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The keen, passionate, yet dreamy voice of Sophie McKeand drifts out of the speakers as she recites her poems 'Morning Prayer' and 'Dharma.'

North Welsh poet and performer Sophie McKeand went to the Bengali Region in India in 2017 as part of the cultural exchange program “The Valley, The City, The Village.”

Listen to the full recording on Soundcloud.

Welsh and Indian authors reflect on the theme of place in their writing at this podcast recorded at the Hay Festival Wales 2017. The poets took part in the Hay Mela: a series of events at Hay Festival that were part of the UK India Year of Culture 2017- a year of cultural exchange marking the 70th anniversary of India’s independence. In this British Council podcast recorded at the Hay Festival Wales 2017 with host Georgina Godwin writers from West Bengal and Wales talk about their cross cultural collaboration through the project Village, City and Valley. Read More and Listen to...

Welsh writers Natalie Ann Holborow, Siôn Tomos Owen and Sophie McKeand will be joined by Indian writers Aniesha Brahma, Srijato Bandyopadhyay and Arunava Sinha. The writers have been brought together by Welsh publisher Parthian Books, Kolkata-based Bee Books, Literature Wales and Wales Arts Review, for their new project The Valley, The City, The Village.

The project is supported by India Wales, a new funding scheme by the British Council and Wales Arts International. The scheme supports artistic collaboration and exchange between creative professionals and arts organisations in Wales and India to build sustainable, creative relationships and networks between the two countries.

The Valley, The City, The Village brings together the six writers in a series of residencies and live performances, which will result in a trilingual publication of new writing in Bengali, English and Welsh to be published by Parthian in 2018. The project incorporates prose, poetry, art and reportage from Bengal and Wales. A special 48-page full colour magazine celebrating The Valley, The City, The Village will also be launched on 26 May, featuring contributions from all writers.

We are pleased to announce the dates for the UK book launch tour of Rebel Sun, the new poetry collection from award-winning poet and performer Sophie McKeand taking in a plethora of festivals, venues, workshops, readings and more across the summer and autumn. The official launch will be held at Hay Festival on 31 May 2017 as part of our #IndiaWales project The Valley, The City, The Village.

‘Rebel Sun is a compelling, shapeshifting exploration of land and myth, the deep roots of our history, our relationship to nature and to ourselves, merging visions of the past with narratives of the close-up and personal. To hear Sophie McKeand’s work aloud is to be captivated, stunned; on the page the poems are no less profound. This is mythological, musical poetry that not only crosses borders but seems to dismantle them entirely, collapsing time and space, transfiguring and prefiguring the world we live in.’ – Martha Sprackland.

Struggling to write? In a panic about sending your next project out into the world? Now that she has 'been there, done that' Natalie Ann Holborow offers up frank wit and kind advice to other writers in her new blog post:

'I haven’t posted in over a year, but I figured launching my first book is something worth noting down now, while it’s happening, because your first time will only ever happen once (ahem).'

'I suppose people will expect me to gush here about the elation, the excitement, the surging rush of ecstasy at finally seeing five years’ of work and a dream I’d nurtured since I was writing two-page ‘novels’ in felt pen in front of The Powerpuff Girls finally come to life. I’d envisioned it and doodled it into the diaries I kept stashed in my pillowcases for years – me at a table in Waterstone’s, no longer the shy, sad mousey girl in secondary school but happy and signing books in front of a line of people who didn’t think writing was ridiculous or uncool. And you know what? Yes, it feels amazing.'

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