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Sydney Whiteside, for the Wales Arts Review, takes an indepth look at the writings of Christina Thatcher (How to Carry Fire) and Zoë Brigley (Notes from a Swing State), finding cultural depths and resonances as an American living in Wales.

'Both Christina Thatcher’s How to Carry Fire and Zoë Brigley’s Notes from a Swing State are born of trans-Atlantic origins. Writing between Wales and America, though in opposite directions, Thatcher and Brigley speak of both countries with spellbinding precision and depth. As someone inhabiting a similar position, reading these works was both a joy and an inspiration.'

You can read the full article here.

And both books are available to buy on our website - link here.

Listen to Susie Wild narrate her poem 'The Carnivore Boyfriends', published in the Spring 2020 edition of Poetry Wales. 

Susie Wild is the author of Better Houses, The Art of Contraception, and Arrivals. Her second collection of poetry, Windfalls is forthcoming from Parthian in Spring 2021. She placed second in the Welshpool Poetry Festival Competition 2020, was highly commended in the Prole Laureate Poetry Competition 2020 and longlisted for the Mslexia Women's Poetry Prize 2018. Poems have recently appeared in The Atlanta Review and Poetry Wales. She lives in Cardiff.

'The dry rustle of hands shoved into coat pockets is an act of protection, hugs are replaced by nervous nods, and to step out into the crisp sunshine more than once is to break the law. Social media is a flickering buzz of news articles, virus-related memes, and screenshots of Zoom meetings, a glass of stockpiled Chablis tilted wryly towards the camera. The line graph of confirmed cases skews alarmingly upwards. 'We are living in strange and unexpectedly challenging times. In between breaking news updates and frightening Covid-19 statistics, there is a sudden influx of articles trying to get us...

So many lovely comments have been flooding in for Christina Thatcher's second poetry collection 'How to Carry Fire' over the weekend. Look at this blazing spread in the Western Mail Weekend supplement on Saturday by Jenny White. ‘The resulting work cements Thatcher’s position as a distinctive, powerful and unerring authentic new poetic voice - a stall she first set out with More Than You Were, her 2017 debut collection which explored the legacy of her father’s addiction and death. 'While many of her poems deal with gritty topics, they are also strikingly beautiful in the purity of the love they convey. There...

Back in 2012, I was asked to design and run a blog-writing course for a community organisation in South Wales. Although I was no expert, I said yes! and started reading blogs every day to prepare. I loved the versatility of this form and feeling connected to people through their posts. It wasn’t long before I decided to start my own blog, Collecting Words, where I shared my experiences as an American writer living in Wales. I posted about the ups and downs of freelance projects, celebrated successes and included lots of poems and photos.

Since then, my little blog has changed enormously—existing now as a part of my professional website. I still read blogs on everything from true crime and British history to funeral directing and PhD life. However, the blogs I return to most are about books. I love finding out what people are reading and seeing the transformative power of literature in action. Perhaps this is why I am so excited to take part in my first blog tour for one of my own books