New Welsh Review

For over 30 years, New Welsh Review Ltd has been central to the Welsh literary scene in offering a vital outlet for the very best new fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, a forum for critical debate and a rigorous and engaged reviewing culture.

We have published some of the greatest writers and thinkers from Wales and beyond; Dannie Abse, Paul Muldoon, P.D. James, Emyr Humphreys, Leslie Norris, Gwyneth Lewis, Les Murray, Rachel Trezise, Niall Griffiths, Owen Sheers, Tiffany Murray, Edna Longley, Byron Rogers and Gillian Clarke. In summer 2015 we rebranded the creative magazine as New Welsh Reader, to combine the appeal of the new while maintaining our traditions and track record.

We now have a fully searchable archive available, which goes back to 2000.

THEME: 'Threshold', edited by Gwen Davies

European female-led literature with an emphasis on writing of place and nature in nonfiction, and voice-driven narrative in fiction. Literature in translation, and a return to the feature-length critical essay, as well as regular review-essays on contemporary books of Welsh interest. Plus a feature on artist William McClure Brown (1953–2008).

Bringing together the best of Wales' review-essays, including a comparison of new editions of nature classics, 'Back to the Land' by Pippa Marland. The books under review, Thomas Firbank's 'I Bought a Mountain' and Margiad Evans' 'Autobiography' take contrasting blustering and humble approaches to stepping over the sub/urban doorstep into nature.

A showcase of new nonfiction, previewing forthcoming titles from some of Wales' key English-language publishers, exploring books on anti-Welsh media vitriol covering the early Manic Street Preachers, and historical flooding and the riches of an Eton-owned Benedictine fishery on the Gwent Levels.

In original fiction: a wonderful story about a teenage boy on the cusp of bodily and emotional change, ‘Trout’, by Satterday Shaw, and a second, finely crafted story about the effect of geographical dislocation on teenage identity emergence, 'Another Place' by Philippa Holloway, set on Crosby beach.

Plus Editorial by Gwen Davies and a new opinion feature (Last Page) by Richard Lewis Davies in which both writers note that magazines in Wales are undergoing a transition, during which readers and subscribers will need to step up to the plate if a commitment to expressing our particular place and time, is to be maintained.

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL
Half-in, half-out: Gwen Davies.

NONFICTION
Bears at the Fridge: Goldcliff to Whitson Preview extract from This Stolen Land by Marsha O’Mahony.
The Kinnock Factor: The Manics and Anti-Welshness Edited abridged preview from International Velvet by Neil Collins.

FICTION
Another Place: Story by Philippa Holloway.
Trout: Story by Satterday Shaw.

ESSAYS
Dark Formula: Timothy Laurence Marsh on why reckless travel writing matters.
Books for Alien Girls: JL George's personal and practical reflections on the role neurodivergence can and should play when writing fiction.

REVIEW-ESSAYS
Back to the Land: Pippa Marland on two nature memoir classics, one of hubristic bluster, the other humbly receptive.
‘Queer Old Codgers’: Claire Pickard on the portrayal of highly nuanced gay identities and history in recent nonfiction titles and a major short story anthology.

LAST PAGE
Richard Lewis Davies on how a culture with ambition needs critics and readers.