College, Oxford, his novel Flying to Nowhere was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
“John Fuller is a virtuoso in whom remarkable stanzaic skill is allied to a playful intellectual stance. His work has order, clarity, empirical veracity but also a far playfulness and inventiveness.” – Peter Forbes
“Fuller’s poetry can be seen to build a bridge of boats between light verse and solemn elegy with the best technique of anyone writing in Britain now.” – Peter Porter
Books by John Fuller
Writing the Picture
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!
Clare Dudman
Clare Dudman was born in North Wales. She has a PhD in Chemistry and has worked as a postdoctoral Research Associate in UMIST, a development scientist in industry, a science teacher, a lecturer and as a creative writing tutor for the WEA and the MA in creative writing at University College Chester. She is a member of the Welsh Academy.
In 1995 her children’s novel Edge of Danger won the Kathleen Fidler award and in 2001 an excerpt fromWegener’s Jigsaw won an Arts Council of England Writers award. A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees is her first book for Seren.
Visit Clare’s literary blog Keeper of The Snails
Books by Clare Dudman
A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees
Nia Williams
Nia Williams is a freelance author and musician, living in Oxford and originally from Cardiff. She is the author of two other novels, The Pier Glass and Persons Living or Dead, which was longlisted for Wales Book of the Year and her short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on BBC radio. For more information about her work see www.niawilliams.com
Books by Nia Williams
The Colour of Grass
‘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!
‘The Colour of Grass’
Seren has a new release The Colour of Grass by Welsh author Nia Williams.
The Colour of Grass by Nia Williams is a story about families, past and present, and life’s unexpected connections.
Helen’s family is falling apart. There are no answers from her husband. She can’t communicate with her daughter. So she turns to other relatives: the ones who are dead and gone. Straightaway 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 of these weave themselves into Helen’s present and her unknown 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 identites we create for life’s unexpected connections and ourselves.
