Issue 94, Winter 2011

Editorial

'It's raining fish, Halleluja!' and other magic (Gwen Davies)

In this issue, Rhian Jones compares the music industry's hysterical reaction to downloading and applauds publishers’ ‘shrewdness in [their] appropriation of digital’s potential’ and their ‘uncharacteristic speed’. One of her examples of publishing initiative is the ‘crowd-funded’ or sponsor-based enterprise Unbound, modelled on the trendier industry’s PledgeMusic, which promotes interaction between reader and author as well as a social network-inspired democracy. Unbound simply posts book proposals (hopefully protected from plagiarism), and those whose quota of financial pledges falls short will not get into print. Basically a slick update of the eighteenth-century subscriber-book concept, it is interesting nevertheless. Especially so, considering that journals have begun to move in the opposite direction, using the formats and distribution networks (both physical and online) of the book in order to enhance their primary subscriber-based income.
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Features

• July in Ceredigion by John Barnie
  
• What Pencils Were Made to Create by David Thorpe
  
• Slate Country Fictions by Jim Perrin
  
• Yes and No by Jane MacNamee
  
• Tourism and Tear Gas by Lewis Davies
  
• Pulp Kitchen by Rhian Jones
  
• Trade Winds by Euan Thorneycroft
  
• Rich Text by Hayley Long
  

Fiction

• The Feed by Christien Gholson
  

Poetry

Poems by :
Matthew Francis
Ciaran O'Rourke

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 Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuiness
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854115416  PB £8.99
  Reviewed by Julia Forster
  
  
• The Keys of Babylon by Robert Minhinnick
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854115508  PB £8.99
  Reviewed by Roshi Fernando
  
  
• The Brittle Sea: New and Selected Poems by Paul Henry
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854115249  PB £9.99
  Reviewed by Tamar Yoseloff
  
  
• The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes
  Published by Atlantic
  ISBN 9781848879782  PB £14.99
  Reviewed by Charlotte Jackson
  
  
• A True Prize / The Storm House by John Goodby / Tim Liardet
  Published by Cinnamon / Carcanet
  ISBN 9781907090356 / 9781847770677  PB £7.99 / 9.95
  Reviewed by Alan Perry
  
  
• In the Shadow of the Pulpit, Literature and Nonconformist Wales by M Wynn Thomas
  Published by University of Wales Press
  ISBN 9780708322253  PB £24.99
  Reviewed by Sarah Morse
  
  
• Sound Archive / Welcome Back to the Country by Nerys Williams / Graham Clifford
  Published by Seren
  ISBN 9781854115386 / 9781854115591  PB £8.99 / 5
  Reviewed by Kate North
  
  
• Dovetail by Jeremy Hughes
  Published by Alcemi
  ISBN 9780956012531  PB £9.99
  Reviewed by Catherine Merriman
  
  
• Clay by Gladys Mary Coles
  Published by Flambard Press
  ISBN 9781906601195  PB £8.99
  Reviewed by Emma Rea
  
  
• A Fish Trapped Inside the Wind by Christien Gholson
  Published by Parthian
  ISBN 9781906998905  PB £7.99
  Reviewed by Sîan Melangell Dafydd
  
  

Letters