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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.

About Joe: Joe England was educated at Cyfarthfa Grammar School, Merthyr Tydfil and at the University of Nottingham where he studied Economic and Social History. In a varied career he has been editor of a weekly newspaper, a full-time lecturer for the Workers’ Educational Association, Deputy Director of the Department of Extra-Mural Studies in the University of Hong Kong, Research Fellow in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at Warwick University and Principal and chief executive of Coleg Harlech, Wales’ residential college for adults. He has travelled widely in East Asia and is well-known as a lecturer on social and industrial...

Last month we released Bernard's photography collection Pieces of a Jigsaw: Portraits of Artists and Writers of Wales, and this month we want to showcase him and his amazing work! Bernard Mitchell was born in Morriston, Swansea, in 1947. His interest in photography began at junior school with a cardboard pinhole camera. The present of a Kodak127 and various cameras throughout school helped him develop his knowledge and interest in the fundamentals of photography. After leaving school, he studied photography at the Berkshire college of art Reading Before joining Thomson Regional Newspapers as an indentured photojournalist. Following a long career in newspapers,...