Fabulous filming locations

Been looking through the gallery of pics taken by Steve Mallett, with Rhiannon modelling as Martha Morgan, our incorrigible heroine.  Gosh -- we are not short of fabulous film locations, are we?  Here are just a few:

All about Owain Laugharne

 Some of the outbuildings at Pontfaen, the fictional family home of the Laugharne family

A brief extract from 131 of "Martha Morgan's Little World". One of our series of "mini-biographies"..........


Owain Laugharne, Martha’s lost love

Owain Laugharne, the second great love of Martha’s life, is more central to the story than husband David who dies in February 1805. He is a heroic and at the same time a tragic figure. Much of House of Angels is concerned with the tentative and tender progress of the love affair between Owain and Martha, and the story of their relationship is also a key part of Dark Angel. At the end of that story it appears inevitable that the two of them will be married; but of course that never happens and although Owain survives until 1825 he remains determined to the last that he will not to marry Martha and that he will not thereby remove the inheritance of the Plas Ingli estate from her children and grandchildren. Ironically, they fail to inherit it anyway, since the estate is lost in 1845.

Owain goes through life with a rather warped sense of duty, and this is of course a great source of irritation to Martha. But she loves him with a fierce passion, and following his return from foreign parts she defies all of the conventions of good breeding by making it obvious to friends and enemies alike that the two of them have an unmarried intimate relationship. That causes considerable grief to the younger members of the Morgan family, who are more concerned about appearance and reputation than is Martha herself. (That is of course not the only occasion on which Martha’s appetite for sex gets her into trouble. Next time round, apart from a dalliance with solicitor Hugh Williams which she gets away with, the lucky recipient of her favours is Jones Minor Prophet.)

So what lies behind Martha’s great love for Owain? Well, he is a very interesting character. He is physically very attractive, as Martha admits at a very early stage in their relationship. She is deeply affected by the sight of Owain splashing about in the pool at Pandy, without a stitch of clothing on, and singing like an innocent child who has not a care in the world. That quality of innocence or naivete is perhaps the crucial feature of Owain’s personality. He is cultured and sensitive, and has an extraordinary sense of decorum. He holds back when others might join in, on the basis that he is unsure about what might be deemed to be unacceptable behaviour. Even his sister Mary Jane, one of Martha’s greatest friends, jokes about his exaggerated sense of duty and stiff demeanour. That irritates Martha as well, for in spite of her love for him she admits in the pages of her diary more than once that she would like to see more spontaneity and courage when he is with her on the social stage.
The crucial episode which demonstrates Owain’s obsession with decorum and reputation is that in which he writes a letter to Martha before the party at Plas Glynymel. Martha misunderstands his behaviour, which is in reality entirely honourable, and as a consequence ends up drunk and in bed with the dastardly John Fenton. She is angry with Owain for what she sees as timidity and an obsession with appearances, and lives to regret her hasty misjudgment of the situation.

Since Owain is a poet, a musician, and a man given to sending flowers to his beloved, one might expect him to be blissfully unaware of the subtleties of convention and etiquette. After all, many great artists are so self-obsessed that they fail to see the consequences of their actions as they affect other people. So it would have been easy to build into his character wild eccentricities and outrageous deeds. But because he was a sensitive and quiet child, he turns out to be a very naive adult, and this is what underlies his timidity and dithering during the course of his love affair with Martha. And don’t let’s forget that Martha is a desirable young widow with a very young family, and that in the 19th century there are very strict conventions concerning periods of mourning and appropriate behaviour following the death of a husband. Although Martha may not always realize it, many of Owain’s actions are motivated by his desire not to harm the children and always to treat them with affection and respect.

Courage is not something which Owain lacks. During the course of his life he shows an ability to survive the most appalling cruelty. In House of Angels he is terribly mutilated by the villains who believe that he knows the location of the Plas Ingli treasure. He survives that ordeal, although Martha suspects that it has harmed his mind as well as his body. Then, when he disappears for fifteen years out of Martha’s life, he suffers again, tortured as a spy in the complicated wars that afflicted the European mainland in the early part of the 19th century. We never really discover what terrors Owain had to endure, but we are quite certain that the damage was immense. Although he returns from foreign parts somewhat belatedly in 1822 on the night before Martha is due to marry Ceredig, and although she gives up that poor fellow for her old love, Owain has lost most of his youthful vitality and he is never the same again. For a year or two there is a brief passionate interlude in which Martha and Owain offend the sensibilities of the more respectable members of the community. She does not care, or at least professes not to care, and maybe Owain is too ill to care. The story of his sad decline between 1822 and 1825 is not told in detail, but of course it affected Martha very deeply.
But in the last few years of his life, Owen shows that he is strong enough, in spite of his physical weakness, to refuse to marry Martha. And it takes a very strong individual to stand up against the wishes of the Mistress of Plas Ingli!

In case anybody wondered, the story of Owain’s long absence and eventual return probably came into my head because I was already familiar with an old Welsh folk tale which relates a similar occurrence in the Teifi Valley above Lampeter. On checking, I find that there are very similar stories in folk tale collections from other countries as well - so there is nothing particularly Welsh about this part of the story. What is unique, I hope, is the use of strong characters in the retelling of an essentially simple tale, and the emotional involvement of the reader in Martha’s dilemma and in the tragic consequences of Owain’s sudden reappearance.

Finally there is one question which I am often asked about Owain’s behaviour. Why, people ask, does he remain abroad for fifteen years if he is genuinely in love with Martha? Why does he not move mountains, as a passionate and heroic lover, to return and claim her as his bride? The answers to those questions are provided to some extent in the pages of the Saga, but in his long explanation of his absence in the concluding pages of Dark Angel he describes how he picked up news (faulty news, as it happened) of Martha’s marriage to another suitor. He knows that if he was to return to find her a married woman, that passion between them would be re-ignited, with the result that several lives would be destroyed. Like many tragic figures, Owain is also a martyr, and I think it is entirely in character for him to remain on the mainland of Europe, carrying his love for Martha like a great cross upon his back in the confident belief that in his suffering he is contributing to her happiness and to the well-being of her family.

Patty Ellis, Prostitute

Part of my occasional series on the more colourful characters from the novels.  Patty is one of my favourites.  Her domain was the Parrog.  Here are the short notes on her, from p 127 of "Martha Morgan's Little World".


Patty Ellis, prostitute

Patty Ellis appears for the first time in House of Angels, and becomes a key character in the stories from that point to on.  Although she is a prostitute when Martha first meets her, the two women are immediately drawn into a close and affectionate relationship.  It would have been socially quite unacceptable for the mistress of an estate in the early 19th century to have been seen in the presence of a prostitute, but it is one of Martha’s great strengths that she cares  nothing for wagging tongues and disapproving looks and soon after they meet she even flaunts her friendship with Patty.  Initially the relationship might seem to be a very one-sided one, but there are in fact great mutual benefits in it.  Patty initially offers to help Martha because she has information which is of use to her,  and she has no thought at all that she might be repaid in some way.  But as the friendship blossoms, Martha realizes that Patty has suffered appallingly at the hands of the evil Joseph Rice, and she also comes to appreciate that Patty is a very strong young woman, with an instinct for survival.

So together the two women plot to achieve the downfall of Rice and his companions, and after that is achieved Martha and Patty develop a much more comfortable friendship.  That friendship also has a business side to it, for as Martha gets older she comes to value greatly her contacts among the most disreputable elements of local society.  She often needs information, and Patty often knows where it can be obtained.  And as a sign of her affection - and indeed respect - for Patty, she helps her in a number of ways, including the setting up of the church wedding, when Patty and Jake Nicholas decide that they wish to be married.

Patty is of course very beautiful, and it is not surprising perhaps that Jake, who was originally at client, should fall madly in love with her and should then decide to make her a respectable woman.  Their wedding is quite a bizarre, and Martha loves every minute of it and the celebrations which follow.  Later on, as Jake expands his little fishing business and eventually moves into trading activities, Patty does indeed become a notable member of the Parrog community and raises a family of two boys and two girls.

I had a lot of fun developing the story of Patty and Jake through the Saga, telling the reader about her initial fall from grace, about her steely determination to defeat her tormentor, and about her subsequent rehabilitation.  She is a strong character and a steadfast friend to Martha, and all good stories need characters like her.

The Pinewood Studio dilemma

The Welsh Tories are continuing their intense scrutiny of the media industries in Wales, and the latest piece of political opportunism involves the big Pinewood Studio complex in Wentloog near Cardiff.  Here is the BBC coverage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-41052929

There is nothing much else going on, and so the Tories are doing what they can to grab a few headlines while the rest of the world is on holiday.  They imply that it's outrageous that Pinewood has had a "rent-free holiday" of two years since moving on on these studios, which are actually owned by the Welsh Government -- in other words, the taxpayer.   The culture minister Ken Skates is caught between a rock and a hard place.  The Government has to invest in the creative industries if it wants film and TV companies to work in Wales -- and that means acquiring capital assets and giving rent holidays. If it does not do what it can to attract big names that might otherwise go to Scotland or Northern Ireland, it will come under attack for a lack of foresight.  But it has to be careful.  Big outfits like Pinewood are notoriously footloose, and will go where the money is.  And there is no guarantee that they will stay either.  History is full of business enterprises that move into "advance factories" or business park sites all over Wales, mop up whatever funding is available, and then go bankrupt or do a runner.  Taxpayer's money down the drain.  It has always happened, and probably always will, whatever the colour of the Welsh Government.  The best that we can hope for is due diligence on the part of the economic development / business team within the Government, and a reasonable level of scrutiny from the Opposition.  So it's no bad thing that the Tories are keeping an eye on things.....

What's more interesting is the question of what Pinewood does with the fantastic studio facility that is at its disposal.  There appear to be less than 40 permanent jobs on the site, although of course when a production is in full swing there will be people everywhere!  As far as I can gather, Pinewood (the tenant)  is still not required to prioritise productions that tell the story of Wales, for the people of Wales and for the world.  There is some vague advice on that, but the studio bosses can ignore it if they so wish.  So without decisive action from the Welsh Government, my concern is that the studios will simply be used for telling other people's stories for a global audience, with no reference whatsoever to Wales, except in small print in the rolling credits. 

I also gather on the grapevine that small Welsh production companies are not happy to work with Pinewood because of the very prescriptive manner in which it operates, pulling in-house many of the components of a production that are traditionally out-sourced in Wales.  Producers hate losing control of their projects -- and somehow minister Ken Skates has to find a way of getting more Welsh projects into the Pinewood Studios and getting Pinewood to operate in a more sensitive fashion.

Bad Wolf in funding spat

 Ex-Minister Edwina Hart, who agreed the original support package for Bad Wolf

There is a lot of discussion just now about a £4 million loan given by the Welsh Government to Bad Wolf, set up by Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter to bring seriously big TV and film projects to Wales.  It looks as if the Welsh Tories have got hold of the company accounts, and are making a big issue of the fact that Bad Wolf made a loss in the last tax year of £2.8 million while the three directors paid themselves almost £2 million over 18 months in salaries and other remunerations including a £300,000 "relocation package" for Julie Gardner.  It's difficult to know whether this is a storm in a teacup or not -- these big schemes involve highly complex financial / investment transactions, and of course the Tories are making political capital out of the story, blaming the Labour Government for playing fast and loose with public funds.  Is the £4 million paid out by the Welsh Government seriously at risk?  Only time will tell, but sure as eggs is eggs, this story does not do much good for the reputation of the creative industries in Wales.  It doesn't do much good for Bad Wolf either.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/public-paid-former-bbc-dr-who-revival-pair-jane-tranter-julie-gardner-1-4m-wages-bad-wolf-productions-fslbnfssg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4816916/Ex-BBC-execs-paid-1-3m-despite-making-loss.html

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4309949/former-bbc-bosses-set-up-production-firm-with-taxpayers-money-and-paid-themselves-1-4million-despite-loss/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-41023024

Selling film and TV rights

If you have a brilliant story, or series of stories, to sell to a film or TV production company,  take advice and find a media agent who is prepared to act for you.  At the very least, be aware of the pitfalls into which you might stumble.  This is a very helpful article from the Society of Authors web site, written by Robert Zipser.  It puts in one place a lot of advice that I have gleaned from a multitude of other sources. Read on........

http://www.societyofauthors.org/News/Blogs/Robert-Zipser/August-2017/Zipser-Blog

On the "validation" of the writer

Jane Austen -- instant validation?  No way........

I have been intrigued lately, when looking at the Literature Wales Twitter page, and at various writer blogs, to see that a new concept is gaining momentum.  It holds that when a writer (usually a very junior one) obtains a Literature Wales bursary of £3,000 or whatever, he or she is then somehow "validated" as a writer.  There is usually an expression of heartfelt thanks for the cash,  followed by a good deal of gushing praise for the generosity of the donor.  One writer after another goes on the record to thank LW for enabling them to "buy time" to write, and for making them feel empowered, validated or vindicated as serious writers worthy of the attention of the literary world.

Hang on a moment here.  Of course writers who obtain competitive bursaries feel good, and there is no doubt at all about the noble intentions both of LW and the panel members who put huge amounts of time into assessing the applications placed in front of them.  And it is right and proper that young and old writers deserve to be nurtured and encouraged, criticised where necessary by their mentors, and given a steer towards where their real talents lie.

But there is no way that a novice writer should be encouraged to feel "validated"  by a grant or a bursary, or even by a prize or a publishing deal.  The only thing that validates a writer is BOOK SALES.  Do not even talk about "validation" until your book is out there in the market place, competing with other books, and finding a loyal base of avid readers in their thousands.  The size of your royalty cheque is a reasonable measure of the degree to which you are validated.

There is no such thing as instant validation, and if you think there is, you are living in a fantasy world, maybe with a vastly inflated opinion of your own talents.  It is not at all uncommon for writers to struggle for years or decades, and to be validated as master craftsmen or artists long after they are dead.  How long did it take for Shakespeare, RS Thomas, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Jan Morris, Alexander Cordell and hundreds of other great writers to be validated and to achieve greatness?  Every one of them had to struggle to rise above the crowd, and sure as eggs not one of them was instantly validated simply because somebody gave them a bag of cash.

The strange concept of "buying time".........

On thinking about the literary scene in Wales, I have been intrigued by the strange concept of "buying time to write."  Various young (and old) writers, including senior academics who have been in receipt of Literature Wales bursaries have gone on the record to say how wonderfully grateful they are to LW for giving them £3,000 (or whatever) and for "buying the time" for them to complete their novels or to hone their writing skills.

What a sad state of affairs!  This says more than anything else about the demoralisation of the Welsh community of writers. It also says a lot about a creeping sense of entitlement among inexperienced writers who are encouraged to believe, prematurely, that they are sensitive and vulnerable artists who have to be nurtured and supported by society.  The begging bowl mentality demeans writers and reinforces the power base of those who distribute largesse. This is not a good scenario -- and I am amazed that it persists and even becomes stronger as the years pass.

Let's get this straight.  Any writer worth his / her salt would GIVE or FIND the time to work on the development of  a writing career.  If a writer really has to "buy" the time to write, he / she would probably be better off doing something else.

If the writers' bursary scheme was to be abandoned overnight, would the Welsh literary scene be less vibrant than it is today?  There are many who would shout "Of course!  How else would we uncover hidden talent and create the conditions in which it can flourish?"  That would be the gut reaction -- but if you think of this calmly, you would have to admit that the most talented writers, who are determined to write and who really have something to say, will write anyway, and some of them will succeed.  And would the Welsh literary scene really be worse off if half of the books currently published each year in Wales were never to see the light of day?  Books which sell fewer than 500 copies, which are underpinned by writer's bursaries and publishing grants, should never have been written in the first place.

Welsh life seldom depicted by BBC Wales, says content chief

 Sian Gwynedd

There is more coverage in the media about the lack of in-depth portrayals of Wales on BBC TV.  The issue has been highlighted in a discussion at the recent National Eisteddfod.  This time the BBC speaker has been Sian Gwynedd, saying very similar things to Rhodri Talfan Davies a few months ago.  It;s all very well for senior  BBC figures to be making these sorts of points -- but hang on a minute.  Aren't they the people creating the BBC Wales policy and implementing it?   They are effectively criticising their own shortcomings.   Or is it all much more complicated than that?  (It usually is!!)  Maybe they have their plans and they want to implement them, but are being held back all the time by restrictions placed on them by BBC HQ in London?  Watch this space...........

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Wales not well-represented on BBC television, says content chief

9th August 2017
https://nation.cymru/2017/wales-not-well-represented-on-bbc-television-says-content-chief/#comment-1864

There hasn’t been enough content depicting Wales on the corporations’ UK-wide channels, according to BBC Wales’ Head of Content.

Although many BBC programmes were made in Wales, such as Dr Who and Casualty, Welsh life was very seldom depicted in them, she said.

She added that the BBC had a duty to present the history of Wales to the people of the country, but also to a UK-wide audience.

Sian Gwynedd was speaking at an event organised by Cardiff University at the National Eisteddfod today.

Presenter Angharad Mair, who was also on the panel, said that there was a tendency to present the Welsh people like “monkeys in a zoo” on programmes presented by outsiders.

“Not only are we not depicted enough, but I’m also disappointed with the way we’re depicted,” she said.

“We don’t complain enough,” she added, noting that the BBC went to greater lengths to placate their audience in Scotland.

Not fielding presenters who had an intimate understanding of Welsh culture betrayed a lack of confidence in ourselves, she said.

Sian Gwynedd said that there had recently been an increase in the use of Welsh presenters, such as Nigel Owens, fronting UK-wide programmes.


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These are three of the key drama people working for BBC Wales:  Nick Andrews, Sian Gwynedd, and Simon Winstone

http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/cymruwales/commissioning

Nick Andrews
Head of Commissioning

Nick leads BBC Wales commissioning across television, iPlayer and interactive platforms. He is part of the Commissioning Group which brings radio, television and online together for the first time to share cross-platform ideas and seek out bigger, bolder content.

Head of Development at BBC Wales from 2015-2016, he previously had a wide-ranging career. His impressive track record of winning network commissions includes The First World War From Above and Scott’s Hut for BBC One, BBC Two’s Operation Crossbow and he contributed to the development of BBC Three’s The Call Centre. Nick also led planning for BBC Wales’ season of programming to mark the Dylan Thomas centenary.

He is also an award-winning producer and director. His documentary Roger: Genocide Baby won him the BAFTA Cymru Breakthrough award and it was followed by another BBC Three film, I Woke Up Gay. He has also worked for Radio 1, BBC Radio Wales and as a director on The One Show.


=====================
Sian Gwynedd
Head of Content Production

Sian is responsible for driving collaboration and development across the production community as well as a wide portfolio of responsibilities. She leads on the development of the partnership with S4C, an industry-leading approach to production talent, on-screen diversity and BBC Wales’ network radio output.

Sian was Head of Welsh Language Programmes and Services from 2012 – 2016 and Editor of BBC Radio Cymru 2006-2012.

Sian has a background as a journalist and joined the BBC in 1994 as a researcher with Radio Cymru news. She was appointed Editor of Newyddion in 2003. During the past 20 years she has worked in Wales as a journalist for newspapers and magazines, and as a reporter and producer for a number of radio and television news programmes. Originally from Bala she was educated at Ysgol y Berwyn, Y Bala and Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and History.

===================

Simon Winstone
Head of Drama - Wales

BBC Studios, the BBC’s main TV production arm, has appointed Simon Winstone as Head of Drama - Wales, to lead its world-class drama series and serials business, based at Roath Lock in Cardiff.
BBC Studios, that launched as a commercial subsidiary in April 2017, produces a raft of multi-award-winning drama in Wales, including Doctor Who, War And Peace, Casualty and Russell T Davies’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Simon will be responsible for overseeing the drama series and serials team and productions based in Cardiff, building on their creative success and seeking out new opportunities, as BBC Studios can now make programmes for other broadcasters and channels in the UK and internationally, as well as the BBC.

He joins BBC Studios from Red Planet Pictures, where his roles included Head of Drama (Wales), Head of Development and most recently Executive Producer. His impressive credits include Death In Paradise, Crash, The Nativity, By Any Means, The Passing Bells, Dickensian and Hooten And The Lady.

Nick Betts, Director of Scripted, BBC Studios says: “Simon is a highly talented and experienced creative, who has already contributed to the success of two of BBC Studios’ biggest dramas over the years - EastEnders and Doctor Who. I am delighted to be welcoming him to BBC Studios at this exciting time.”  Simon reports directly to Nick Betts.

====================

Is literary tourism a problem?

This is an interesting article in the Wales Arts Review, in which Emma Schofield discusses "the problem with literary tourism."

http://www.walesartsreview.org/the-problem-with-literary-tourism/

She starts off by talking about the furore (yet another!) surrounding the publication of a jolly map by Visit England, designed to flag up some of England's literary places and connections.  That was all very well, until certain other parties started to use the map and called it "the literary tourism map of Britain".   The problem with that was that the map chopped Scotland off, did not have Ireland on it at all, and had Wales shown as a place where some trees grow but where there is no literature.

Visit England should have seen it coming, and putting trees but no literature on the map of Wales was crass, and deserved condemnation.  Anyway, there are other maps of Welsh literature (or some of it) like this one:

This map is a piece of private enterprise, and the people who made it promote it as THE Literary Map of Wales.  It is not that at all, of course, since it is highly selective, and they have only managed to fit in SOME Welsh writers.  God only knows how the choice of writers was made.    Let's just call it A Literary Map of Wales, accepting that there can just as well be several others......

Coming back to Emma's article, what is her point?  It seems to be that it is a mistake to reduce an appreciation of Welsh literature to points on a map, or to a few "chosen places" with literary links.  I don't agree with her.  You are never going to get rid of a sense of place, especially in Wales, where we have this thing called "hiraeth".  Of course we all like to think that Wales is a country where great literature is in the air we breathe; but when people are on holiday they are not looking at something over the far horizon or trying to identify an aura.  They are looking at what is in front of them, and if one of the functions of Visit Wales and the regional tourism authorities is to enhance "the visitor experience" then I see no harm at all in flagging up all -- or any -- of the things that make the landscape in front of you interesting or valued.  That may be the local geology, or historic features like castles and cromlechs, or even a house in which a great writer lived.  I have no problem with any of that.

I do agree with the point that it all gets rather messy when we include in these targetted "persistent places" or "special places" things which have only the remotest connection with Welsh literature -- like a holiday cottage once stayed in by William Wordworth, or a place where Dylan Thomas's great aunt once lived, or a place that gave Beatrix Potter the inspiration to write about a rabbit, or a place where one scene from a film about Harry Potter was shot..........

Sadly, the Literature Wales web site called "Land of Legends"  (which has many good things about it) falls squarely into this trap, investing all sorts of places with significance on the most insignificant of literary connections.

Philip Pullman slams "pernicious book discounts"

Photo:  Guardian

 Three cheers for Philip Pullman for raising this issue. It's quite a long article, and worth reading:
 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/04/philip-pullman-leads-writers-condemning-pernicious-book-discounts

Extract:

With more than two months to go before Philip Pullman’s long-awaited new novel from the world of His Dark Materials is published, pre-orders have sent La Belle Sauvage flying up bestseller lists. But with booksellers already slashing the cover price in half, the award-winning author has spoken out about how cheap books devalue the experience of reading, and called for an end to the “pernicious” doctrine of “market fundamentalism” if literary culture is to survive.

Pullman is president of the Society of Authors, which is launching a campaign for publishers to stop damaging authors’ earnings by discounting bulk sales to book clubs and supermarkets, and has slammed the cut-price culture in his trade.

“I don’t like it when I see my books sold cheaply,” Pullman said. “But I’d like to think I’m speaking on behalf of all authors who are caught in this trap. It’s easy to think that readers gain a great deal by being able to buy books cheaply. But if a price is unrealistically cheap, it can damage the author’s reputation (or brand, as we say now), and lead to the impression that books are a cheap commodity and reading is an experience that’s not worth very much.”

===========================

Virtually all authors have stories of the impact of price cutting at the point of sale.  One of the worst offenders is of course Amazon, which is a monster so big that we have to deal with it, like it or not.  When I sell my novels to Amazon, the retail monster insists on a 60% discount and insists on taking 3 months to pay following acceptance of the delivery.  If I want faster payment, I have to give the monster a 65% discount.  So on a £7.99 paperback, it pays me just £3.19, allowing it plenty of room for discounting the book and for selling it for under my RRP.  If my print run has been 2,000, that means the printing price per book is about £2.  The next piece of iniquity is that Amazon pretends, for the sake of its customers, that it has just one copy left of this particular book, and that there are more copies on the way.  That's being rather economical with the truth. The real situation is that it only ever has two or three copies in stock, and that when one is sold, it orders another copy from me as a replacement.  The huge Amazon warehouse may contain a lot of stuff, but it sure as eggs doesn't hold many copies of my books! Then it gets even worse, since when I get my order for one new copy to be sent off, I have to deal with it immediately (if I don't the monster starts hassling me straight away) and I have to pay the package and postage costs, in this case amounting to £2.40.  So to send one copy of the book off to Amazon, it costs me £4.40, in exchange for which it pays me £3.19.    Not a very good commercial deal?  Too right.......

The only reason for selling books through Amazon is that I get publicity from it -- the Amazon web-site is where most initial Google searches end up.  If you are a new writer and you think it's brilliant if Amazon is prepared to "stock" your books, think again.  You probably won't make a single penny from the deal.  Philip Pullman has a point.

The Literary Atlas of Wales

In the Angel Mountain Newsletter No 5, I have put a brief post as follows:

The Literary Atlas of Wales - worth its weight in gold?

There is nothing a geographer likes more than a good atlas.  I’m a geographer by training, so of course I love reading maps and thumbing through atlases.  I have been getting more and more intrigued by something called the "Digital Literary Atlas of Wales and the Borderlands”.  This is being run from Cardiff University by a team of three academics: Jon Anderson, S Orford and Kirsti Bohata. 

http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=AH/N003764/1

So far so good.  But then you look at the budget, and you see that this is going to be the most expensive atlas in the history of the world (maybe I exaggerate, but you get my message), costing no less than half a million pounds of taxpayer’s money. Read the abstract if you dare.  Then read the “Planned Impact” statement and see if you are any the wiser.  I have been doing some checking on what has been achieved since the project started in June 2016, and I can find virtually nothing.  I’m sad to have to say it, but we live in hard times, and how on earth did this project get funded?  What is it going to contribute to Welsh literature, or to the common good?  Does anybody actually WANT this atlas?  Hmmmm……..


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A bit more detail.  On the work schedule, the project which started a year ago committed to producing a web site by summer 2017.  There is indeed a web site, here:

http://literaryatlas.wales/

but it's one of the thinnest web sites I have ever seen, with virtually nothing on it which is of any use.  I have found out in correspondence that the Atlas team has decided upon 12 English-language Welsh novels which have been sent out to readers groups all over Wales.  The novels selected include a few that are well-known, but there is no balanced geographical spread, and most of the items on the list are the sorts of things frequently discussed in university seminars rather than on street corners.  There is nothing from Pembrokeshire, which is maybe considered to be a cultural desert!  Here is the list:

    • Revenant by Tristan Hughes (2008; Picador) Ynys Môn/Anglesey
    • Twenty Thousand Saints by Fflur Dafydd (2000; Y Lolfa) Ynys Enlli/Bardsey
    • Pigeon by Alys Conran (2016; Parthian) Bethesda
    • The Owl Service by Alan Garner (1967; HarperCollins) Dinas Mawddwy
    • Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce (2001; Bloomsbury) Aberystwyth
    • Sheepshagger by Niall Griffiths (2001; Vintage) Aberystwyth and hinterland
    • Strike for a Kingdom by Menna Gallie (1959; Honno) Ystradgynlais
    • The Rebecca Rioter by Amy Dillwyn (1880; Honno) Swansea and Gower
    • The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi (2000; Picador) Butetown, Cardiff
    • Shifts by Christopher Meredith (1988; Seren) Tredegar
    • Border Country by Raymond Williams (1960; Parthian) Pandy, Abergavenny
    • Mr Vogel by Lloyd Jones (2004; Seren) Wales on foot

There is a lot of activity on the project's twitter page, and from that it appears that the team has sent these books out to 18 reading groups or focus groups who will then discuss them in the presence of the project organizers and who will physically visit the places described in the books. There will be 12 "literary tours" as well, some of which will be organized by Literature Wales.  These will be led by the book authors, or if they are dead, by "experts."  All very jolly.  Costs will be carried by the Atlas, and it looks as if videos are planned, with some audiovisual content being attached to the "Land of Legends" web site created with grant aid by Literature Wales. (This element has recently been supported by the Welsh Government's TPIF fund.)

There is an art commissioning component as well, as described here:
http://literaryatlas.wales/commission.html
Artists will be paid for their work, but there is no mention of the size of the budget.

This all sounds like a lot of fun for the academics involved, and for the reading groups who will take part in seminars, discussions and literary tours to places they might not otherwise have visited, but we do need to ask serious questions about value for money.  I think I might be happy with £50,000 being spent on something like this, but let's remind ourselves that the price tag is half a million pounds of taxpayers' money.  Even though I am a geographer with a degree of understanding of what a "literary atlas" is all about, as a taxpayer I feel very uneasy indeed.............

Literature Wales -- tourism operator and artwork commissioner

I wondered where all the money for the Tourism Product Innovation Fund (TPIF) had gone to -- and now I know at least a part of the answer.  The list of new supported projects for 2017-19 has now been published, and one of the successful ones is this:

Literature Wales - Weird & Wonderful Wales
 
This project will celebrate the Year of Legends and Year of Sea. It will document an already externally commissioned/funded tour of Wales visiting towns/villages/sites associated with myths and legends of Wales, many of which will be coastal. The audio-visual content will feed into the Land of Legends digital platform. It also seeks to paint an iconic Mabinogion inspired design by high profile, world-renowned artist Pete Fowler on the Cardiff Central Railway Station Water Tower. The 50ft, Grade II listed 1930’s Water Tower is highly visible as you enter the city by train, along the River Taff, from the south end of the Principality Stadium and from the new Cardiff Central Square development. We already hold planning permission for the mural, meaning works can take place in May 2017 prior to Champions League activity and last through 2018 and 2019.

https://businesswales.gov.wales/sites/business-wales/files/tourism/TPIF_Projects_Recommended_for_Funding_2017-2019_-_EN.pdf

This funding -- for an unknown sum of money -- has come from the Business Wales tourism budget, and it shows just how far Literature Wales has strayed from its original brief of supporting Welsh literature and Welsh writers.  It now sees itself as a tourism operator and commissioner of audio-visual presentations and artwork....... and I wonder how much time has been devoted by staff to the dreaming up and completion of this application for funding and to the application for planning consent?  No wonder the organization has no time for the updating of the Welsh writers' database -- terribly sorry, all you writers out there, but we have cunning plans, and far too much to do......

Why did the Chairman and Management Board not step in and ask what this had to do with the core functions of the organization?  More to the point, is it appropriate for one part of the Welsh Government establishment to hand monies to another part of the establishment?  That, presumably, was not what TPIF was intended for.  Since when is Literature Wales a "tourism operator" or "tourism sector partner"?    This is all far too incestuous for comfort, and it's high time somebody (Minister Ken Skates, for example) stepped in and put a stop to it.

==============

Postscript:

I have been checking to see whether Literature Wales is entitled to TPIF funding as a "third sector" organization. 

Let's start from here. Arts Council Wales (ACW) funds LW and it has been part of its portfolio of Revenue Funded Organisations (RFOs) for some years. ACW treats LW as a national company responsible for developing and promoting literature.

Literature Wales describes itself on its web-site as follows:

"Established in 2011, Literature Wales is the national company for the development of literature in Wales."
"Literature Wales is the national literary tourism agency of Wales."
"Established in 2011 as one of the Arts Council of Wales’ National Companies, Literature Wales’ role is to facilitate and stimulate literature programmes and events throughout Wales, and promote the best of our literature internationally.”

LW therefore flags itself up as a national company and as a national agency — it would not have been allowed to use those words without specific Welsh Government consent.  It acts on behalf of the Welsh Government.  It is therefore not “independent” in the meaning of the documents defining the Third Sector, and it was not set up voluntarily by well-meaning people.  Without large-scale public funding it would not exist.  There is no democratic accountability, no membership list and no transparency or involvement by supporters in management board or staff appointments. 

LW cannot have its cake and eat it.  It is clearly not a Third Sector organization, and in my view it should not have applied for TPIF funding.

How many books are actually SOLD in Wales?

The recycled paper industry needs our support......

Not long ago I was reading a blog from somebody who worked at Aberystwyth University. He said that from his office he had a view of a skip at the back of the building, which was used for the disposal of multiple copies of brand new books from Welsh publishers. He suggested that large quantities of unwanted books were delivered through the front door and dumped through the back door. I have no way of checking the correctness of this claim — but it tallies with other foul rumours that unsaleable new books published in Wales are given away to schools, libraries and colleges (even if they don't want them) and counted as sales. True or false? Perhaps somebody will tell us.

I have picked up on another rumour too -- namely that large numbers of books published in Wales are recorded as having sales of around 800 copies. What a strange coincidence! Could it be that whenever a new book is published, 800 copies are immediately distributed to the book trade from the Welsh Books Council (WBC) Distribution Centre in Aberystwyth, and ticked off as "sales"? When returns of unsold books then come back after a while to the Distribution Centre, presumably (if they are undamaged) they are returned into stock and are recorded as such. But are the "sales figures" then adjusted downwards?   Maybe, and maybe not.......

The record keeping relating to book sales in Wales is frankly lamentable, partly down to the fact that most books are sold by small retail outlets which have nothing to do with the book trade's electronic point of sale (EPOS) system. Hand-written invoices and vague sale or return arrangements proliferate!  I have found it almost impossible to find sales figures for the titles published by Welsh publishers such as Gomer, Parthian, Seren and Honno. I suppose that is understandable, since publishing is a competitive business. But if books are grant aided from the public purse (as the majority of them are) is there no measure of cost-effectiveness apart from a tally of the number of titles published per year? When a publisher applies to WBC for a grant, and gets it, is there no requirement placed upon him to report on his sales figures for every supported title? That information should be in the public domain.  For titles where the publisher carries the full commercial risk, the information should be confidential. 

Aggregated or average sales figures are not much use, although we do know that in 2015-2016 Welsh-language books were supported to the tune of £348,000 for 224 titles, which achieved average sales of 829 copies.  So approximately 185,000 books were sold -- if they really were sold -- at a cost to the taxpayer of £1.88 each.  That figure excludes marketing grants and other subsidies, and it excludes advances paid to authors against future royalties. Value for money?

I'll do another post one day about the subsidies paid out to "special projects" like the Library of Wales.

As I have pointed out before, the great and the good of Welsh literature (including senior academics) justify this vast public expenditure and slapdash record keeping on the basis that a small country should place creativity and innovation at the top of its list of priorities in order to support the Welsh language and maintain self-esteem -- while more or less accepting that most of what goes on is entirely non-commercial. In Wales, there are a few titles every year which sell well and make lots of money. I'll hazard a guess that most of those are about rugby or are about well-known sports or entertainment personalities. But it is rumoured that in order to be classed as a "best seller" in Wales a book simply has to sell 700 copies over its lifetime. That means, I suppose, that the great majority of books published sell fewer than 500 copies. Would those failing books ever have been published without a comprehensive financial support system? Certainly not. Would those books ever have been published in England? Certainly not.

And here is another question.  Publishing subsidies to the Welsh "mainstream publishers"  in 2015-2016 averaged £4,166 per title.  That sum is more than adequate to pay for the printing of a full-colour offset litho paperback or hardback with a print run of 2,000 copies. With commercial risk being effectively eliminated from the Welsh publishing industry, is there any requirement for grants to be repaid to WBC if a book does become successful?  If not, why not?

Is anybody applying scrutiny here, or demonstrating due diligence?  It appears not.......  I think that if I was Minister Ken Skates, I might be appalled.

If Literature Wales wants respect, it has to earn it.........

Iris Gower, Catrin Collier and Jan Morris -- three giants of Welsh literature, but conveniently ignored.  Could it be that they are too popular?

From recent statements by its Chairman and staff, it appears that Literature Wales has a fairly high opinion of itself.

http://www.literaturewales.org/lw-news/statement-by-the-chair-of-literature-wales/
http://www.literaturewales.org/lw-news/literature-wales-response-independent-review-support-publishing-literature-wales/
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/literature-wales-raises-serious-concerns-about-welsh-lit-review-574181

To what extent is that self-esteem justified? For a partial answer to that question, let’s just look at one of its recent high-profile projects, the “Land of Legends” website produced for Visit Wales as a contribution to the “Year of Legends” tourism marketing exercise.

http://www.landoflegends.wales/

The text for this project was written by the staff of Literature Wales, who presumably pride themselves on their knowledge of Welsh literature.  They were apparently advised by national parks, some local authorities and assorted academic experts.  The web site is really all about literary tourism, making the link between Welsh books and writers and the landscapes in which their stories (and local myths and legends) are set.  So far so good.

As I have said many times, there is much in this web site to admire.  It is colourful, easy to navigate, and informative — and I imagine that many visitors to Wales will have enjoyed using it.  But what does it tell us about Welsh literature?

On doing some simple searches, there are some glaring omissions.  For example, the web site makes no mention at all of some of the greatest Welsh authors of recent times, namely Jan Morris, Dick Francis, Ronald Lockley, Iris Gower and Catrin Collier. Nor is there any mention of some spectacularly successful self-published writers with book sales (under the radar) in the tens of thousands.  Could that be because they do not, in their writings, touch on matters mythological, or because they are less Welsh than other writers?  That theory doesn’t stand up, since many of the included authors have  even less of a connection with the various worlds portrayed on the site.  Could it be that their writing careers have just been too successful, or that their publishers have been based outside Wales?  Heaven forbid……..

Let’s come closer to home.  Since the year 2000, I venture to suggest that one of the most successful works of fiction published in Wales has been “On Angel Mountain”, published in several editions and with sales of over 35,000.  Sales of the full Angel Mountain saga of 8 novels are now in excess of 80,000.  (To get things in proportion, none of the Welsh publishers reports on sales figures for their titles, but it is widely assumed that the average “best-seller” racks up sales of around 700 copies.)

However, amid the hundreds of references to Welsh authors, novels, and fictional characters, there is not a single reference my own work, to Carningli, to the Angel Mountain saga or to Martha Morgan Country. All of our efforts at “regional branding”, with the help of the local authorities, PLANED and Pembrokeshire Tourism, have apparently gone un-noticed in Cardiff. When I asked Literature Wales staff why they had forgotten all about us, they explained that they deemed the stories to be just “love stories” and that they were inappropriate for inclusion in a project relating to myths, legends and other tales! That’s nonsense — they have clearly not read any of the novels. On the other hand the writings of Beatrix Potter, William Wordsworth, Daniel Defoe and assorted other holiday visitors to Wales were of course perfectly appropriate for inclusion, as were the works of many very obscure Welsh authors. The workings of Literature Wales are indeed very mysterious. We who have supported the orgnization over the years have some right to expect recognition and reciprocal support, and we are not amused.

Why the snub?  Well, we can understand why “celebrity authors” are promoted, even if their links with Wales are tenuous to say the least.  But the other cited writers — who are they?  Some will have heard of Alexander Cordell, Richard Llewellyn, RS Thomas and Dylan Thomas.  But I doubt whether any visitors to Wales will be familiar with the works of scores of other featured writers.  It’s inappropriate to give names. But why are they cited and promoted as if they are important or significant literary figures?  I suspect the answer is that most of them belong to (or have belonged to) the Welsh literary establishment which is based in part in the literature departments of the Welsh universities, and in part in the Welsh-language writing community celebrated in the eisteddfodau each year.  I also suspect that they also belong to the growing community of bursary-supported writers and writers published with grant aid by the major Welsh publishing houses. It’s all very incestuous.  I suspect that once a writer has been supported by Literature Wales, there is an imperative to publish his/her work and to demonstrate that the money has been well spent.  So bursary recipients and competition prizewinners are promoted aggressively, regardless of how talented they are and how successful they are commercially.   Somehow they are deemed to be worthy or significant authors who have important things to say about the state of the world and the human condition. 

On the other hand, a cynic might say that these “promoted authors” are very conveniently deemed to be fully paid-up members of a mutual admiration society, while those who have succeeded outside the system can conveniently be ignored.  If an author is self-published, that is even more of a problem………

And who decides which authors will be promoted and which ones will be ignored?  Not a peer group of professional writers, but the staff of Literature Wales.  And let’s remind ourselves that they were appointed to their posts not because of their writing, publishing or commercial credentials but because somebody thought they would be well suited to the provision of services to the writing community. Am I, as a writer with 90 books to my name, expected to respect their assessment of my reputation?

Somebody said to me not so long ago that the thing the Welsh literary establishment hates most of all is a book published in Wales but outside of the “subsidy system” and which then goes on to become a commercial success. That, after all, threatens the paradigm which holds that it is impossible for any book to become commercially successful in Wales without considerable subsidy from the public purse. That view seems to be shared by Literature Wales, the Welsh Books Council, Arts Council Wales and even by the Medwin Hughes Review Panel.

The exclusion of the Angel Mountain Saga from the Land of Legends listing of significant Welsh literature has nothing to do with love stories; it is simply too successful and too inconvenient for those who participate in a vanity publishing exercise on an industrial scale.

Gripe over!!

The dream team for a TV series......

No harm in dreaming, is there?

If I was in charge of casting, these actors would be on my dream ticket.

I think it would be rather wonderful if we could get all these to express an interest in being part of an Angel Mountain drama series…. some, but not all, are Welsh speaking.

Kazia Burrows as Martha.  Pretty well a perfect fit!

Ben McGregor as David.  Integrity, and a certain sort of innocence......

Michael Sheen as Joseph Harries, Martha’s saviour and mentor.  He knows too much….

Tom Cullen as Lord Cawdor.  He knows how to play the nobleman.....

Mark Lewis Jones as Squire George Howell, Martha's greatest enemy

Aneurin Hughes -- Squire Alban Watkins.  Good at playing thuggish characters!

 Gillian Elisa as Blodwen Owen, the housekeeper

Bryn Fon as Grandpa Isaac. Welsh speaking.  Has a sort of rugged intensity and intelligence about him.......

Dyfan Dwyfor as Moses Lloyd -- perfect fit! Tall and gangly, dark with a slightly sinister look ...

Grandma Jane -- Sharon Morgan. Welsh speaking -- from Llandefaelog. Striking face, with a cool intelligence .....

Alexandra Roach as Bessie, Martha's maid -- very pretty and rather cheeky and down to earth.

Where it all started......

Thanks to the Honey Harfat Facebook page for posting this pen and ink sketch by RJ Allen.  It shows the back of Haverfordwest Grammar School as it was at about the time I left to go to college.   Very nostalgic -- even the fives court is shown........

This is where I learned to love language and the creative process -- under the guidance of a wonderful English teacher, Fred Nicholls, who sadly died a couple of years ago. I learned to know him well since our move to Newport -- a very erudite and intelligent man with a vast knowledge of all sorts of things, as well as having a wicked sense of humour.  He was always a great support to me in my writing career.

Payback time approaching fast?

As a general rule, you do not bite the hand that feeds you.  Most dogs know that, and so do most of the writers of Wales, who are sustained to some degree by a pervasive subsidy culture both inside and outside our great educational institutions.  As long as there are such things as writer’s bursaries and publishing grants, people will apply for them, and sometimes get them, and will thereafter be eternally grateful to their benefactors.  So it is not surprising that there is a broad base of support for Literature Wales, the conduit through which most funds are passed to the writing community.

I’m intrigued by the fact that the Medwin Hughes Panel, in putting together its review of Welsh literature and publishing, raised the issue of subsidies and said this:  "The Panel felt that the danger for grant funded Welsh publishing is that it becomes a cosy and complacent small-scale industry which has a minimal influence on the culture of Wales as a whole…....."


Was this expressing a concern about the future?  As I see it, that's a pretty accurate reading of the situation that already exists.

http://gov.wales/topics/culture-tourism-sport/media-publishing/publishing/support-for-literature-review/?lang=en

I have done a number of blog posts on this already, and I have been looking again at the comments received by the Panel during its consultation phase.  These comments have struck me:

"Selling books is a finer achievement than winning prizes and does more to raise the profile of writers in Wales."

"Do not pander to the subsidy-junkies because they cannot, meaningfully, provide useful large-scale employment to the publishing."

"I don't think English language fiction and non-fiction should be subsidised - they should be subjected to market forces. Whilst this would reduce the amount and nature of what is published, overall it should improve quality via proper editing and reduce the number of niche works by the same old names."

"There is a clique of the same writers who receive a disproportionate amount of support/publication subsidy."

"The funding model means most publishers in Wales are actually incentivised NOT to sell lots of copies of a book, as this would leave them with a tougher case to make for winning the next grant. The whole scene is doomed to amateurism and as a result cannot produce a product capable of selling outside of Wales, and often not even capable of selling within Wales. I know no system like it in the world."

Subsidy junkies?  Writing clique?  Amateurism?  Cosy and complacent?  The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that a little more exposure to the hard commercial world might make the Welsh literary and publishing scene both leaner and more efficient.  That could be done without in any way threatening our civilisation and our great Welsh cultural traditions. 

This is what needs to happen, and for what it’s worth I recommend it to the Minister Ken Skates while he ponders on what to do next:  

He should bring in a rule stating that if a book sells fewer than 1,000 copies in its first two years, any grants and subsidies awarded must be paid back. That means REAL audited sales, involving real money, and excluding all returns. No skulduggery and creative accounting.  No more complacency.  This would encourage writers to think much more seriously about what they should spend their time on, and encourage publishers to be much more selective about what they publish.  With a bit of luck, we might get a move away from large-scale vanity publishing by a mutual admiration society into something which concentrates on what the market actually wants.  We might also get a recognition that publicity and marketing need to be taken much more seriously in Wales by a publishing industry which has been largely protected from this nasty thing called commercial risk.

Welsh publishing's subsidy culture

 

 

Independent Review of Support for Publishing and Literature in Wales.

from P56, on English-language publishing in Wales

The Panel recognised that some of the small publishers supported by the WBC have had a sprinkling of prize-winning or prize listed books over the years, but have never looked remotely like becoming self-supporting operations. This is not to blame them. It seems that, as long as funding is only available specifically to publish new Welsh writing, then that is what they will continue to do, as a grant is far more reliable than simply relying on sales. If these publishers, or indeed anyone wishing to set up as a literary publisher in Wales, wanted to be self-supporting, it is highly unlikely that they would build their business model exclusively on publishing new writing from Wales.
…………….

The Panel felt that the Welsh Government should consider whether they want to continue, as now, funding publishers of Welsh literature or – and this would be more expensive in the short term, but potentially only in the short term – helping to set up publishers based in Wales to publish internationally, both in terms of the authors they publish and the markets into which they seek to sell.

If, however, the real aim is – as it traditionally has been – to make sure that Welsh writers get a fair opportunity - that talented novelists from Wales will indeed find a publisher, then we need to consider whether that really needs market intervention. That is to say are talented Welsh writers really likely to be ignored by the London publishing establishment or not?

The Panel noted that it seems quite telling that the three books shortlisted for the English language section of the Welsh Book of the Year in 2016 were all published in London, by Faber & Faber. It is possible to identify Welsh writers who have been talent spotted by Welsh publishers – e.g. Cynan Jones and Rachel Trezise – and have gone on to be published in London. Would they have found a London publisher without getting their start in Wales? Probably but not necessarily. What is clear is that publishers in Wales are unable to fully support a publishing career – no author who hopes to make a living from their work is likely to stay with a Welsh publisher as things stand.

The Panel felt that the danger for grant funded Welsh publishing is that it becomes a cosy and complacent small-scale industry which has a minimal influence on the culture of Wales as a whole. However, it needs to be said that - given the current level of funding – and given the wider context of publishing in the UK – that is probably all one can reasonably expect.

==================== 

This is all very interesting, and a little disappointing. There seems to be a weary acceptance on the part of the Panel that Welsh publishing MUST be heavily subsidised if talented writers are to emerge and be given a fair chance of succeeding in the wicked commercial world.  An issue that the Panel fails to address is the issue of all those untalented Welsh writers who think they are terribly good, and who mop up subsidies simply because they are there.  Both the mainstream Welsh publishers and Literature Wales connive in the writing and publishing of a stream of books that nobody really wants and hardly anybody buys. As the Panel notes elsewhere, sales figures are notoriously difficult to come by -- and that in itself is extraordinary, given that the great majority of books in Wales are published with the aid of public funds.  There is no requirement for accurate reporting of commercial success or failure.   The situation is then portrayed as demonstrating "a vibrant literary culture in Wales".  THAT is what the Panel really should have addressed much more aggressively.  Do the benefits of the current publishing scenario actually justify the costs?  I am quite convinced that they do not.

Let's just repeat this:  The Panel felt that the danger for grant funded Welsh publishing is that it becomes a cosy and complacent small-scale industry which has a minimal influence on the culture of Wales as a whole. 

Dylan Moore said this in 2012 in response to one of the tirades from columnist Julian Ruck:  There must be countless books published in Wales over the last decade that would not exist but for the financial support given to publishers through the Welsh Books Council. These books may well have pitiful sales figures by mainstream commercial standards. This is not something that can be dismissed out of hand. If the writing and publishing community in Wales takes itself seriously, it can not on one hand point to Ruck’s publication through a vanity press as evidence to discredit his views whilst propping up a system that is merely an elaborate, state-sanctified version of a vanity press. 



 

Welsh writers - silenced and emasculated

 Cartoon: Ian Waugh

Following on from my last post about the Welsh Academy and its virtual demise, I have been pondering on the current strength of the Welsh literary community.  How big is it?  And what capacity does it have for speaking with a common voice and influencing the course of events?

First, size.  Well, there are reputed to be 3,000 people on the Welsh Academy database, but that database was rendered unreliable years ago when more and more people were admitted to membership in spite of having no track records as writers.  TV people, publishers, editors, journalists, commentators, readers and politicians joined because they wanted to support the writing community.  That was laudable in a way, but while the Academy's reach and its income were both enhanced, its focus as an organization for professional writers was lost.  The Medwin Hughes Panel which reported on the support mechanisms for literature and publishing in Wales gave (as far as I can see) no estimate of the number of working writers in the country, but I saw somewhere an estimate of around 600, so let's run with that figure. 

And does the community use its numerical clout and its corporate expertise to influence "literary policy" in Wales?  It seems not.  In the Report of that big review commissioned by Minister Ken Skates, the writing community makes virtually no appearance, from which we can assume that the Welsh Academy made no representations and had no meetings with the panel members. 

Second, the effectiveness of the writers' lobby.  Various things have happened which have negatively affected the ability of writers to present common positions on matters of interest.  The transformation of the Welsh Academy into Literature Wales has to a degree left writers out in the cold, since the new organization has been tasked with promoting Welsh literature and not with looking after writers.  So it has become a marketing and promotional organization, working with Government, the Arts Council and Visit Wales to show the world what a vibrant literary culture we have in our country.  Yes, it does boast of its role in stimulating and facilitating literary endeavour; and yes, it has distributed almost half a million pounds in bursaries to more than 100 writers since 2011 (see Note below).  But last year it distributed only £70,000 in bursaries out of a turnover of £1.2 million, while expending around 75% of its income on staff salaries and ancillary costs and in other in-house expenditures. 

Literature Wales, according to some commentators, has become an organization devoted to ensuring its own survival and to extending its reach into fields such as the arts and tourism.  As its aspirations have increased, its sense of entitlement has also grown, and this conceit was remarked upon by the Medwin Hughes panel members.  The staff and working panels of Literature Wales appear to be accountable to nobody, and although they are no doubt committed, highly motivated and hard-working, in a very subtle way they have come to see themselves as "the professionals" and as "the experts" who determine which writers will be supported in their careers, and which ones will be ignored.  That is a profoundly dangerous scenario, but to our eternal shame we, the writers of Wales, have allowed ourselves to slip into an acceptance of it.  The rise and rise of the subsidy culture has created a generation of writers who measure their status not by the reputation and commercial success of their published outputs but by the number of bursaries they have received.  Weirdly, they see themselves as "artists" rather than craftsmen.  The literary culture to which they belong is dominated by Literature Wales, playing the role of the benefactor, with writers lining up each year with their begging bowls and then expressing eternal gratitude whenever a few goodies come their way.  Even more distressing is the sight of respectable academic writers and talented new authors using social media to say that the receipt of a bursary of maybe £2,000, and the receipt of a modest amount of mentoring help,  has given a sudden boost to their self-esteem and has somehow "vindicated" or "validated" them as writers.  They appear to be blissfully unaware of how demeaning the whole relationship has become...........

Perhaps that is a travesty of the real situation, and perhaps the writing scene in Wales is a great deal more healthy than I think.  Let's hope I am wrong in my assessment.  And I admit that very occasionally the writing community does know its strength and uses it.  For example, early in 2016, a powerful lobbying campaign was mounted to counter a proposed 10.6% cut in the Welsh Government subsidy paid to the Welsh Books Council.  A highly publicised letter to Minister Ken Skates was instigated by poet Kathryn Gray and signed by 200 writers.  Under the sheer pressure of this lobbying campaign, the Government backed down and maintained the funding level.  The list of signatories was interesting, including senior academics, first-time writers, researchers, established novelists and historians, poets, translators, editors and publishers.  They all felt outraged, not so much because they thought that the work of the Welsh Books Council might be negatively affected, but because the level of subsidies might be reduced and because there might be a corresponding reduction in the number of titles published.  The underlying assumption was that Welsh publishing is incapable of being commercially viable without vast state support, and that the number of books published is in itself a sign of a healthy literary culture, no matter what the quality and the sales potential of these books might be.

"Don't you dare take away our begging bowls!"  What was I saying about the disappearance of self-confidence?

http://www.senedd.assembly.wales/documents/s48463/Correspondence%20on%20behalf%20of%20Welsh%20writers%20academics%20and%20significant%20figures%20re%20Proposed%20cuts%20to%20We.html?CT=2

================

Note:  This is how the Medwin Hughes review summarises the Literature Wales mission:  

LW represents the interests of Welsh writers both inside Wales and internationally and encourages people to enjoy others' writing and to write themselves, through a programme of workshops, courses, festivals and competitions. LW services include mentoring, writers' bursaries, information and advice, and independent manuscript assessment. LW aims to place literature at the heart of the well-being, literacy, employment and skills agendas and strives for literature to be seen as a vital part of a balanced, engaged and healthy life.