Llandeilo Lit Fest, 2025

Here in rural Carmarthenshire we have our own little literary festival. It is very Welsh, and there is little in the way of speculative literature at the moment. I plan to change that, but for now I’m just attending to hear interesting stuff, and to sell books.

The selling books thing wasn’t exactly official. Sarah, my hairdresser, offered to let me run a pop-up stall in her shop. It wasn’t hugely well advertised, but I sold five books over the weekend and didn’t have to pay for a dealer table. I’m happy with that. It also meant that I had three days very close to Llandeilo’s amazing donut shop.

My main reason for going to the festival was to support my friend Jo Lambert. She has a book out, Found Wanting, which is a YA queer romance set against the backdrop of the County Lines drug dealing network. It sounds really great when Jo talks about it.

Also appearing at the event was my local Senedd Member, Adam Price. He was interviewing Richard Wyn Jones, a professor of politics from Cardiff University who has a new book out on the political thought of Plaid Cymru (Putting Wales First). Like all political parties, Plaid has mutated through the years. Listening to Richard threw a lot of light on why my parents, so proudly Welsh, were so antipathetic towards Plaid.

Finally on my list of things to attend was a talk by my friend Kirsti Bohata from Swansea University. She has been editing the diaries of Amy Dillwyn, a successful woman novelist from the late 19th Century. After the death of her MP father in 1892, Amy inherited his spelter works and became a successful businesswoman. She was also active as a Suffragist.

Despite the tomboyish nature of many of her heroines, and her very masculine style of dress, no questions had previously been asked about Dillwyn’s sexuality. On reading the diaries, it was immediately obvious to Kirsti that this was because the matter had been deliberately suppressed. In fact Amy nurtured a lifelong crush on her childhood friend, Olive Talbot (yes, those Talbots, Kingmaker players). What’s more there are passages in which Amy dreams of being a mediaeval knight. As Kirsti explained, Dillwyn’s novel set in the Rebecca Riots (The Rebecca Rioter) can now be read as a very complex meditation on gender.

One session that I missed and am kicking myself about featured the new Manawydan Jones novel from Alun Davies. The books are written in Welsh, which is how come I hadn’t noticed the content. As far as I can make out, they are a Welsh version of Percy Jackson. Manawydan Fab Llyr is generally accepted to be an ancient Welsh sea god, and Percy is (spoiler for book 1) the son of Neptune. My Welsh isn’t up to reading these yet, but I’m working on it. One day I would love to publish English translations of them.