PENfro book festival

Phil Rickman is the author of  the  Merrily Watkins mysteries. the new John Dee series and several novels of the paranormal (including two for children under the name Thom Madley.)

Born in Lancashire, he’s spent most of his adult life in Wales and the Border country, where he won a couple of awards for his work as a BBC radio and TV news reporter.

First novel, Candlenight (1991) was discovered by the novelist and fiction-editor Alice Thomas Ellis  and was followed by four other stand-alone ghost stories before the Merrily Watkins series began with The Wine of Angels.

Phil lives near Hay-on-Wye with his wife, Carol – they met as  journalists on the same paper – and a bunch of animals. He still writes and presents  radio features including the book programme PHIL THE SHELF on BBC Radio Wales.

Christine is an award–winning short–story writer and novelist. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio and she has been published by Honno, Macmillan and Serpent’s Tail, as well as various magazines. Christine lives in Pembrokeshire.

Selected Publications:
Airy Cages (Macmillan, 1994)

Contirbuted to:
The Best of Cosmopolitan (contributor) (Serpents Tail, 1991)
Luminous and Forlorn (contributor) (Honno, 1994)
Power (contributor) (Honno, 1998)
Catwoman from Hell (contributor) (Honno, 2000)
The Woman Who Loved Cucumbers (contributor) (Honno, 2002)
Mirror Mirror (contributor) (Honno, 2004)

Biographer and historian. Angela hails from Port Talbot originally. She was Professor of History at the University of Greenwich from 1989 to 2004 but now lives in Newport, Pembrokeshire. She has written extensively about gender history, especially women’s employment and was the author of an award-winning book for schools entitled Coalmining Women (Cambridge University Press, 1984). She has also edited collections of essays on Welsh and English women’s history and on men’s support for women’s suffrage. She now concentrates on biography and enjoys speaking about  this subject to different audiences. In 2006 she gave talks across the United States.

She has just completed a life of the journalist, suffragette and international humanitarian, Evelyn Sharp. Her biography of Sharp’s war correspondent husband was published in 2006 entitled War, Journalism and the Shaping of the Modern World. The Life and Times of Henry W. Nevinson. Tempus has just reprinted in paperback two of her earlier biographies: a life of the actress Elizabeth Robins and (with Revel Guest) the first biography of Lady Charlotte Guest. Angela has also written introductions to reprints of two of Menna Gallie’s novels for Honno Press. She has been a member of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, the Advisory Council of the Institute of Historical Research and the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Council on National Records and Archives. She is a vice-president and former chair of Llafur, the Welsh People’s History Society. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Member of Academi, Angela is currently Honorary Professor of History at Aberystwyth University.

Angela’s recent title, Evelyn Sharp: Rebel Woman, 1869-1955 (Manchester University Press, 2009), was long-listed in the non-fiction section of the 2010 Portico Prize.

Antiquarian bookseller, literary entrepreneur and chairman of the Dylan Thomas society,  Jeff Towns has been in the book trade for over 30 years, running the legendary Dylan’s Bookstore in Swansea. With the move towards internet bookselling Jeff takes us through his career and thoughts for the future of the antiquarian book-trade. Jeff will also be running an “antiques roadshow for books” all day on Sunday 16th September in  Neuadd Y Dderwen

Eddie Butler is that rare thing: a writer and a rugby player. A Cambridge Blue who subsequently captained Wales, and went on the British Lions tour to New Zealand in 1983. After hanging up his boots, an equally successful career in broadcasting and journalism followed. In The Greatest Welsh XV Ever, however, Eddie Butler has gone where angels (and ex-international back-row forwards) fear to tread: he has asked the question ‘Who are the fifteen best players ever to have represented Wales at rugby?’   Those who listen to Eddie’s talk at the festival will get a chance to join in the greatest national debate since devolution.