Angela Graham
Angela Graham Angela Graham is from Northern Ireland. She has had an award-winning career as a film maker in Wales, is a Fellow of the Institute of Welsh Affairs and a Welsh-speaker. Her collection of poetry, Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere 2022 and her collection of short stories, A City Burning 2020 (long-listed for the Edge Hill Prize) are published by Seren Books. She won the Poetry Prize in the inaugural Linen Hall Ulster-Scots Writing Competition, 2021. Her poetry collection Star: poems for the Christmas Season has just been published by Culture And Democracy Press. A City Burning Many of the characters in A City Burning face decisions about embracing a fuller life, though at a cost to themselves. Others are witness to events in which they must decide to be involved or pass by. These are stories, especially the ones set in The Troubles, where the reader is bound to a character’s dilemmas by tellingly empathetic writing. Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere Sanctuary is – urgent. The pandemic has made people crave it; political crises are denying it to millions; the earth is no longer our haven. This theme has enormous traction at a time of existential fear − especially among the young − that nowhere is safe. Even our minds and our bodies are not refuges we can rely on. Truth itself is on shaky ground. Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere addresses these critical situations from the inside. How we can save the earth, ourselves and others? How valid is the concept of a ‘holy’ place these days? Are any values still sacrosanct? We all deserve peace and security but can these be achieved without exploitation? Belfast-born Angela Graham divides her time between Wales and Northern Ireland. Alongside her own work, she has designed this collection to embody the hosting, welcoming aspect of Sanctuary by inviting five other poets from Wales and Northern Ireland to contribute a poem each. In Wales, Phil Cope from the Garw Valley is an expert on the holy wells and shrines of the British Isles and Mahyar is an Iranian writer who has made a new home in Wales. In Northern Ireland, poet and novelist, Viviana Fiorentino is an economic migrant from Italy, working with migrants and prisoners of conscience, while film maker and poet, Csilla Toldy fled communist Hungary for a ‘free’ life in the West. The fifth poet, Glen Wilson (winner of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing), acted as mentor for Angela’s work and contributes a poem on migration. STAR STAR lights up Christmas. We journey through the collection as ‘everyday Magi’, encountering revelations, surprises and new insights. At the book’s core are The Three Kings but also The Three Queens: women who are brought forward from behind the scenes, to be seen and heard. Mae Star yn cynnig goleuni’r Nadolig, trwy gasgliad o gerddi sy’n adlewyrchu profiadau dynol amrywiol, gan ganfod datguddiadau, rhyfeddodau a mewnwelediadau newydd. Yn ganolog i’r gyfrol mae’r Tri Brenin, ond yn ogystal y Tair Brenhines, sef gwragedd a dynnwyd i’r blaen o’r cysgodion, i’w gweld a’u clywed. Clywn hefyd ieithoedd amrywiol – Gwyddeleg, Cymraeg a Gaeleg, sy’n adlewyrchu ymrwymiad y bardd ag ieithoedd brodorol ynysoedd Prydain.
Sue Regan
Sue Regan Sue Regan was born in South Wales, her childhood punctuated by the Flat Holm foghorn. She is still drawn to the sounds of the sea, and writes about longing and connections. Recently, she has been encouraged to share her writing with others, and to read at local events. In 2024, she has had poetry published for the first time, at Diamond Twig and in Dreich.
Catrin Mari
Catrin Mari Catrin Mari is an autistic social scientist with a background in the heritage sector, based in Cardiff. She uses poetry to break barriers to engaging with academic research. Her poetry deals with themes of sense of place, uncovering stories of under-appreciated historic figures, and shifting identities including as a Welsh and neurodivergent person. Her work is due to be published in an anthology of Welsh radical poetry, an online zine about the valleys, a collection raising money for mental health charity, Mind; and Disabled Tales, a literary magazine exploring disabled fairytale figures. She regularly performs her poetry in Cardiff and online. Disabled Tales Check out and see how you can support this publication! Afonydd Lleisiau hanner cant o feirdd yn llifo gydag afonydd Cymru. Pob cerdd yn Gymraeg a Saesneg, wedi’i chyfieithu o’r naill iaith i’r llall. Fifty Welsh poets speak for and with the rivers of Wales. Every poem translated Welsh to English, English to Welsh.
Sheila Jacob
Sheila Jacob Sheila Jacob lives in N.E.Wales with her husband. She has lived in Wales for fifty years but was born and raised in Birmingham and finds her Brummie heritage a rich source of inspiration. Her poems have appeared in various magazines and e-zines including The High Window, Atrium, Black Nore Review, and her debut pamphlet with Yaffle Press, Spotlit Under Street Lamps, has recently been published. Spotlit Under Street Lamps ‘Your mum’s dabbing her eyes. Mum who never weeps turns a working holiday into the year’s highlight. You’re nineteen tomorrow and suddenly, bab, you’re afraid’ (Closing verse of ‘Somerset summers’ set in September 1939)
George Sandifer-Smith
George Sandifer-Smith George Sandifer-Smith is a Welsh poet, originally from Pembrokeshire. He has published two books of poetry, Empty Trains (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) and Nights Travel at the Right Speed (Infinity Books UK, 2022). He is currently the Reviews Editor at Poetry Wales Magazine, a position he has held since 2022. He has previously edited the poetry anthology The Wait in aid of Cancer Research, and also was guest poetry editor for the inaugural issue of Abergavenny Small Press Journal. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Stockholm Review, New Welsh Review, Atrium, and numerous anthologies including Poems from Pembrokeshire (Seren Books, 2019), Hit Points – an Anthology of Video Game Poetry (Broken Sleep Books, 2021), and Anne-thology: Poems Re-Presenting Anne Shakespeare (Broken Sleep Books, 2023). In 2019, he was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing by Aberystwyth University. As well as writing poetry, he has also published fiction with Gwyllion Magazine and Inventive Podcast (Overtone Productions, 2021). His first children’s book, Cholloo’s Birthday, a collaboration with artist Julia Ashby Smyth, was published by Lily in 2014. He lives with his wife, and their rescue cat Deli. Empty Trains Empty Trains looks at the notion of spaces altering to accommodate changes introduced during the pandemic. While avoiding the pitfalls of Covid poetry, Sandifer-Smith deftly traces the poetics of space into a contemporary setting. Empty Trains does more than offer a frame through which to view such spaces: it challenges us to look at the spaces in which we live, work, and think with fresh eyes. Broken Sleep Books 2022 Anthology The Broken Sleep Books Anthology showcases the best writing from the press in 2022, featuring extracts from every publication, covering poetry, non-fiction and short fiction. An essential purchase for anyone interested in new writing, or curious about the work of a vibrant, dynamic and award-winning independent press. Poems from Pembrokeshire Poems from Pembrokeshire is part of Seren’s pamphlet series celebrating the spirit of place. An area of supreme but also disquieting beauty, Pembrokeshire has been the home to saints and pirates, the cradle of Tudor Kings and subject to oil spills and annual invasions of summer visitors. The undeniable loveliness of its off-shore islands: Ramsey, Grassholm, and Caldey, contrasts with the often harsh life of settlers, of monks and sea-fishing folk of the past, such as the stoic ‘Boatmen’ of Tenby.
Carolyn Thomas
Carolyn Thomas Carolyn Thomas is from Tonna, a village in the Neath Valley in South Wales, but has lived on Tyneside since her days as a student at Newcastle University. Now retired after a career of teaching in Further, Higher and Adult Education, she is now enjoying the freedom to write. She has reviewed for Stand and published poetry in Dreich, Impossible Archetype, The Ekphrastic Review and elsewhere as well as stories in two anthologies published by Honno Press, Lipstick Eyebrows and Painting the Beauty Queens Orange, which contains her account of life as a gay woman in the 1970s. She lives with a misanthropic cat, still thinks of Wales as home and, stereotypically, sports a dragon tattoo. Lipstick Eyebrows Chosen for their contemporary edge in both setting and story, this collection reflects the lives of contemporary women of mixed age and background. The collection hosts an all-female cast covering themes of travel, arrival, change, reconciliation, departures, estrangement, death, survival and the intricacies of women’s lives. Stories included: Kate Waddon: Wild Romances, Carolyn Thomas: The King of the Fairies, Gosia Buzzanca: Summer’s End, Silvia Rose: By the Water’s Edge, Naomi Paulus: Lipstick Eyebrows, Julie Primon: Something about weddings, Tracey Rhys: Pearls Before Swine, Chinyere Chukwude-Okeh: To buy an expensive dream, Ellen Davies: Scab Painting the Beauty Queens Orange The ‘70s wasn’t all glam rock and flares, punk and pogo-ing… In Painting the Beauty Queens Orange, the women who lived the decade reveal what it meant to push boundaries, claim your identity, and carve out your place amidst the winter of discontent, the scorching summer of ‘76 and the rise of Thatcherism. One young woman says a forced goodbye to her newborn baby. Another grasps new opportunities and sets sail on a LGP Tanker with a crew of men. A third asserts her sexual identity. A fourth sets up a kitchen table business that launches an international brand. These stories of ambition and adventure, motherhood and marriage, are by turns heart-breaking, humorous, and honest.
Gareth Writer-Davies
Gareth Writer-Davies Gareth Writer-Davies is from Pencelli, Wales. His work has been recognized multiple times in various competitions, including being shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2014 and 2017. He was also commended in the Prole Laureate Competition in 2015 and 2021, and was named the Prole Laureate for 2017. Gareth received commendations in the Welsh Poetry Competition in 2015 and was highly commended in 2017. In 2023, he won the Wirral Festival Poetry Competition and was the runner-up in the Spelt Poetry Competition. In 2024, he was the runner-up in the Mid Wales Poetry Prize. Gareth was a Hawthornden Fellow in 2019. His published works include Bodies (2015) and Cry Baby (2017) by Indigo Dreams. He has also published The Lover’s Pinch (2018), The End (2019), and Wysg (2022) by Arenig Press. Wysg In WYSG Gareth Writer-Davies is instantly recognisable, as he navigates the borderlands of Wales, seeking to bridge the new and the familiar; the streaming of our lives, our conflicts with nature, getting older and always, where we have been and where we are going? The End Poems from the edge of annihilation, leavened with black humour and pastiche, musings upon poetry and posterity even as death beckons. The Lover’s Pinch Gareth Writer-Davies fleshes out his twin subjects of love and sex in poems of affection, sardonic humour and a characteristic lightness of touch that makes his first collection both exceptionally readable and an intimate pleasure.
Sue Moules
Sue Moules has been published in New Welsh Review, Planet, Poetry Wales, and Ambit. Her Poems were included in the International Women’s Day anthology (Welsh Women’s Coalition, 2010).
In 2024, her poem ‘Walking the Whippet’ was chosen for Brighton and Hove Poems on the Buses.
Her poems have appeared in By Ways Anthology (Arachne) 2024 and Words on Troubled Waters (Lutra Press) 2024. Her most recent collection is The Moth Box (Parthian).