AmeriCymru at Wordstock - Event Floorplan

We are very excited to announce that our stall at the prestigious Wordstock Literary Festival has been assigned. Please see the floor plan below for our precise location ( stall 302 ). This is a great opportunity to showcase Welsh writers and Welsh literature in the Pacific Northwest. Anyone, author, publisher,...who is interested in being featured at our stall should contact americymru@gmail.com asap.

An Interview With Lorin Morgan-Richards

Lorin Morgan-Richards is a composer, author, illustrator and purveyor of finely crafted dark humor handmade books. He is a direct descendant of Welsh American poet Robert Dennison Morgan. Lorin will be appearing at our booth at Wordstock on October 9th- 10th. He will be presenting a limited edition print of 'The Goodbye Family in Wales' to the first 100 visitors to the AmeriCymru table on both days. Be sure to arrive early! The location of our booth can be found here ( booth 620 ) and samples of Lorin's work can be found in the slideshow at the bottom of this page.

AmeriCymru: Your latest book is titled 'A Boy Born From Mold'. Care to give our readers an idea of what they will find between its covers?

Lorin:  Diolch Ceri for allowing me the opportunity for this interview and giving me a chance to share my passion. 'A Boy Born from Mold and Other Delectable Morsels' is my second published book through my small press, A Raven Above Press, which encompasses dark humor short stories with pen and ink illustration. Readers often call my books 'Gothic Fairytales' because they are reminiscent of Victorian Era moral stories.

'A Boy Born from Mold', my title story, reveals a mysterious boy named 'Rune' who lives in a basement, after having been hatched from an old forgotten family quilt. His neighbor upstairs is a lost little girl who seeks knowledge about her family's heritage. The two intersect and the story unravels so to speak.

I find it interesting the symbolism and metaphors that readers pull from this story. Some have thought of it as giving insight into some sort of Pagan beliefs. One commented it was a metaphor for the Celtic Tree of Life. The little girl upstairs represents an above plane while 'Rune' resides in the below or Otherworld, and the remaining between provides the journey towards consciousness of spirit and self interconnected. I will not say if these are accurate or intentional in any way, but obviously, the story itself was meant to fascinate adults as well as children, and like one reviewer mentioned, this story is fundamentally about finding oneself. 'A Boy Born from Mold' is just one of seven delectable morsels in the book. 

AmeriCymru: You have an interesting, perhaps unique, method of publishing your work.Can you give us a brief idea of the process by which you individually handcraft each volume and the materials you use?

Lorin:  In making 'A Boy Born from Mold and Other Delectable Morsels', I begin by gathering tools and my materials. After this, I use an Epson printer to make two sided booksheets. Both the booksheets along with the endsheets are folded into fourths and are cut to size. I then measure out and paste down cotton cloth and hinges to the first and last signatures. One by one I sew the signatures together using Irish linen thread, and these are knotted and glued. After I glue the spine, I attach a ribbon and let it dry. I then begin constructing the hardcover case. Last steps are adding the title to the spine with my foil stamp machine, gluing the pages to the case and pressing each book for several hours. Each book is signed and limited in edition to 400 copies. The bookbinding process is hard to measure in time, but once the pages are printed it takes a little over an hour for each book. Interestingly, the sewing is both the most time consuming and therapeutic part of my bookbinding. 

AmeriCymru: Is there any significance in making them limited edition?

Lorin:  In the ancient tradition of making things by hand, each book is interconnected with the author and thus has its own life principles. To further emphasize this, I made each part of a limited edition of 400 copies. However I won’t delve into the significance of the number 400.

AmeriCymru: On your website we learn that you are of Welsh and Amish ancestry. How did you become aware of your Welsh ancestry? Does it influence your work in any way? 

Lorin:  I believe dreams connect us to our ancestors and it is through creativity that we can tap into this in the conscious state. Creativity is a sort of trance that we have as artists that erases time and space. My mother's side, the Morgan family, is originally from Wales. I began questioning my identity pretty early on, but didn't understand or learn about it until I was in college when records and books became more readily available. By this time, unfortunately, my grandparents had also all passed. From here, I became heavily involved in genealogy and found in the US Census reports my direct ancestor 'John Morgan' as being born in Wales. Last year, I visited Cardiff and did more research, but found that the commonality of the name 'John Morgan' was equivalent to 'John Smith'. So my research continues. But in the meantime, I've begun taking steps to reconnect by learning Welsh and will be incorporating even more of the culture into my writing and illustrating.

AmeriCymru: You are currently working on several written projects with a Welsh linguist in Swansea. Care to tell us more?

Lorin:  In the fall, I will be releasing an audiobook of 'A Boy Born from Mold' with narration by Welsh linguist Jason Shepherd. I met Jason through 'The Learn Welsh Podcast', an informative podcast that he created and hosts every week. I am very lucky to have his talents for this project. His voice is simply stellar and his readings add a lot of charismatic dimension to the stories.

AmeriCymru: Do you see yourself as primarily any particular type of artist - painter,musician or writer?~ Do you have a favorite medium to work in and if so, what is it about that medium?
 
Lorin:  I am most comfortable with writing and pen and ink illustrations. My filter tends to be cut ups of what is around me blurred into my own feelings and interests of the Victorian era. I don't try to categorize myself but I do recognize my influences are a bit more macabre than usual.

AmeriCymru: What is next for Lorin Morgan-Richards? Do you have any new works in the pipeline? 

Lorin:  On September 12th, just in time for Grandparents Day, A Raven Above Press will be releasing a book entitled '13 Disturbing Postcards to Send to Your Grandparents'. This book is a lighthearted take on the mushy postcards kids send to their grandparents. I personally had terrific grandparents, but I thought it might be funny to create a book that is polar opposite to the postcards available today. I will also be releasing a miniature illustrated alphabet book that I will have finished by Halloween entitled 'The Terribly Mini Monster Book’.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Lorin:  Thanks for the appreciation and I hope that I am able to meet some of you at Wordstock in Portland! Hwyl fawr am nawr!

Find more photos like this on Americymru

Wales at Wordstock

The Venue

As part of this year's Left Coast Eisteddfod celebrations we are presenting a panel discussion at the prestigious Wordstock literary festival ( 7th-10th October 2010 ) entitled 'Welsh Identity in Literature: From Dylan Thomas to Dr Who'. Featured panel authors include Niall Griffiths, Harrison Solow and Chris Keil. We are pleased to announce that this will take place at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning in the OEA Performance Area at the Oregon Convention Center ( pictured left ). In addition two of our authors will be presenting workshops at the event  ( see details below ). The AmeriCymru booth, where you will find  a  wide variety of Anglo-Welsh literature for sale and signing sessions by our featured authors ( including Peter Griffiths and Lorin Morgan-Richards), will be open throughout the event. See this floor plan for our location ( we are at booth 620 )

The Authors

Check the Wordstock blog here daily for posts by our featured authors. Find details of featured authors in the slideshow above .

The Panel Discussion

Welsh Identity in Literature: From Dylan Thomas to Dr Who - 11 a.m. on Saturday morning ( 9th Oct ) in the OEA Performance Area at the Oregon Convention Center

What is Anglo-Welsh literature and why should anyone care?  As historian Gwyn Williams once famously said:- “The Welsh as a people have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context.” For the Welsh speaking minority in Wales cultural identity is not a problem. The language defines it. For the English speaking majority, this question is not so easily answered. In Wales we see the same TV programs , read the same newspapers as our neighbours do a few miles away across the English 'border'. Wales is a popular vacation spot and in the summer months there are areas where you will be lucky to hear a Welsh accent let alone hear the native language spoken. And yet for centuries the Welsh have refused to be subsumed or absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon cultural Borg .  Welsh authors are rarely included in the English literary canon. Perhaps there is a reason for that? How does Welsh literature help to preserve Welsh identity? What lessons does this hold for others attempting to maintain an identity in the face of  cultural globalization.

From 'Mr Vogel' by Lloyd Jones - “When was Wales? Wales has never been, it has always been.” he rambled on to his next victim, Myrddin the schizophrenic, who fortunately) was asleep. “I’ll tell you something for nothing.” he said, “true Wales is never more than a field away, and true Wales is always a field away, like Rhiannons horse in the Mabinogi. Got it?” 

We asked our panelists to respond to the followowing question:- How do you think Welsh writers, writing in English, contribute to establishing a distinct Welsh cultural identitiy. Do you think there's anything unique about the Welsh experience or about Anglo-Welsh literature in this regard?  Here are their responses:-

Chris Keil - "What do you call it? Welsh writing in English? English-language writing in Wales? If youʼre not confused you donʼt understand the situation. The one constant is that cultural politics are always changing. In the last thirty or forty years the languages have inverted their relationship to each other, and Welsh is now the speech of the elite. This puts English- language writers in Wales in a new place. For me, the salient, abiding characteristic is a sort of estrangement - from England, but also from Wales; not so much embattled/romantic/heroic, as just not-signed-up: a failure (and I mean that in the most successfulsense of the word) to invest in any of the big-noting nationalisms that compete for our souls. Itʼs never a party-piece, either of dull fields and sullen rocks and angst, or of verbal tics and tricks and archness and cutesyness, boyo, look you. To invoke Mae West: “Indeed-to-goodness has nothing to do with it.”

Niall Griffiths - "Difficult to answer briefly .Let's just say that the less power London has, in every realm, the better for the UK and Europe and indeed humanity as a whole. Wales is bi-lingual, and gloriously so; being able to mediate the world through two languages is very beneficial and enriching."

Harrison Solow - "There is everything unique about the Welsh experience. I have said in various interviews about my writing about Wales that "no word equals its referent, and that the meaning of what is approximated in words lies in the shadow of them – in a different realm altogether." I believe  "there is a meaning in any experience described within a book, that cannot possibly be in the book." Nowhere have I seen this belief personified, indeed, living, except in Wales: “The Welsh have survived as a nation chiefly by cunning and reserve...they play for time, they fence, they scout out the situation, but they do not commit themselves. Those sweet smiles are sweet, but they are well under control. It is performance that greets you, polished and long practiced, played on a deceptively cosy stage set with brass pokers by the fire...” as Jan Morris says in her book A Matter of Wales. This is a mystical nation and the daily life of y Cymry remains a mystery to outsiders, some of it even to fellow Welshmen who do not speak Welsh and whose intrinsic and amorphous content is shaped by what is considered by some to be an alien form: English. My significant encounters in Wales have been with the Welsh speaking Welsh, whose intermittent appearance behind those smiles have both an I-Thou magnetism and a faint but discernable invitation; whose bland and wordless gazes bespeak the language of a somehow recognizable teulu (family) that sent me hypnotically to the Welsh Department of The University of Wales to embark on a journey of another kind: the lifelong acquisition of an ancient, bardic tongue.  But when I won the Pushcart Prize for Literature for writing about Wales, even those Welsh speakers celebrated the notion that it is possible to write about Wales in English. I'm not so sure that one can write Wales without Welsh. But one can write about it. Wales is a state of mind, or rather a state of heart. It is the scent of lanolin in the air – the hum of small cities in the loam beneath the oaks, the conviction of Celtic blood. It is an endless and sirenic song - as far from English sensibility as  it is from German or Cherokee. Sometimes I think that any story about Wales should be told outside the written word. It is only because I cannot sing or paint that I write and what I write is a word-performance. It is eisteddfod."


The Workshops

The Writing Life: A Serious Pursuit of Self Definition - Harrison Solow ( OCC room B118 Saturday 9th Oct 9-10.15 am )

In this seminar, we will address writing under a variety of conditions, about  a variety of subjects, under the guise of ourselves and alter egos, in company and in isolation.

Writing Dialogue in the Novel - Chris Keil  ( OCC room B119 Sunday 10th Oct 1.30- 2.45 )

The workshop contains lecture, discussion, examples and participation in writing, on technical characteristics of dialogue in order to intensify mood, compress/express social/emotional connections etc

STOP PRESS:  Author Lorin Morgan Richards will be joining us at our booth at Wordstock where he will be selling and autographing copies of his works throughout Saturday and Sunday.