Gwen Davies – författare

Anthology of female-led European literature, with an emphasis on Wales, writing of place, and voice-driven fiction. This edition''s theme is Place Markers, and includes winners in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2021 Rheidol Prize for Prose with a Welsh Theme or Setting. These include: an essay by Jasmine Donahaye on nature, superstition and trust which attacks the parochialism and sexism of traditional ornithology and nature writing; a memoir by Elizabeth Griffiths on inheriting a church miles away in the Brecon Beacons and exploring her late mother''s attitude to history and heritage; a memoir of nature and place, set in the Welsh Marshes, by prizewinning poet Rhiannon Hooson, a fiction extract by Jack Harris which looks at the Rebecca Rioters and how communicating themes of cross-dressing and a passion for history may not resonate with a teacher''s pupils; a fiction extract by diverse Cardiff author Joao Morais which combines elements of the historical novel and the crime caper to explore serious themes of OCD, grief and the city; a long short story by New York-based Sybilla Harvey set in Abergavenny which looks at the time that Nazi Rudolf Hess stayed in a fairly open prison near the town, and a literary essay by Tony Brown which explores the neglected short story writer of mid Wales and the interwar years, Nigel Heseltine. Plus poems by Suzannah Evans, Stuart Pickford and hospital doctor Steven Hastings.

This edition/anthology focuses on photography, commemoration and reinvention, with particular attention paid to the memories that pass from father to daughter. Photographer MR Thomas writes about the October 1999 day that he shot the iconic group portrait of cultural legends RS Thomas, Kyffin Williams and Emyr Humphreys, at RS Thomas'' home in Pentrefelin, in Gwynedd. MR Thomas recreated the pose and attitude of an historical and historic photograph in the public domain that has come to be known as The Penyberth Three (of Lewis Valentine, Saunders Lewis and DJ Williams, the founders of the Welsh nationalist movement), transforming it into a new artefact, The Pentrefelin Three, which is published for the first time in these pages.

Yvonne Reddick drew on memories of the loss of her father in the mountains, in her debut poetry pamphlet, Translating Mountains. In her memoir published here, illustrated by her partner Jonny Kinnear''s atmospheric black and white photographs, she further probes that loss. More than that, she pitches it into the public global arena by setting her true story on the Instagram mecca of the crash site of the Bleaklow Bomber in the Peak District, where the US reconnaissance plane ''Over Exposed'' crashed in 1948, having previously photographed images of the nuclear blasts on Bikini Atoll. Meanwhile, exploring the father-daughter legacy in relation to the growth of rural rave culture in 1990s mid Wales, ''Bass in the Blood'' by Jodie Bond recounts how she and her brother weathered parties marked by drugs, music, natural beauty and benign neglect, leaving her with magical and yet conflicted memories of her father''s rediscovery of himself, post divorce.

European female-led literature with an emphasis on place in prose, the narrative voice in fiction, diversity in poetry and beauty and imagination in photography. This anthology takes the theme of metamorphosis, and presents a feature-length profile of trans pioneer and travel author Jan Morris; the stunning photographs, by the multiple international prizewinning Vanessa Winship, of rural Ohio and the Amish community; a literary essay on female nature essayists, plus poems by the Costa Awardwinning Jonathan Edwards.

Female-led European literature with a focus on place in nonfiction, narrative voice in fiction and diversity in poetry. Plus illustrations by Katherine Cleaver. This edition presents the winner of the New Welsh Writing Awards 2023 Rheidol Prize for Prose with a Welsh Theme or Setting: ''Invisibility'' by Mark Blayney, a fictionalised biography of Thomas Picton, Tyrant of Trinidad. Plus poems by Graham Mort and Carson Wolfe.