New Welsh Reader 2019

Reviews / Votes

WINNERS OF THE NEW WELSH WRITING AWARDS 2019 RHEIDOL PRIZE FOR WRITING WITH A WELSH THEME OR SETTING
NONFICTION
'Abel Thomas & Sons Butter Merchants Ltd': Elizabeth Griffiths memoir of an Aman valley business
'Jynx Torquilla': Marilyn Barlow on establishing a sustainable smallholding in Ceredigion
FICTION
'Hawks of Dust and Wine': Sarah Tanburn
'The Devil Next Door': Mark Blayney
MORE FICTION
'Nia': Novel Preview by Robert Minhinnick
RICH TEXT
'Writing Democracies: Locating DK Fields' DK Fields: A new writing collaborative unit writes about their political-crime-fantasy novel, Widows Welcome, the first in the Tales of Fenest trilogy

Gwen Davies' third novel translation from Welsh, The Jeweller by Caryl Lewis, will be published in September 2019 by Honno. She has edited New Welsh Review since 2011, is a former Arts Council of Wales Literature Officer, founded Alcemi press at Y Lolfa and was Chair and a member of Literature Wales' writers' bursaries panel for seven years as well as representing literature for the Arts Council of Wales cross-artform Creative Wales Awards for four years. She continues to mentor writers for Literature Wales and work in a freelance capacity as creative editor and copy-editor for a range of publishers and authors. Her latest short translation is 'Tan Tro Nesaf', a prose piece set in Patagonia by Gareth Alban Davies, https://vimeo.com/319790172. Gwen lives in Aberystwyth.

Peter Goulding won the New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting for On Slate. Peters book, Slatehead: The Punks Who Climbed the Slate and Made it Great, is published on our Welsh Rarebyte imprint in 2020, and New Welsh Review's animated trailer for the book is at vimeo/newwelshreview.com. Peter lives in Norfolk but gets to Snowdonia, to climb on slate, whenever he can.

Richard John Parfitt was runner-up in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting. He teaches music at Hereford College of Arts and is a former member of the band, 60 ft Dolls. He grew up in Newport, Gwent, but now lives in Penarth.

Elizabeth Griffiths entry ('Closing the Gap') to the New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting was highly commended. She lives in Lincolnshire but has family in St David's, Pembrokeshire

Marilyn Barlow's entry ('The Smallholding I Knew') was highly commended in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting. She lives in New Quay, Ceredigion.

Sarah Tanburn won second place in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting. She lives in Penarth.

Mark Blayney was highly commended in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting with his entry, 'The Devil Next Door', set in Cardiff's Jewish community. He won the Somerset Maugham Prize for his novella, Two Kinds of Silence. Mark lives in Cardiff.

Robert Minhinnick is a prizewinning poet, essayist and fiction author. His novel, Nia, is published by Seren in autumn 2019.

DK Fields is the new writing partnership of novelists, Katherine Stansfield and
David Towsey. dkfields.blogspot.com/. Widows Welcome, the first in the Tales of Fenest trilogy, was published by Head of Zeus in August 2019.

'Funny and insightful, and the lively picture it paints of the characters and community drawn to or defined by the Dinorwic slate quarries in the 1980s stays strongly in the mind. Because the prose is good and clear and honest,On Slatesucceeds also in bringing a sense of purpose to this history, a sense of life to the rock faces, and a personal regard for both these things that never feels off-balance. Like the climbers it presents, the story is at the same time careful and risk-taking, ambitious and humble. And these are the things of great writing.' Cynan Jones, co-judge, adjudication of'On Slate' by Peter Goulding (New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting

'Newport [Gwent] is brought alive and vivid in this insightful, inciting memoir, that zips with the historic energy of ancient battles, Houdinis escapades, legendary clubs, and the citys late-century music scene.' Gwen Davies, co-judge, adjudication of'Tales from the Riverbank' by Richard J Parfitt (New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting)

'A sensuous forward-facing fable of an independent future Wales and its relationship with the Arab world of hawk training and horseracing, sumptuous with mythologies and richly rooted in the landscape.'Gwen Davies, co-judge, adjudication of'Hawks of Dust and Wine' by Sarah Tanburn (New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting)

'Wit, panache and strikingly visual set-scenes shine in this memorable novella about the interwar Jewish community in Cardiff, with an artist-heroine who is shunned twice over but just keeps going.'Gwen Davies ,co-judge, adjudication of'The Devil Next Door' by Mark Blayney (New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting)

'At once perceptive and unassuming, these essays on Wales and our literatures in both languages offer a warm, philosophical take on identity and belonging that brims with integrity and breadth.'Gwen Davies, co-judge, adjudication of'Closing the Gap' by Elizabeth Griffiths(New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 Rheidol Prize for Writing with a Welsh Theme or Setting) -- *New Welsh Review*