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31 Stories in May at Hay!: Day 14 - ‘Mrs Kuroda on Penyfan’ by Nigel Jarrett

Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.
 
Day 14: 'Mrs Kuroda on Penyfan' by Nigel Jarrett
 
(Taken from Funderland, 2011)
 
 
 
Nigel Jarrett is a freelance writer, a former daily-newspaper journalist and music critic. He was born in Llanfrechfa, Cwmbran and was educated at West Mon School, Pontypool, and Cardiff University. He won the Rhys Davies Prize for his short story Mrs Kuroda on Penyfan, and his debut collection of stories, Funderland, which has received enthusiastic reviews from The Guardian and The Independent, was published in 2011. His work has appeared in London Magazine, the Observer magazine, Poetry Wales, Agenda, Outposts, Poetry Ireland, The Black Mountain Review (Ulster), Cambrensis, The Raconteur, New Welsh Review, Planet, The Salisbury Review, Cambria and many others, as well as on literary websites, including The View from Here, Words with JAM and The Lampeter Review. His first poetry collection, Miners At The Quarry Pool, was published in 2013, edited by by poet Alan Kellermann and the cover design is based on one of Nigel's portrait drawings of coalminers. He has led writing workshops, judged writing competitions and is a frequent guest-speaker, lately at the Newport and Gwent Literary Club.
 
Since 1987 he has been music critic of the South Wales Argus and writes Music Matters, a column about classical music, for its weekly arts and entertainments supplement, The Guide. He reviews jazz for Jazz Journal and poetry for Acumen magazine and contributes articles and reviews on music to the online Wales Arts Review. One of his most recent essays, a tribute to the violinist Raymond Jeremy, appeared in the British Music Society Journal and continues to attract interest and attention. Jarrett has written for the SR on the British jury system, musical competitions, politically-correct zoos and Philip Larkin, the jazz critic. He's also been interviewed on author websites, including by the novelist Vanessa Gebbie and on the Authorise and Writers Corner Cymru sites. In September 2013 he collaborated with curator Ron McCormick on the catalogue for an exhibition of marine paintings at Southampton Solent University by the Newport artist Clive McCarthy.
 
He likes drawing, never tires of gazing at his cat and is insanely devoted to jazz. He lives in Monmouthshire with his wife Ann, a retired teacher, and for two years he's been writing a light-hearted column called Monmouthshire Meander for Monmouthshire County Life magazine. 
 
You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)
 
Selected bibliography
Miners at the Quarry Pool (Parthian, 2013)
Funderland (Parthian, 2011)
 
 
Contributed to
Story II (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)
Mama’s Baby (Papa’s Maybe) (Parthian, 1999)
Tilting at Windmills (Parthian, 1998)
 

31 Stories in May at Hay!: Day 13 - ‘The Gift of Tongues’ by Arthur Machen

Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.
 
Day 13: ‘The Gift of Tongues' by Arthur Machen
(Taken from T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly, issue dated Dec 3, 1927)
 
 
 
 
Born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in 1863 in Caerleon, Gwent, Machen was one of the most influential writers of  the 1890s and early 20th century and is also well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons, the group of angels who protected members of the British Army in the Battle of Mons at the outset of WWI. 
Machen was baptised under his mother’s maiden name, and later used it as a pen name. He spent a solitary childhood in the Monmouthshire countryside, exploring the Black Mountains, the ancient forest of Wentwood and the Severn Valley. He drew on his childhood among these dark and mysterious landscapes full of Celtic, Roman and medieval history and long-buried pagan remains, interweaving it with his adult life in bohemian fin-de-siècle London, to create magical and often deeply disturbing tales.
When his father became vicar of the parish of Llanddewi Fach in 1864, he was brought up at their rectory, and since the age of eight he was interested in the occult, reading, amongst others, an article on alchemy in a volume of Household Words found in its library. At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education, but, unable to complete his education due to his family’s poor finances, he moved to London with hopes of a medical career first, and a literary one then, when he published his first long poem, Eleusinia, in 1881. After a number of writing commissions, which included translating The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova, and his attempts to work as a journalist and as a children’s tutor, he published his first book, The Anatomy of Tobacco, in 1884.
 
However, it was in the 1890s that Machen achieved literary success and a reputation as a leading author of gothic texts, contemporary of Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats all of whom admired his work tremendously. In 1890 he published his classic horror novel The Great God Pan (1890), which was  widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content but sold well, going into a second edition. He then wrote ‘The Shining Pyramid’ (1895) and The Three Impostors (1895), a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, that were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. Many of his works bear the imprint of the Welsh border country of his upbringing. Other stories were published much later, including The Hill of Dreams (1907),  after the Oscar Wilde scandal, that made difficult for decadent writers to find a publisher for new works.
 
After his wife’s death, Machen became an actor and a member of Frank Benson's company of travelling players, a profession which took him round the country, and that led in 1903 to a second marriage. In 1906 though, Machen's literary career began once more to flourish as the book The House of Souls, a collection of his most notable works of the nineties, brought them to a new audience. In those years Machen was also investigating Celtic Christianity, the Holy Grail and King Arthur, concluding that the legends of the Grail were based on rites of the Celtic Church and that the Grail survived into modern times.
 
But it was the WWI that saw Machen return to public prominence due to the publicity surrounding the Angels of Mons episode and a series of stories on morale-boosting propaganda, and after the War he became a star on both sides of the Atlantic, and his great literary significance was recognized by H. P. Lovecraft, who described him as one of the four ‘modern masters of the horror story’.
In 1923 Machen completed his second volume of autobiography, Things Near and Far—the final volume, and in the late 1920s, facing financial hardship, he became a manuscript reader for the publisher Ernest Benn. His financial difficulties were only finally ended by the literary appeal launched in 1943 for Machen’s eightieth birthday, where the names included were Max Beerbohm, T. S. Eliot, Bernard Shaw, Walter de la Mare, Algernon Blackwood, and John Masefield. The success of the appeal allowed Machen to live the last few years of his life, until 1947, in relative comfort.
His fans today include Stephen King, Clive Barker, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, who have all emphasised their debt to Machen as ‘the forgotten father of weird fiction’ (The Guardian).
 
 
You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)
 
Selected bibliography
The Great God Pan (Library of Wales, 2010)
The Hill of Dreams (Library of Wales, 2010)
 
 
 
Contributed to
Story I (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)
 
 

31 Stories in May at Hay!: Day 12 ‘Natives’ by Ron Berry

Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.

 

Day 12: 'Natives' by Ron Berry

(Taken from Pieces of Eight, 1982)

 

 

Ron Berry was an author of novel and short stories born in 1920 in Blaenycwm in the Rhondda Valley where he remained for most of his life. The son of a coal miner, he worked in mining from the age of fourteen until the outbreak of World War II saw him serving in both the British Army and the Merchant Navy. He undertook a sporting career, including amateur boxing and playing association football for Swansea Town, scoring a vital goal in a cup match, but he had to end it in 1943 due to a knee injury. He took up various jobs, working around Wales and in London as a carpenter and writing some essays and poetry for which he was unable to find a publisher though. In 1948 he married Rene Jones, with whom he had five children, and in the 1950s he studied at the adult education college Coleg Harlech, but still having further spells in mining and as a carpenter. After his failed attempt to enter teacher training college, he took on a job as the assistant manager of the local swimming baths in Treherbert. His first published novel, Hunter and Hunted, that he began writing in this occasion, appeared in 1960 and was followed by Travelling Loaded (1963), The Full-Time Amateur (1966), Flame and Slag (1968) and So Long, Hector Bebb (1970). As his writing was never entirely successful enough to sustain him, in 1970s Berry had to rely on friends and on the support of Sir Wyn Roberts in obtaining for him a Civil list pension. He also wrote shorter fiction for BBC television and radio, and a personal account of watching Peregrine Falcons in 1987 entitled Peregrine Watching. He was able to write an authentic picture of working class life drawn from his own experiences, and his fictional output depicted a hard but positive view of the industrial Welsh valleys, entirely bereft of sentimentality and the hype which he scornfully left to others. His last novel This Bygone, was published in 1996. He died in Pontypridd in 1997 after years suffering arthritis and poor health, and his Collected Stories and autobiography, History is What You Live, appeared posthumously in 1998.

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

Flame and Slag (Library of Wales, 2012)

So Long, Hector Bebb (Parthian, 2005)

 

Contributed to

Story I (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

Story II (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

 

31 Stories in May at Hay!: Day 11 ‘Blood etc.’ by Gee Williams

Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.

 

Day 11: 'Blood etc.' by Gee Williams

(Taken from Blood, etc., 2008)

 

 

Gee Williams is a dramatist, short story writer, novelist, poet, scriptwriter, editor and radio broadcaster. She was born in Saltney, Flintshire, and studied English and Education at Culham College, Oxford. Williams was a former lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature, and now is a full-time writer, writing numerous magazine and anthology pieces, as well as two full-length plays and prose scripts for Radio Wales and Radio 4. Her first collection Magic and Other Deceptions was published in 2000. She was shortlisted for the Richard Imerson Award and Commission for Racial Equality Race in the Media awards, the Rhys Davies Award (1996) and The Book Pl@ce Contemporary Short Story Award (2003). Williams’ first novel Savage (2007) was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2008, and in the same year was voted winner of the Pure Gold Fiction Award by Welsh readers. Her short-story collection Blood, etc. was published in 2008 and was on the 2009 Wales Book of the Year Short List .

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

Blood, etc. (Parthian, 2008)

Contributed to

Story II (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe (Parthian, 1999)

Tilting at Windmills (Parthian, 1998)

  

31 Stories in May at Hay!: Day 10 ‘Bunting’ by Jon Gower

Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.

 

Day 10: 'Bunting' by Jon Gower

(Taken from Too Cold for Snow, 2012)

 

 

Jon Gower was born in 1959 in Llanelli, and read English at Girton College, Cambridge University. He is a writer, performer and broadcaster, as well as a producer with Boomerang, one of Wales’ most dynamically creative TV and radio companies. As a former BBC Wales’ Arts and Media correspondent, Jon has been making documentary programmes for television and radio for some thirty years, the most recent covering subjects such as the secret life as a poet of Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum (based on the book Oh Dad! by Lloyd Robson) and the Summer of Love in San Francisco. He also presented First Hand, BBC Radio Wales’ arts programme, and worked, variously, as public affairs officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and as a current affairs journalist for HTV. Winner of the John Morgan travel writing prize, he has eleven books to his name, in both Welsh and English, about travel and local history. He has written books on non-fictional subjects as diverse as a disappearing island in Chesapeake Bay in An Island Called Smith (2001) and a West Wales tour in psycho-geography in Real Llanelli (2000), as well as the fiction of Dala’r Llanw (2009), Uncharted (2010), a novel described by Jan Morris as ‘unflagging and unfailingly inventive’, and Big Fish (2000). Too Cold For Snow, a collection of short stories, was released in 2012, and so the publication about the Welsh coastline, Wales at Water’s Edge – A Coastal Journey, where his text complements beautiful photography by Jeremy Moore. His latest book, The Story of Wales, will accompany a landmark BBC series. He has recently published a book about his home town and in 2011 was an English language judge for the Wales Book of the Year. In 2009 Jon was awarded a major Creative Wales award to explore the Welsh settlement in Patagonia, and in 2012 he won the Welsh Language Wales Book of the Year Prize for his novel Y Storïwr. Jon is currently Hay Festival International Fellow as well as Fellow of The Welsh Academy, and is working on a critical biography of the American actor Steve Buscemi. In what little spare time he has Jon develops and performs theatre pieces with actor Gerald Tyler and trumpeter Tomos Williams. Jon lives in Cardiff with his wife Sarah and two book-loving daughters, Elena and Onwy.

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

Too Cold for Snow (Parthian, 2012)

 

Contributed to

Story II (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

Three Parthian authors nominated for the Wales Book of the Year Award

We are delighted to announce that three of Parthian's recently published authors - Tyler Keevil, Jemma L. King and Meic Stephens - have been nominated for the prestigous Wales Books of the Year award. Jemma's nomination is in the Roland Mathias Poetry Award category for The Shape of a Forest, Tyler's is in the Fiction category for The Drive [published by Myriad Editions], and Meic's is in the Creative Non-Fiction category for Rhys Davies: A Writer's Life.
 
 
The three authors will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of previous Parthian winners John Harrison, who won the Creative Non-Fiction Award in 2013 for Forgotten Footprints and the English Language Award in 2011 for Cloud Road, and Deborah Kay Davies, who won the 2009 English Language Award for Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful.
 
Jemma's new poetry collection, The Undressed, is due for release this month, while Tyler's most recent short story collection Burrard Inlet was released last month. Furthermore, both authors will be attending and reading at the Parthian Rarebit event at Hay Festival on Monday 26 May 2014, 8.30pm as part of Parthian's 21st birthday bash. Be sure to purchase tickets here so that you can come down and congratulate them in person!

Wales Book of the Year Award Nominee #3: Jemma L. King

We are delighted to announce that three of Parthian's recently published authors - Tyler Keevil, Jemma L. King and Meic Stephens - have been nominated for the prestigious Wales Books of the Year award, and will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of previous Parthian winners John Harrison (in 2013 and 2011) and Deborah Kay Davies (in 2009).

Jemma and Tyler will be attending and reading at the Parthian Rarebit event at Hay Festival on Monday 26 May 2014, 8.30pm as part of Parthian's 21st birthday bash. Be sure to purchase tickets here so that you can come down and congratulate them in person!

 


 

Nominee #3: Jemma L. King (for The Shape of a Forest [Parthian, 2013]; in the Roland Mathias Poetry Award category)

Poem: 'Amelia Earhart', 'Water Music', 'Nuclear ', 'Winter for the Robin', 'The Beginning' and 'Japan' (Taken from The Shape of a Forest, 2013)

 

 

Jemma L King teaches literature and creative writing at Aberystwyth University where she also completed her doctoral thesis. Winner of the Terry Hetherington Award for young writers in 2011, she has published her creative and academic work internationally. She is a founding member of the Centre for Women, Writing and Literary Culture and is a reviewer of contemporary literature for numerous publications. She has published a poetry collection, The Shape of a Forest, which has been long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2013, and her second poetry collection, The Undressed, will come out with Parthian in May 2014.
 

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

The Shape of a Forest (Parthian, 2013)

The Undressed (Parthian, 2014)

 

Contributed to

Cheval 6 (Parthian, 2013)

Wales Book of the Year Award Nominee #2: Meic Stephens

We are delighted to announce that three of Parthian's recently published authors - Tyler Keevil, Jemma L. King and Meic Stephens - have been nominated for the prestigious Wales Books of the Year award, and will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of previous Parthian winners John Harrison (in 2013 and 2011) and Deborah Kay Davies (in 2009).

Jemma and Tyler will be attending and reading at the Parthian Rarebit event at Hay Festival on Monday 26 May 2014, 8.30pm as part of Parthian's 21st birthday bash. Be sure to purchase tickets here so that you can come down and congratulate them in person!

 


 

Nominee #2: Meic Stephens (for Rhys Davies: A Writer's Life [Parthian, 2013]; in the Creative Non-Fiction catagory)

Story: 'The Elusive Hare' (Taken from Rhys Davies: A Writer's Life, 2013)

 

 

 
Meic Stephens was born in 1938 in Trefforest, near Pontypridd. A former journalist with the Western Mail, Meic Stephens founded the magazine Poetry Wales in 1965 and was its editor for eight years. From 1967 to 1990 he was the Literature Director of the Welsh Arts Council. He joined the University of Glamorgan in 1994 and was given a chair as Professor of Welsh Writing in English in 2000. He is the author, editor and translator of a number of anthologies, including The New Companion to the Literature of Wales and the Writers of Wales series. He is a Fellow and the only Life Member of the Academi.
 
Meic published a Cardiff based novel, Yeah Dai Dando in autumn 2008, and a second novel, A Bard for Highgrove: A Likely Story appeared in 2010.
 

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

Poetry 1900-2000 (Library of Wales, 2007)

Rhys Davies: A Writer's Life (Parthian, 2013)

 

Contributed to

A White Afternoon: New Welsh Short Fiction (translator) (Parthian, 1998)

Wales Book of the Year Award Nominee #1: Tyler Keevil

We are delighted to announce that three of Parthian's recently published authors - Tyler Keevil, Jemma L. King and Meic Stephens - have been nominated for the prestigious Wales Books of the Year award, and will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of previous Parthian winners John Harrison (in 2013 and 2011) and Deborah Kay Davies (in 2009).

Jemma and Tyler will be attending and reading at the Parthian Rarebit event at Hay Festival on Monday 26 May 2014, 8.30pm as part of Parthian's 21st birthday bash. Be sure to purchase tickets here so that you can come down and congratulate them in person!

 


 

Nominee #1: Tyler Keevil (for The Drive [Myriad Editions, 2013]; in the Fiction catagory)

Story: 'Mangleface' (Taken from Burrard Inlet, 2014)

 

 

Tyler was raised in Vancouver, Canada.  He first came to the UK in 1999 to study English at Lancaster University.  He returned home to finish his degree, and after graduating undertook a variety of bizarre jobs, working as a treeplanter, a landscape gardener, a deckhand on a fishing barge, a ‘greenhorn’ in the shipyards, a restaurant busser and a kayak shop assistant.  After paying back his student loan, and saving up some money, he moved to Prague to try his hand at being a starving writer – the only problem being that he didn’t know how to write yet.  The money ran out before he learned, and after a brief stint living in Birmingham, he moved to Wales in 2003.
 
While working part-time cleaning toilets at a petrol station, Tyler committed to learning the craft and he began selling his stories to magazines. He is interested both in literary and slipstream fiction, and has been published in New Welsh Review, Planet, Transmission, Dream Catcher, Black Static, and On Spec, among others. A translation of his story, ‘Masque of the Red Clown’ has also recently been commissioned by the French-Canadian magazine, Solaris. Tyler has also written for the screen; a short film he wrote recently aired on ITV Wales, whilst another picked up the Welsh Dragon Award at the Newport International Film Festival. Welsh editors have always been supportive of his writing, from Arthur Smith to Dafydd Prys to Francesca Rhydderch to Helle Michelson, and now more recently Lucy Llewellyn at Parthian.
Like most Canadians, Tyler enjoys his winter sports, including hockey and snowboarding, but since coming to Wales he has discovered the wonders of hiking and camping – particular along the Pembrokeshire coast.  He currently works part-time in a factory near his hometown of Llanidloes, and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire.
 
Tyler’s mastery of the short form has seen him win a number of awards, most notably a Writer of the Year award from Writers Inc. of London. His debut novel Fireball (2010) was longlisted for Wales Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize and received the Media Wales People’s Prize 2011. His second novel, The Drive, was published by Myriad Editions in August 2013, and his first collection of short stories, Burrard Inlet, was published by Parthian in May 2014.
 

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

Fireball (Parthian, 2010)

Burrard Inlet (Parthian, 2014)

 

Contributed to

Rarebit (anthology) (Parthian, 2014)

31 Stories in May at Hay!: Day 9 ‘Bowels Jones’ by Alun Richards

Every day throughout May, you will be able to visit the Library of Wales website to download your free story, drawn from Story, vols I and II - a collection boasting the finest Welsh short fiction ever written and featuring some of the most talented literary names from both past and present, including the legendary Dylan Thomas and the award-winning Rachel Trezise, as well as read all about the chosen author.

 

Day 9: 'Bowels Jones' by Alun Richards

 (Taken from The Former Miss Merthyr Tydfil and Other Stories, 1976)

 

 

Alun Morgan Richards was born in 1929 in Pontypridd. After spells as a schoolteacher and probation officer, he joined as an instructor the Royal Navy, which sparked a fascination with the sea that inspired much of his writing.

In 1955 he returned to Wales from London, but was admitted to the sanatorium at Talgarth, where he had stayed for 2 years, after becoming ill with tuberculosis. Once released, he married Helen Howden, a probation officer, with whom he had four children. Then, from the 1960s he was, and successfully so, a full-time writer, as well as an English teacher for 10 years.

He lived near the Mumbles, Swansea, close to the sea which, coupled with the hills of the South Wales Valleys, was the landscape of his fiction. He wrote plays for stage and radio, original screenplays and adaptations for television, including BBC’s Onedin Line, as well as novels, short stories, a biography and a memoir. From 1962 to 1979 he wrote his six novels and two scintillating collections of short stories, Dai Country (1973) and The Former Miss Merthyr Tydfil (1976). As editor, he produced bestselling editions of Welsh short stories and tales of the sea for Penguin. In 1980 he wrote to mark the centenary of the Welsh Rugby Union, as he was a great connoisseur of that sport. His sensitive biography of his close friend, Carwyn James, appeared in 1984 and his own entrancing memoir Days of Absencein in 1986. Alun Richards died in Singleton Hospital, Swansea, after an heart attack in 2004.

 

You can download the story in PDF format here. (If download does not start, then right click the link and select 'Save link as'.)

 

Selected bibliography

Dai Country (Library of Wales, 2011)

Home to an Empty House (Library of Wales, 2006)

 

Contributed to

Story I (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

Story II (anthology) (Library of Wales, 2014)

The First Fifteen: A Selection of the Best Rugby Writing (Parthian, 2011)

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