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As we prepare to launch our new season of poetry titles by Kate North, Rhian Elizabeth, Rhys Owain Williams and Mari Ellis Dunning, the first review is in: 'All four poets are spiky and surprising, often dark, sometimes funny...' Read the review in full by Thomas Tyrrell on the Wales Arts Review website Come along to Cardiff Book Festival next Friday 7 September to see three of the poets reading in the New Poetry Showcase. 19:30 — SPLOTT STAGE Poetry showcase - The Friday Night Poetry Party Our Friday night Festival fixture showcases some of Wales’ most exciting and engrossing...

As she prepares to release her debut poetry collection the last polar bear on earth, Rhian will be writing a daily blog for us across September about her writing and her life, so here's an interview to get you all introduced...

There is clearly a lot going on in your poetry, what influenced you to write?

I know. It’s because there’s a lot going on in my head! What first influenced me to write in general is what still influences me to write now – it’s not any sort of influence as such, just the need to write. I’ve always written about things that I’m going through that are difficult. I’m not good at talking about my feelings so I write them down instead. In my first book I fictionalised growing up, being a teenager, the death of my father, friendships, music. This poetry collection is all about me having Multiple Sclerosis, being a mother, being gay, being in and getting over a violent relationship, making mistakes.

Our intern Ann went to the Edinburgh International Book Festival to represent Parthian Books. In this blogpost she describes her experience of the festival and gives a brief summary of the insightful discussion between authors Karmele Jaio (Her Mother's Hands) and Brian Conaghan (The Weight of a Thousand Feathers) on their books about children who must take care of their parents.

Join Parthian Books, Literature Wales and Wales Arts Review for an afternoon of discussion, information sharing and readings, in celebration of last year’s collaborative project The Valley, the City, the Village, which formed part of British Council Wales’ & Wales Arts International’s India-Wales initiative.

If there’s one feeling I left the Eisteddfod with, it was pleasantness. There wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before, no new Welsh custom I was unaware of, no flashy cultural ritual that demanded my attention. Just thousands of people with regard for one another. And maybe that’s noteworthy unto itself.