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Sunday Times: Novelist Ece Temelkuran on Why She 'Adopts' Daughters
'There are surveys that call my age group “the childless generation”. I am 43 years old — a fact I remind myself of when I am tempted to buy ripped jeans — and, like many of my friends, I am childless. But the world is still a place where it is common to ask why you did not have children and whether you regret it. The planet still sees our situation as “curable”, I guess. But one thing is sure: if one does not have a child, one always stays someone’s child and never officially becomes an adult.'
Two Cardiff Authors Open a Bookshop to Sell New Novels
Cardiff-based authors Lloyd Markham and Crystal Jeans have opened a bookshop in Duke Street Arcade, Cardiff to sell their new novels with their Festival of Bad Ideas this week. The Carnival bookshop popped up on Sat 1 July stocking copies of Bad Ideas\Chemicals, the dark, weird debut novel by Lloyd Markham published by Parthian that has already garnered a cult buzz amongst other top writers:
‘A dark and witty take on small town life.’
– David Towsey
‘bleak, weird, grim, cool... it will probably become a cult classic.’ – Rhian Elizabeth
'Some writers try to do weird. Some writers do weird. Lloyd Markham is weird.' – Christopher Meredith
The shop also stocks Crystal Jeans' second novel Light Switches are my Kryptonite by Honno:
'In Sylvester, Crystal Jeans has created a character as evocative and alluring as her own name. Her book is an amazing piece of literary ventriloquism; convincing, moving, funny, flawlessly sustained, and utterly compelling.' – Niall Griffiths
as well as her first novel, The Vegetarian Tigers of Paradise (Honno) recently longlisted for the Polari First Book:
'Think Caitlin Moran in Gabalfa, Cardiff - dysfunctionality made humorous and page-turningly entertaining and moving.' – Tony Curtis
Author's Notes: Lloyd Markham Writes about Bad Ideas\Chemicals in the Western Mail
Several years ago. on my way home from a night out, I paused on the old bridge near the centre of town to look at the water below. I think it must have rained upstream or something because the river was surging. It looked strangely inviting to my drunken mind. I stood there watching the murky water for a long time and felt a perverse urge to jump in. Then, a passing police officer, as if sensing the bad ideas in my head, bellowed at me from the other side of the bridge, “Hey, mate, are you okay?” snapping me out of my trance.
Bad Ideas\Chemicals is a book about moments like this. Moments when you feel hypnotised by some irrational urge you cannot fathom.
It is also a book about self-destruction.
Siôn Tomos Owen is Back with a Second Series of Pobol y Rhondda
Dai Smith longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2017
Congratulations to Dai Smith, longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2017 for All That Lies Beneath/What I Know I Cannot Say.
The list of 40 books includes well established authors such as Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), Susan Hill (The Woman in Black) and Helen Oyeyemi (Boy, Snow, Bird) as well as up-and-coming writers. The winner, to be announced at Edinburgh International Book Festival in August, will receive a £10,000 prize.
