New Welsh Review 86, Winter

Editorial:

Apparitions (Kathryn Gray)

While the mayhem of a busy desk may indicate otherwise, something is starting to take shape. For here, before me, are the first proofs. Ah, proofs! Was there ever a more exacting and inexact definition for it? One thing I learned first to tolerate about this job – and then to love – is the provisional. As little gods we’d style ourselves, us editors. We imagine, we commission. We seek to define, place limits, impose vision. And yet. The deadlines arrive. The magazine is surely and purposefully brought together over the weeks. On the screen, in the grid before us, the words assume their provisional position on the virtual, raw pages. The designer works her magic. The words return, almost – but not quite – fixed. On paper. Proof of some kind. Proofs. And there they wait for us to join them. Our propositions now duly laid to waste, this is where the excitement and vitality of the enterprise truly comes into its own. It has taken me some time but, like most editors, I imagine, I’ve learned to be in it for the discovery, not the predetermined. Beyond that, what else is there?
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Features

• Holy Things by Jim Perrin
  Jim Perrin discusses new nature writing and how we can connect with “our relict wild country and natural landscapes”.
  
  
• A Ghostly Limbo by Tiffany Murray
  Tiffany Murray on memory, imagination and Jean Rhys, the author of Wild Sargasso Sea; she considers how writers draw from their own memories, which are then changed by the act of writing.
  
  
• Green in Black by Daniel G. Williams
  Daniel G. Williams looks at the African American attraction to Emlyn William’s The Corn is Green, drawing parallels to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
  
  
• First Hand by Tristan Hughes
  Tristian Hughes on why he is always trying to write the same story.
  
  
• Last Word by Caroline Oakley
  Caroline Oakley, editor at Honno, on the difficulties – and limitations – of categorising the novel as literary.
  
  
• Photo Essay: Save the Vulcan by John Briggs
  Images and introduction from John Briggs on the campaign to save Cardiff’s Vulcan Hotel.
  
  

Fiction

• Into Suez by Stevie Davies
  
• Whiteout by Jon Gower
  

Poems

Poems by :
Ellie Evans
John Goodby
Gwyneth Lewis
Glyn Maxwell
Kona Macphee
George Murray

Reviews

The majority of books reviewed in New Welsh Review can be bought online from gwales.com, the Welsh Books Council's online bookshop, by simply clicking on the 'buy now' icon. For any that are unavailable, please contact the publishers or ask in your local bookshop. All details were correct at the time of publication.

• The Woman at the Window by Emyr Humphreys
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854114891  pb £7.99
  Reviewed by Mary-Ann Constantine
  
  
• The Boat by Nam Le
  Published by Canongate
  ISBN 9781847671615  pb £7.99
  Reviewed by Tristan Hughes
  
  
• Suit of Lights by Damian Walford Davies
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854114938  pb £7.99
  Reviewed by John Redmond
  
  
• Seahorses are real by Zillah Bethell
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854114945  pb £7.99
  Reviewed by Ceri Gorton
  
  
• New Selected Poems: Anniversary Collection 1949-2009 by Dannie Abse
  Published by Hutchinson
  ISBN 978009195155  pb £12.99
  Reviewed by Robert Minhinnick
  
  
• R.S. Thomas: Letters to Raymond Garlick, 1951-1999 by Jason Walford Davies (Ed)
  Published by Gomer
  ISBN 9781843238263  hb £16.99
  Reviewed by Jon Gower
  
  
• Self-Portrait in the Dark by Colette Bryce
  Published by Picador
  ISBN 9780330456258  pb £8.99
  Reviewed by Meirion Jordan
  
  
• Once by Andrew McNeillie
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854114969  pb £9.99
  Reviewed by Jane MacNamee
  
  
• At the Bright Hem of God: Radnorshire Pastoral by Peter J. Conradi
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854114907  pb £7.99
  Reviewed by Jim Perrin
  
  
• The Caves of Alienation by Stuart Evans
  Published by Parthian/Library of Wales
  ISBN 9781905762958  pb £8.99
  Reviewed by James A. Davies
  
  
• Soothing Music for Stray Cats by Jayne Joso
  Published by Alcemi
  ISBN 9780955527258  pb £9.99
  Reviewed by Garan Holcombe
  
  
• Amis & Son by Neil Powell
  Published by Pan
  ISBN 9780330440721  pb £9.99
  Reviewed by Ian Gregson
  
  

Letters