Fel yr wyt: Q&A with Gwennan Evans interviewing contributors Becky Davies and Beth Jones
Welsh language event
10:15 – 11:15
Mewn byd sy’n rhoi gymaint o bwyslais ar ddelwedd, dyma gyfle i ddathlu cyfrol sy’n rhoi llwyfan i leisiau 20 o fenywod sy’n byw mewn corff mwy. Bydd Gwennan Evans, Golygydd Creadigol a Rheolwg Rhaglen gyhoedi Sebra yn holi dwy o’r menywod sydd wedi cyfrannu i’r gyfrol am eu profiadau nhw wrth ddod i dderbyn eu cyrff ac yn clywed eu hargraffiadau am y gyfrol yn gyffredinol.
In a world so focused on image, this is an opportunity to celebrate a volume that provides a platform for the voices of 20 women living in a larger body. Gwennan Evans, Creative Editor and Programme Manager at Sebra will ask two of the women who have contributed to the volume about their journeys towards acceptance and hear their impressions about the volume in general.
Q&A about the book with Gwennan interviewing 2 contributors.
Tickets/Tocynnau £5.42 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)
For the love of writing: rejections, break-ups, & finding the one…who will publish your work! With Jack Strange
11:30 – 12:30
An authentic and hopefully inspiring look into Jack Strange’s writing journey: including rejections, relationships with agent and publisher, and how each person’s publication experience is different…much like relationships! Touch upon getting a publishing deal with a big five before getting an agent. Spotting publication red flags. Knowing when to say yes or no to signing a contract. Despite setbacks, heart ache and thinking you’ll never achieve your goals, how does Jack stay motivated and continue to love writing? Come with your own questions about your own publication journey, or listen and see if anything works for you.
Jack Strange is a writer from Wales, writing romantic comedies with gay male leads. In his day job, Jack works as a journalist. With a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing, Jack enjoys being creative, whether it be hosting podcasts, writing articles, or creating characters.
Jack’s first novel is a Christmas rom-com, called Look Up, Handsome, published with HarperCollins imprint, One More Chapter.
Jack lived in Vancouver, Canada, before moving back home to Wales. When he isn’t writing, he’s reading and sharing his reads on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. You might also find him reading tarot cards online and at festivals.
Tickets are £5.42 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)
Writing what you know with Helen Comerford
12:45 – 13:45
Find the story waiting in your memories with Helen’s Write What You Know workshop. Participants will discover ways to integrate their knowledge with even the most fantastical plots and take a closer look at how the places that they know and love can help create a rich setting for their stories.
Helen is the Carnegie nominated author of the Young Adult superhero rom-com, The Love Interest. She spent a decade as a theatre stage manager, walking and talking very quietly backstage in theatres around the country. Her time working at Shakespeare’s Globe, and with Wise Children Theatre Company, cemented her love of theatre and allowed her to travel around the world looking for stories. After squeezing her writing into days off and train journeys, Helen left the touring life to settle in South Wales and dedicate herself to writing joyful (and ridiculous) books. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking up hills with her dog, Cocoa.
https://helencomerfordauthor.com/
https://www.instagram.com/helen_jcomerford/
Tickets are £5.42 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)
Nature on the Edge: Writing Workshop
14:00 – 16:00
With Bethany Handley and Bob Walton. Explore nature at the edge – of a town, village, or city; at the edge of Wales or other countries; by land, sea, or sky. Observe nature through imagination and memory, or witness it on the brink of crisis. Whether you write poetry or prose, this workshop is suitable for all levels of experience.
Bethany Handley, a writer, poet, and disability activist, was named among the UK’s most influential disabled people (Shaw Trust 2024). She won Creative Future’s Gold Prize for non-fiction and edited the anthology Beyond / Tu Hwnt. Her poetry pamphlet Cling Film (Seren, 2025) was a Country Living top 40 cultural pick 2025.
www.bethanyhandley.com / Instagram- @BethanyHandley_ / Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/bethany.anne.900
Three times winner of the North American Festival of Wales Poetry Competition, Bob Walton is an experienced poet, tutor and event organiser. He taught Creative Writing at Cardiff University until 2022 and has run several workshops at Aber Writing Fest. His second collection, Sax Burglar Blues, is published by Seren. www.robertwaltonwriter.com / www.instagram.com/waltoncobra/
Age range: 16+
Tickets are £8.67 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)
Writing from the Margins with Regina Beach
16:15 – 17:15
This workshop invites writers to bring their intersectional identities including ability, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation into their writing in authentic yet sensitive ways that feel empowering. Come ready to write about your lived experience and hear how other writers bring their whole selves to their work.
Regina Beach is a disabled poet and essayist. Originally from the American midwest, she now calls the Welsh Valleys home. Her writing has appeared in Global Poemic, Boldly Mental, The Rail, Haiku by You, Five Minutes, Visual Verse, The Horror Tree, and Disoriented among others. She is the founder of the literary magazine Lesions | Art + Words, which features the work of people living with chronic health conditions. Regina hosts Writers’ Hour and a monthly virtual open mic for the London Writers’ Salon and is the editor of the Salon’s Writing in Community anthology. She facilitates monthly writing workshops for the MS-UK charity and is the producer of the Living Well with MS podcast. Read more of Regina’s writing at reginagbeach.com or subscribe to her newsletter at reginagbeach.substack.com.
Socials:
reginagbeach.substack.com
instagram.com/reginabeach_creativewellbeing
https://www.facebook.com/ReginaBeachCreativeWellbeing
Tickets are £7.59 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)
Comedy Writing Workshop with Mel Owen: Finding your comedy voice
17:15 – 18:30
Whether you’re a budding stand-up, an aspiring script writer or simply have an idea you’d like to start getting on the page, finding your comedic voice is key!
Join comedian Mel Owen at this interactive workshop where you’ll have the opportunity to kickstart your creative process, develop ideas, dive into the nitty-gritty of writing comedy that actually hits, as well as get a taste of the experience of working within a writers’ room.
Mae croeso i unrhyw un gweithio trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg yn y gweithdy yma!
Mel Owen, dubbed “one to watch” (The Scotsman), “Wales’ most exciting act” (Clwb Comedy), and “obviously multi talented” (Ed Fringe Review) is an award-winning comedian with wins under her belt from competitions across the UK. In 2024 she performed at the Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles as well as selling out her run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. You may have spotted Mel on BBC One’s What Just Happened, or as tour support for Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Elis James.
Mel has script writing credits on Netflix, Radio 4, BBC One and Channel 4. In October, she published her first book ‘Oedoyn(ish)’, a comedic autobiographical guide to all the mistakes she made before turning 30.
Tickets are £6.50 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)
Poets in Conversation: Joshua Jones, Taz Rahman & Sairah Ahsan
17:30 – 18:30
Three poets discuss poetry, community, and navigating boundaries, ending with an open Q+A.
Joshua Jones is a queer & neurodivergent writer from Llanelli. He co-founded Dyddiau Du, a ‘NeuroQueer’ library and artspace in Cardiff. He was recently a Hay Festival’s Writer at Work, and his poetry, essays and fiction have been widely published. His debut work of fiction, Local Fires, (Parthian, 2023) was shortlisted for the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize.
Taz Rahman’s debut poetry collection ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’, published by Seren Books was longlisted for the Laurel Prize. He was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024. He is the founder of Wales’ first Youtube poetry channel Just Another Poet.
Sairah Ahsan is a writer, scientist and researcher living on the Welsh coast. She is currently working on a novel about the places that we imagine and the homes which fall short. Her work has found a home with Extra Teeth, Nawr, Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, and Ink Sweat & Tears under the alias Rakyah Assam. ig@rakyah_assam
Age guidance: 18+
Tickets are FREE but pre registration is required. Click here to register (link opens in new tab)
This event is sponsored by Aberystwyth University Centre for Creativity and Wellbeing
Abergavenny Writing Fest Finale Night at the Melville Theatre
19:30 – 22:00
Hybrid open-mic (in the room and on zoom), reading from our National Poet of Wales: Hanan Issa and comedy from Mel Owen.
To start the evening there will be an accessible open-mic, hosted by Dominic Williams (the MC at West Wales’ legendary international hybrid spoken-word events, Cerddi yn Cwrw).
This event will be hybrid so both audience and participants are able to join either in person or via a zoom link. There will be closed captioning and BSL interpretation for the performance.
The open-mic programme is limited to 6 participants in the physical venue and 6 participants on-line. Performance slots are 3 minutes in length. Priority for the online slots will be given to disabled performers whose choice not to attend the physical venue.
General entry is £10, entry for participants is also £10 but includes an additional complimentary ticket for a friend or family member. Please contact dominic@write4word.org to book a slot…
Followed by our National Poet of Wales: Hanan Issa. Hanan is a Welsh-Iraqi poet, filmmaker, and artist. Her publications include her poetry collection My Body Can House Two Hearts, Welsh Plural: Essays on the Future of Wales and her children’s poetry anthology And I Hear Dragons. Her winning monologue With Her Back Straight was performed at the Bush Theatre as part of the Hijabi Monologues. She is part of the writersroom for Channel 4’s award-winning series We Are Lady Parts. Her work has been featured on Radio 3 and Radio 4. Her short film The Golden Apple – a Ffilm Cymru/ BBC Wales commission is available on iPlayer. She was the 2023 Hay International Fellow and is the current National Poet of Wales until 2027.
To round the evening off we will be joined by Mel Owen, dubbed “one to watch” (The Scotsman), “Wales’ most exciting act” (Clwb Comedy), and “obviously multi talented” (Ed Fringe Review) is an award-winning comedian with wins under her belt from competitions across the UK. In 2024 she performed at the Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles as well as selling out her run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. You may have spotted Mel on BBC One’s What Just Happened, or as tour support for Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Elis James.
Mel has script writing credits on Netflix, Radio 4, BBC One and Channel 4. In October, she published her first book ‘Oedoyn(ish)’, a comedic autobiographical guide to all the mistakes she made before turning 30.
Tickets are £10.84 including booking fee. Click here to book (link opens in new tab)