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Wales’ leading independent English-language publisher 📚 Winner Small Press of the Year Wales 2025 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

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I was born into a city that taught me, long before I understood the word, that the air we breathe carries a history of its own.

City Born grew from my relationship with Delhi, a city of extraordinary beauty and unbearable air, ancient trees and concrete ambition, where entire worlds unfold beneath a sky that grows increasingly difficult to see.

There is a particular kind of inheritance in being born into a city. You learn its language before you have words for it. You carry its dust, its histories, its silences. Eventually, you begin to wonder what it means to belong to a place that is also changing you.

City Born reading for the Poetry Wales Award 2026 as a highly commended poet, an honour I hold very close to my heart. Poetry has always offered me a way of paying attention, of finding language for the things we live alongside so frequently that we risk forgetting to notice them.

This reading is a small piece of that process, preserved in voice.

Thank you to @PoetryWales for recognising the poem, and to everyone who continues to make room for poetry that deepens our understanding of the world we inhabit.

Somewhere between the city we inherit and the city we leave behind, there is a poem.

This is mine.

City Born, Poetry Wales Award. 🖋️

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Morning newsletter team,
It’s in your inboxes if you are signed up. It’s on the website if you’d like to read it there.
Extract below
In a year spent with Lawrence formerly of the band Felt, later of Denim, currently of Mozart Estate (née Go-Kart Mozart), Will Hodgkinson is offered a lot of ideas about the book he is writing by that book’s subject. The ideas are rules. The rules are non-negotiable. No talking to other members of Felt. No use of the word ‘just.’ (‘Why not?’ ‘I just don’t like it.’). No anecdotes. Possibly the writer will need to break some of these.
Daily life for Lawrence, the sixty-something-year-old musician for decades on the cusp of achieving astonishing fame is full of such strictures – about music of course but also fashion, food, hygiene and technology. Lawrence is afraid of cheese, must never be pictured without a hat and dresses in Lidl-branded jumpers, somehow looking so distasteful, even when paired with a Burberry coat, that he is followed round shops by security guards and cafes seat him outside and refuse to let him use the bathroom. He has removed the door from his own bathroom to prevent guests from using it (not foolproof) and will accept a cup of tea from no one except the staff at Costa who follow merciless instructions to pour away half the water to allow enough space for milk. He carries a spare tea bag in his 1970s multi-use WH Smith bag in case they haven’t brewed it enough first. That bag goes everywhere with him. He has never owned or used a suitcase. For some reason this has been a cause of mirth at airports.
Featured this week:
street-level superstar by Will Hodgkinson
Life of M by Rachel Cusk
Talk of the Town by Jonathan Edwards

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What a lovely evening we had with Julie Brominicks @juliebrominicks , from storms, geology, shearing, people from the mountain and the Tylwyth Teg ( fairy folk ) and more.
I shall be looking at Cader Idris with new eyes ........
Diolch yn fawr Julie !

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Writer in residence .....
Julie Brominicks @juliebrominicks is here.....she'll be talking about her new book "Cader Idris Let the Mountain Speak "
7.00pm at the Castle Hotel, Llandovery, tomorrow Tuesday 13th October.

It's going to be good, don't miss it !
Tickets at the door £3.00
There will plenty of time for questions and book signing.
#theoldbookshop
#llandovery
#booksatthedragonsgarden

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✮ OUT NOW | ALLAN RWAN ✮

➤ In Deep Waters - Jacqueline Harrett (@diamond_crime_publishing)
➤ Talk of The Town - Jonathan Edwards (@serenbooks)
➤ Behind the Sky - Megan Angharad Hunter (@fireflypress)
➤ Mae Nhw Yma O Hyd (They Are Still Here) - Editors: Roz Clarke & Joanne Hall (@wiztowerpress)
➤ Cyfres Amdani: Cymry Heddiw - Dionne Bennett a Nushin Chavoshi-Nejad (@sebracymru)
➤ Delores Mackenzie and the Dead of Winter - Yvonne Banham (@fireflypress)
➤ Cefn Gwlad - Sioned Erin Huws (Golygydd) (@sebracymru)
➤ Pa Mor Hir yw’r Ci? / How Long Is That Dog? - John Bond (@atebolcyf)
➤ Pecyn Marf (@atebolcyf)

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A few years ago Jonathan Edwards gave a poetry reading in the shop and at one point had us all crying with laughter over this poem. I still think about the way he said ‘bear’ and how the word changed slightly each time, sometimes almost had two syllables and resonated down the Arcade. And now we can finally read it over and over again in his beautiful new collection, which will rightly be the Talk of the Town. It is everything I hoped and more. Not my words, the words of Shakin’ Stevens. Have a brilliant time reading it and picturing his vibrant, kind family as an Olympic bobsleigh team.

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‘No one said where the whale would be.’ — Hilary Watson (@hilarywatsonpoetry)

#mypoetrybookshelf #menageriestreet #hilarywatson #serenbooks

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Tomorrow, as part of #BookshopDay we're delighted to welcome @aliceautumnal who'll be chatting and signing copies of her new book: Every Other Hour.

Alice takes us on her own journey around the country, travelling by bus, train and her own two feet. Sharing the ups and downs along the way, she visits some of Wales’ most beautiful, interesting and rewarding places – both well-loved and lesser-known – exploring The Valleys by train, admiring dark skies in Y Bannau Brycheiniog, strolling along the Wales Coastal Path and more. Packed with charm, local character and unforgettable experiences, as well as Alice’s favourite foodie highlights, her warm, funny book is the perfect companion for anyone drawn to the joys of slow travel and exploring car-free.

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Some photos from last night in Sandspout, Dolgellau.

Thanks for hosting a really convivial evening Dennis, and thanks to a lovely attentive audience.

Thanks to Dennis for the view from the front, and Ben Porter for the one from the back!

Diolch i bawb am noson bendigedig.

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And we find this. A fascinating journal of a journey across South America in search of poems for the author’s anthology , The Other Tiger. Ambassador of Nowhere pays homage to South America, its people & its demons #books

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