Recently we were delighted to welcome Tammy Allen to our group.  Tam is a dedicated Mental Health Counsellor from the Swansea Valley.  She has recently had a book of poems published by The Conrad Press.    Tam’s poems deal with her own experiences of loss, grief, healing and the profound acceptance which comes from adversity.  Each piece is beautifully illustrated by Sion Rees.  Her poems celebrate the strength found in vulnerability and the courage to face the challenges life brings.  They are heartfelt and deeply moving.  Tam hopes that her words will help her readers to connect with their own stories and discover their innate resilience.

“Tam’s poetry delves into the voice of her inner child, bringing to light the struggles faced in unlit storms. This memoir is not about assigning blame; rather, it celebrates the strength found in vulnerability and the courage to confront the challenges that life presents.”

Roots by Tam Allen, published by The Conrad Press ISBN 978-1917673822 – is available to buy via online bookstores, including Amazon, Waterstones and Bookswagon #rootsbytam 

HWC Poetry Competition 2026

There’s still plenty of time to enter our 2026 Poetry Competition and we are thrilled that our judge is the wonderful, Lesley Saunders. The theme this year is entirely open and we hope to receive a wide variety of poems and poetry styles for this competition. The first prize winner will receive £100 prize money, with cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd placed poems.

Lesley is the prizewinning author of several poetry collections, most recently This Thing of Blood & Love (Two Rivers Press 2022) and, with artist Rebecca Swainston, Days of Wonder (Hippocrates Press 2021), a poetic record of the first year of the Covid pandemic. She is also an award-winning translator of modern Portuguese poetry. Her current work is a series of extended explorations of the connectivities between poetry and dementia, for which she is attached to the University of Lisbon and the University of Warwick.
See www.lesleysaunders.org.uk
For a selection of Lesley’s publications, please CLICK HERE

Of the competition, Lesley says: ‘I want to read work that treats language as a medium like paint or music to make something new. I will be looking for poems that surprise as well as delight me, that show the poet exploring ideas and images with precision as well as imagination. I would like the poem to contain a swerve or leap just before it comes to an end – a poem that knows from the start how and where it will end is less likely to have surprised its writer and risks withholding a necessary pleasure from its readers. I have no preference for the form in which a poem is written – only in the skill with which the poet deploys the form s/he has chosen, including (or especially) free verse.’

Remember, anyone can enter this poetry competition, all details on our Competitions page, and we can’t wait to read your amazing poems.

Good luck!

Hay Festival 2026

Join Hay Festival 2026, 21–31 May. The full programme is out 9 March.

“Pre-order your Hay Festival 2026 print programme. Programmes are currently in production and will land on your doorsteps from mid-March onwards.

In line with our ongoing sustainable management agenda, we send full printed programmes only to those who order them. We ask you to pay a small postage and packing charge of £4 per programme.”

CLICK HERE to order yours today.

And Finally ….

~*Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant Hapus*~
Happy St David’s Day to you all

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