Seren News - September 2011
Seren is 30 years old!
Seren is celebrating 30 years of publishing this year and what better way to mark the occasion than a good old fashioned street party.
We invite you to help celebrate at the Seren offices in Bridgend at 11am - 4pm on 1st October 2011. There will be birthday cake and soft drink for everyone and a lucky dip - a free read on us! And special offers on food at the Deli based next door to Seren throughout the day.
There will be an opportunity to meet our editors and also some of the authors we have published during the last 30 years, including Man Booker long-listee Patrick McGuinness. Poets Robert Minhinnick and Mike Jenkins will be reading and hosting the Open Mic. Our Guest of Honour is Dannie Abse
Fixed Events throughout the day:
12pm-2pm: 'Meet the Editor' (Poetry, fiction and non-fiction). Get advice from Seren editors about your unpublished work - to book your 10 minute time slot please send your name, email address and which editor you would like to meet to seren@serenbooks.com - we will allocate a time for you. Spaces are limited!
12.30pm-3pm: Open Mic slots. Sign up on arrival and read your poetry, fiction or sing some songs.Mike Jenkins and Robert Minhinnick will host and read at Open Mic.
3pm: Guest of Honour Dannie Abse, will make a short speech and give a reading
Raffle tickets on sale throughout the day - some great prizes to win. Please bring along your family and friends - the more, the merrier! Seren books will be available to buy at discounted prices throughout the day.
Awards & Prizes
Congratulations to Nerys Williams whose debut poetry collection Sound Archive has been shortlisted for the Michael Murphy prize 2011. Nerys Williams is also shortlisted for the Forward Prize 2011 (Best First Collection) alongside another Seren poet, Judy Brown Loudness
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Though Patrick McGuinness didn't make the shortlist, we congratulate him once more on making the longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011. He's had a slew of good reviews in the national press as a result. The rights to The Last Hundred Days have now been sold to Bloomsbury in America, and translation enquiries have flooded in. Patrick has also been invited to speak at the European Parliament.
The Last Hundred Days reviews:
"The opening chapter is superb. McGuinness is an accomplished poet and writes with superb clarity. The novel is littered with aperçus that have the reader reaching for a pencil." The Independent
"...the sardonic crispness and evocative power of its language distinguishes it from the run of contemporary fiction." Sean O'Brien, TLS
"The descriptions are moments of total stillness in the book, and it's spellbinding" We Love This Book Magazine
"an assured performance" The Literary Review
"stunning" The Times
"Sinister, comic and lyrical, it vividly captures the end of a long nightmare" i newspaper