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Dr Philippa Holloway is writer and senior lecturer at Staffordshire University. The Half-Life of Snails #THLOS, is her debut novel and follows the narratives of two sisters Helen and Jennifer. A bond that has been intertwined and tested by the looming Wylfa Power Station that marked their childhood in Ynys y Mon.  During research for her PhD which examined nuclear psychogeography,  Philippa visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. This extensive research shaped the writing in #THLOS and grounded her work in exploring the relationship between the land around us and our sense of belonging.  What are you reading right now? The Scrapbook,...

Riverwise: Meditations on Afon Teifi, by Jack Smylie Wild, has received its first review, and what a review! Jon Gower, reviewing the book in Nation.Cymru, describes Wild as "a joyful celebrant and patient observer of the river and its wide catchment and of the creatures that abide and abound there". "With this fine, absorbing and wonderfully attentive book, Jack Smylie Wild joins this roster of folk who know the river exceedingly well, and display that respect by the knowledge they have acquired, and their readiness to share it." You can read the full review here. And copies of Riverwise can...

"Initially I was interested in quite abstract questions about what comprised a river. I was approaching ‘my obsession’ (for this is what it quickly became) from the philosopher’s perspective. Before long a shift occurred: the question of semantically defining a river became less important; after all, there was no denying the Teifi’s existence, as it rolled seamlessly seaward, in front of me. This freed me from focusing solely on the ‘flowing water of the Teifi’, and from this point on the project broadened its scope. I began to write about the lives of the river: its banks, its secret places...

This Sunday, 16th August, Jack Smylie Wild will be on Roy Noble's radio show talking all things Riverwise! Tune in from 4pm. Riverwise is released on September 1st, and we can't wait. You can preorder your copy here.

In a book review for the Created to Read website, Rachel Carney delves deep into the different ways the contributors explore issues of identity through the range of essays offered in Just So You Know.

'The more I read, the more I began to ponder the whole notion of identity and its labels. Labels can be helpful, as I know from my own experience, but they can also be harmful.'

You can read the full review here.

Just So You Know is launched online on 30 July.