Welsh

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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

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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


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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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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


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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

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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!

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‘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.

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‘Daniel’s Beetles’

Seren has a new exciting release!

Seren is proud to announce that the Winner of the Daniel Owen Prize for Pryfeta has adapted his originally Welsh-language novel into English.

Daniel’s Beetles is the upcoming novel from Tony Bianchi, originally from North Shields, who now lives in Cardiff.

Bianchi is the former Director of Literature at the Arts Council of Wales and is now a freelance writer and translator. Pryfeta was shortlisted for Welsh Book of the Year.

Synopsis:
Daniel’s Beetles is an absorbing, unnerving novel about memory and forgetting, stories and lies, language and borders. It describes our attempts to recreate ourselves in ways we can never fully control. And in Dr Bruno, it catches a glimpse of the smiling mendacity, at once pathetic and chilling, which some might recognise as the face of a country at war.

Reviews:
“This is an intricate and multi-layered novel, rich in ideas and eloquent in expression, which will be pored over for years to come.” – Owain Wilkins, Planet

“The writing is muscular and at times utterly overwhelming… I was exhilarated.” – Robert Arwyn

“One of the most exciting writers working in Wales today.” – Lloyd Jones, Talesin

Continue reading ‘Daniel’s Beetles’

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Patagonia Release

Last night at the Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Welsh director Marc Evan’s premiered his new film Patagonia starring the Welsh-born-Hollywood-turned actor Matthew Rhys and Grammy Award winner Duffy.

The film is about the Welsh Colony, Y Wladfam in Patagonia, South America.

Interested in Patagonia?

Check out Clare Dudman’s A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees published in June 2010.

Impoverished and oppressed, they’d been promised paradise on earth: a land flowing with milk and honey. But what the settlers found after a devastating sea journey was a cold South American desert where nothing could survive except tribes of nomadic Tehuelche Indians, possibly intent on massacring them.

Silas James fears he has been tricked into sacrificing everything he loves for another man’s impossible dream. But despite his hatred of the politically adept Edwyn Owen, and under the watchful eye of Indian shaman Yelue, a new culture takes root as an old one passes away.

A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees is a lyrical and insightful evocation of the trials of the first Welsh Patagonian colonists as they battle to survive hunger, loss, and each other.