DEBUT DISCOVERIES: WHALING Friday 26 May 2023, 4pm Hwyl Stage In 1792, whalers from Nantucket are invited to found the port of Milford Haven in west Wales. But what does the arrival of these hardy Quakers mean for the local population? And what is the meaning of the beached whale that preceded them? As two cultures clash, concern swerves into hysteria against the incomers, and a local preacher plans a grotesque, Jonah-inspired fate for the whalers. Nathan Munday, a writer and trainee minister, talks to writer and broadcaster Horatio Clare about how his novel Whaling explores our relationship with nature, the boundary between faith and superstition, and the world of immigration. Click…
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Garth Hill Shortlisted in Writing Competition
My short piece Garth Hill has recently been shortlisted in the WRITE ABOUT WALKING & LISTENING writing competition hosted by walk · listen · create ‘Sound Walk September’. This competition was launched in July and submitters were asked to write poetry or prose in fewer than 250 words. Garth Hill is a walking piece which muses on the loss of a relative and contemplates the importance of sound and landscape when it comes to forming memory. The shortlisted pieces will be published in WALKING an illustrated chapbook anthology and issued as an audio book, sale proceeds of which go to support future walk · listen · create writing competitions. Copies of the book (when published)…
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Review of Lumen in Wales Arts Review
Today, I have another poetry review coming out in Wales Arts Review! Tiffany Atkinson’s Lumen has been hailed as a ‘fresh, moving and brilliantly inventive book’ by Sarah Howe. A lumen, we are told, ‘is a unit of light, but also a channel or an opening inside the body; perhaps, in this collection, it may also serve as a metaphor for the work of the poem itself.’ I’ll conclude by saying that a good poet makes you laugh, wonder, and even cringe at times; they unsettle you. It’s not always easy reading. I think it was Søren Kierkegaard that said that anxiety is necessary for creativity; it ‘can just as…
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‘Gwelon ni… Gwelais i.’
Received this in the post today! It’s a privilege contributing my first essay in Cristion magazine (Theme of the month: thrill). No surprises with the topic I chose: Mountains. Or rather a biblical mountain called the Mount of Transfiguration. The first section follows the fishermen as they ascend the slopes with their guide. As they scramble, something thrilling happens which stays on their minds forever… The second section then looks at some of my own climbs: one in north Wales and the other in the Pyrenees. I meditate about Christ the Climber and the thrilling effect that pivotal hill, or rather what they saw on that hill, had on his…
