CARDIFF BOOK FESTIVAL 2018
BUZZ recently took the opportunity to check out the many choices on offer at the third Cardiff Book Festival. All events took place at Jurys Inn, with a range of topics available, from children’s literature to cricket, history to myths. As always, Welsh writers and Wales-based authors were at the forefront of the programme.
Industry expert Hazel Cushion gave us the scoop with her Getting published Masterclass. She pulled no punches in letting potential authors know that it’s a tough market out there. “Internet marketing is king,” she offered. The founder and managing director of Accent Press and owner of Octavo’s Book Cafe and Wine Bar (both located in Cardiff) gave several top tips such. “Make sure you understand your genre you’re writing about,” said the savvy bookseller. “Pick a specific niche. Family sagas, like Catherine Cookson are very hot. She advised that you have a better chance if you’ve got a series or trilogy in commercial fiction as it’s harder to market just one book and added, “Flattery doesn’t hurt,” when dealing with agents and publishers.
Welsh crime writers B. E. Jones and Cardiff’s Amy Lloyd didn’t leave devotees hanging when it came to digging up the dirt with their Is this a New Golden Age of Crime? thriller of a talk, and contemporary crime was put under the microscope. Jones, who’s authored five books, the most recent being Halfway, confessed she “doesn’t really read or watch true crime.” The former crime reporter and police press officer relies on workers in her former professions for details and info of the crime scene and said crime writers can “have too much knowledge or not enough. You do need the public to help you.” On the subject of the press and crime she opined “Once you’ve fed them they’re like a shark. They want more.” Lloyd, who’s debut novel The Innocent Wife won the Daily Mail Bestseller Competition and was in The Sunday Times bestseller list, said she’s been interested in the genre since she was a teenager. “Fiction readers don’t want to fill in the blanks. [They] want a concrete ending. True crime manages to get away with a lot more than fiction does. The stakes have changed thanks to reality TV.” She also revealed that she likes to get rid of her characters when the book is finished. Both Jones and Lloyd’s new books are suspenseful psychological page-turners.
Menna Elfyn on Eluned Phillips saw the biographer give a fascinating discourse about just the second woman to win the National Eisteddfod bardic crown during the 20th century and the only woman to win it twice, in 1967 and 1983, albeit under much doubt. Professor Elfyn even wondered if Phillips penned the poems. Because she wasn’t married, didn’t finish university (cut short by WWII) and wasn’t part of the Welsh literati establishment made up largely by sexist men, Phillips was plagued by rumours of plagiarism by those who didn’t think a woman could write such poetry recalled Elfyn, an esteemed poet herself. Although much of Phillips’ writings were burnt, Elfyn was lucky enough to see surviving material that her family still had. Through reading her poems, novels, oratorical essays, letters from poets and even musical works, came to the conclusion that this groundbreaking woman was indeed the writer of the acclaimed poems and more. “I have Eluned’s afterlife to look after and defend,” she announced. She wants to bring the story that this was the bard’s work to the public and also tell more about this well-travelled, always curious woman.
Richard Skinner’s Writing A Novel: Bring Your Ideas To Life The Faber Academy Way (and also the title of his book) was enthusiastically jam-packed with ideas, thoughts and encouragement. The lecturer and head tutor at Faber Creative Writing Academy since 2009 also enthused about the course, what it entailed and who enrolls in it. “Every other writer’s issue is your issue,” he stated. “We’re not interested in people who just want to get published. You should write for yourself because of a passion, not because you want to make money.” He said writers needed to unhook their sense of self-esteem from acceptance and rejection. “You’ve got to dust yourself off and keep going. This book might not be the one that gets published. I don‘t know a writer who doesn‘t have a terrible novel in their bottom drawer.” Skinner also passed out postcards with his Five Top Tips (which are in his book) and explained them to the eager crowd. On the subject of getting published he did comment that “It’s all about luck, really.”
Trailblazers and Outsiders – the Women who Changed the World looked to be sold out for two of the UK’s prominent biographers of women – Lyndall Gordon and Angela V. John, and there was definitely a buzz of excitement and anticipation in the room!
Gordon, known for her literary biographies, is the author of Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World in which she tackles the lives and books of
Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner and Virginia Woolf. In John’s Rocking The Boat: Welsh Women who Championed Equality 1840-1990, we meet seven Welsh women who strived to make their own way during the 19th and 20th centuries. All were freethinkers and leading lights for women.
2018 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, which first gave women over the age of 30 (who met a property qualification) the right to vote, and Gordon and John were here to celebrate not only the women in their books but also ones who fought so diligently for female suffrage and beyond. Gordon, a senior research fellow at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, said that all five women writers in Outsiders were motherless and had to leave home to find themselves. She didn’t really have a process of selection as “They did actually, choose themselves for me.” John, who hails from Port Talbot, said she was “quite keen Welsh women had a voice” because “they were forgotten in their own communities” and wanted to include feisty women in her work – Frances Hoggan, Menna Gallie, Lady Rhondda, Edith Picton-Turbervill, Myvanwy and Olwen Rhys and Margaret Wynne Nevinson – who moved beyond Wales and didn’t only want to focus on suffragettes.
An honorary professor at Swansea University, she was “exploring different ways biographies could be written.” Calling herself a biographical historian, she wanted to show how a biography can humanise history. A connection is shared between Woolf and Lady Rhondda who founded the journal Time and Tide. As editor, she featured the novelist in her magazine and wrote to her on the role of the outsider after reading Woolf’s Three Guineas essay on feminism and pacifism. “Lady Rhondda knew about this as publisher of Time and Tide,” recounted John. Three Guineas wasn’t well-received by the general public and bookshops said it was too controversial said Gordon, but she added, “Lady Rhondda really appreciated [it].”
The #MeToo movement and domestic violence were also a topic of conversation. As a graduate student at Columbia University (where she received her doctorate and later taught), Gordon told the ardent audience that she attended the first Woman’s Lib meeting held by Kate Millet. “I was astonished at the amount of hate there was towards men,” she recalled. She doesn‘t like to think women are better than men but that more needs to be done in terms of equality. “I feel there’s still a long way to go.” John reckoned that it’s up to other people to write about different women – modern, minority, etc.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Character Mask Masterclass with Holly Müller
Müller, a Welsh writer whose debut novel My Own Dear Brother is set in post-war Austria, superbly instructed using examples from J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.
Year of the Sea 2018 with Ifor ap Glyn, Dafydd Elis Thomas and Lleucu Siencyn
National Poet of Wales and twice winner of the National Eisteddfod Crown, ap Glyn . stirringly recited his Welsh language poem (with the above English name). It’s been commissioned by Visit Wales and Literature Wales to celebrate the dramatic and stunning coastline. Culture, Tourism and Sport Minister Lord Elis Thomas and the Literature Wales Chief Executive joined him in a discussion that included talk of seafaring and other jobs, bringing more tourism and our relationship with our shores.
A Pitch in Time with Cathryn Summerhayes
The literary agent at Curtis Brown gave lots of reading between the pages advise on how to nab that next bestseller. A few lucky attendees even got to pitch their idea in a short, private chat!
Masterclass: An Introduction to Blogging with Rachel Carney
The Made In Roath resident gave super helpful tips from her self-published book, ‘How to Start a Book Blog: A Step by Step Guide’.
Rosamund Young – The Secret Life of Cows
We chewed the cud with the cow whisperer farmer on among other things, vegans, abattoirs, sustainable and responsible farming and animal feelings.
Russia: From Our Own Correspondents with Angus Roxburgh and Trevor Fishlock Former BBC Russia correspondent and advisor at Putin’s Kremlin Roxburgh and writer and broadcaster Fishlock dished the dirt on goings on in not only that aggressive bear of a former empire but also happenings worldwide in an intriguing and informative hour.