News Archive

Independent Press Day at Chapter

Tuesday 4 December at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Adventures in the word trade at Chapter with a day devoted to books, writers, bookstalls, debates and conferences from a diverse range of independent publishers. These are not books that you will find on the 3 for 2 table. Everything from the best Russian Literature in translation with Glas, to the magazine Banipal - publishing new work from world of Arabic writing - to innovative poetry imprints like Eggbox and Two Rivers Press. If you want to read something different this year come to the writers’ tent bookstall, take part in the debate on Publishers: a special kind of hell with Lloyd Robson, Hazel Cushion and Tony Ward. How does writing from the margins survive in a 3 for 2 culture? Come and discuss how to get published with a range of independents.  Hear some great poetry with Peter Mortimer, Adel Guemar, Peter Finch and Jeni Williams.

Timetable:

1pm:  Adventures in the word trade with Peter Finch.

5pm:  Publishers: a special kind of hell with Lloyd Robson, Hazel Cushion and Tony Ward.

6pm-8pm:  Bookfair with the writers’ tent and supporting guests.

8.20pm:  Carnival reading with Peter Mortimer, Adel Guémar, Peter Finch and Jeni Williams.

Peter Mortimer is a playwright, poet and editor  is also the founder and editor of Iron Press, which since 1973 has brought out a whole range of new poetry, fiction and drama.
Mortimer’s own poetry has been published by, among others, Flambard and Iron and his latest collection, I Married The Angel of the North came out in 2002 from Five Leaves Press. His children’s collection of poems Utter Nonsense, (illustrated by Geoff Laws, Iron Press) is in its seventh edition since first appearing in 1979. Flambard also published his children’s fable, Croak, The King & A Change in the Weather (illustrated by Gaynor Devaney).
Peter Mortimer is also the author of three “extreme” books. In 1987, his book The Last of The Hunters, detailing his six months working as a fisherman in the North Sea, was published by North Tyneside Arts & Libraries, and is to be republished this year by Five Leaves Press. Broke Through Britain – One Man’s Penniless Odyssey was published in 1999 by Mainstream and details the author’s 540 mile journey from Plymouth to Edinburgh without a penny in his pocket. It is already in its fifth print, and has been serialised world-wide.
It was followed in 2002 by 100 Days on Holy Island – A Writer’s Exile. This chronicles one winter spent on the remote island off the Northumbrian coast (also known as Lindisfarne) which is cut off twice daily by the tide. Mortimer is a former journalist, and for six years was the region’s theatre critic for The Guardian. He has also been a satirical columnist for both The Journal and Newcastle Evening Chronicle.

Jeni Williams is a writer, editor and critic. She has written extensively on theatre and art in Wales and has published poetry and reviews in a range of arts and culture magazines including Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Planet, New Writing and Orbis. She has a long-term interest in theatre, was the theatre critic for New Welsh Review for 5 years and continues to take an interest in innovative performance of all kinds, including new writing.
She is actively involved in South Wales charity, Asylum Justice, which offers legal advice to people who have been forced to seek refuge in UK after fleeing repressive regimes at home. She has run poetry workshops with women seeking refuge in Swansea and is editor of Fragments from the Dark, the latest volume in the Swansea-based Hafan books anthologies by Welsh and asylum-seeking writers, due out January 2008. Her first poetry collection will be published by Parthian in 2009.

Soleïman Adel Guémar was born and raised in Algiers. He was heading for an army career when he quit his engineering studies to spend two years in Paris working in publishing. He returned to Algiers in 1991 amid signs of democratization, in order to work as a journalist, initially on L’Evènement and then freelance. Besides reporting on corruption and human rights abuses, he also published numerous stories and won two national poetry prizes. A generous selection of his poems appeared in the Parisian journal Algérie Littérature / Action in 2002. By the end of that year he had had to leave Algeria to seek safety for himself and his family in the UK.
State of Emergency, a representative selection of Guémar’s poetry, is rooted in Algerian experience, speaking of urgent concerns everywhere – oppression, resistance, state violence, traumas and private dreams. It won a publication award from English Pen Writers.
His poetry sings of life’s sensual pleasures in the face of the grotesque morbidity of violent political repression. Winner of the Pen Writer’s prize.

Peter Finch is a poet, critic, author and literary entrepreneur living in Cardiff, Wales. He is Chief Executive of Academi, the Welsh National Literature Promotion Agency and Society of Writers. As a writer he works in both traditional and experimental forms. He is best known for his declamatory poetry readings, his creative work based on his native city of Cardiff and his encyclopedic knowledge of the UK poetry publishing scene.
In the sixties and seventies he edited the ground-breaking literary magazine, second aeon, exhibited visual poetry internationally and toured with sound poet Bob Cobbing. In the eighties and nineties he concerned himself with performance poetry, was a founder member of Cardiff’s Cabaret 246 and of the trio Horse’s Mouth. This was work with props, owing as much to theatre as it did to literature. In the new Millennium he was worked on psychogeographies and alternative guides to his native city of Cardiff. The city has become his obsession.
From the early seventies until the late nineties he was treasurer of ALP, the Association of Little Presses. Between 1975 and 1998 he ran the Arts Council of Wales’s specialist Oriel Bookshop in Cardiff. In 1998 he took up his current post as Chief Executive of Yr Academi Gymreig / The Welsh Academy – the Welsh National Literature Promotion Agency and Society for Writers.
Peter Finch has published more than 25 books of poetry including Food, Useful and Poems For Ghosts (Seren) and Antibodies (Stride). His The Welsh Poems appeared from Shearsman in 2006. His Selected Later Poems is due from Seren in November, 2007.
Until 2007 Peter Finch compiled the poetry section of Macmillan’s annual Writer’s Handbook. He continues to write the self-publishing section for A&C Black’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. He is a book reviewer and writes articles on Cardiff, Wales and the business of poetry. His poetry and criticism is widely published in magazines and anthologies.

Inpress Limited, based in West London, is funded by Arts Council England and exists to support the publishing programmes of its member presses by promoting good writing to as wide an audience as possible. Inpress offers practical marketing and sales support to its members and hosts www.inpressbooks.co.uk, a transactional website that features approximately 1500 titles and displays the largest collection of contemporary poetry to be found in the U.K. Inpress also supports a significant number of major poetry and literary magazines.
www.inpressbooks.co.uk.

Supported by Inpress, Parthian Carnival and Academi.
A carnival day in support of Asylum Seekers (and Refugees) Support Network.

	Inpress Event Flyer Side 1	1.07 MB
	Inpress Event Flyer Side 2	742.3 KB