Stephan Fry loses..

Weight actually. He looked very svelt, fit and tanned in the Green Room at Hay last Monday. And unlike me didn't have to worry about winning anything. We were there for the Wales Book of the Year Shortlist announcement from judges Mike Parker, Tiffany Atkinson and John Barnie. For those who don't know about this prize it's a kinda Heptathlon for the current year's books. If you've got a book of short stories out (as I have) it competes with all the other wonderful literary output of Wales from this last year. Perfectly formed poetry collections, forensic literary criticism and biographies, travel writing and of course the fictional hammer throwers, the novelists.

So to find myself on stage in the final three had a lucid-dream quality to it. Was it real? Deborah Kay Davies and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch were with me- I knew though if I caught sight of the Queen, say, and Lady Gaga sharing a joke in the front row this wouldn't be a good sign. But no- it seemed to be kosher- we seemed to be the shortlist. I have some memory of talking about my book (sadly not too lucidly) and actually heard myself saying 'of course I left Flintshire when I was eighteen.' I think someone hissed. Sad when Blood, etc is pretty much a celebration of the people I grew up with. And why didn't I add what I always do at this point? That my house is a single field's length over the border and though I may sleep in Cheshire I'll always live in a Wales of the Mind? That's the trouble with dreams though. Weird stuff happens. Should have asked either the Queen or Stephen Fry to pinch me.

Glenda by the sea

To one of my favourite towns on Friday: Rhyl on the Welsh coast (actually the favourite because I'm writing about it and it's just- well, brilliant) to hear one of my favourite writers, Glenda Beagan, launch her new collection The Great Master Of Ecstasy (from Seren). There's been a long wait for this book- worth it, we are hoping.

Glenda is one of those meticulous craftsmen whose poetry and prose never gets out the door before it's thoroughly burnished- and then brought back roughened around the edges and repolished. (In her introductory speech her editor Penny Thomas will make the point that this is her first collection for ten years - and she still needed two extensions to her deadline. WTG Glenda. No apologies necessary.)

Outside, as an audience gathers, Rhyl turns on its coloured lights and their glitter is kind to all the town's daytime faults and flatters the Promenade into that magical place from everyone's childhood. We're early- I'm impatient to hear my friend read, after all, so David and I walk the perimeter of the deserted Marine Lake. The quiet is a positive thing, anticipatory. Even the boats tethered along the Foryd Harbour are making less fuss about wind and water.

As Glenda's a self-effacing almost reluctant performer, I worry for her - but once she stops the hard part of explaining why and how and reads, the atmosphere in the room becomes charged. Here is someone that many people outside Wales will never have heard of who has had a long break in her writing career dealing I know with challenging stuff thrown at her by life. But no one there on Friday evening in Rhyl's small gallery could be left in any doubt by the time she sits down. She always was and still is The Real Thing.

Worth watching

Peter Blair and Ashley Chantler from the English Faculty of the University of Chester emailed me recently to tell me about their new venture Flash- The International Short Story Magazine and asking for a piece for it- 360 words (including title). I love commissions but don't always want commissions- specially now when the current novel has been dragged to a plateau of 60,000 words and there's at least another 20,000 waiting to be added- then another maybe 30,ooo to take out and a new 24,872 at a rough guess to go in its place - and all before October.
But I knew straightaway I was going to do this.
For a start Chester Uni is a Good Thing. I like it. It has above averagely attractive students who are usually cavorting in the Cheyney Road, Fountains Roundabout area of town and remind me how much I enjoyed my student days and how lucky I am not to have a proper job. And when you go there to do a reading those same students stare with beautiful uncynical eyes and write a few things down. Really comforting, that, on a bad day. But mainly it's this whole small literary magazine thing that does the damage. They really are Good Things. Years ago I heard a short story 'We All Begin in Little Magazines' on Radio 4. Can't remember by whom- can't be bothered to Google it- but the title says it all. Getting published never gets any easier- nor should it. But you've got to at least give people a point of entry- if they're rubbish then editors like Peter and Ashley will give them a strong hint. If they've any hope, they'll get a bit of yeah, well not too shabby from someone who isn't a blood relative. That's what you need.
I thought I could be a poet only after the late, great Alan Ross - who NEVER published a single piece of mine- wrote: 'You might be worth watching.' Same sort of thing happened with the short stories just a different editor.
You can check out Flash at www.chester.ac.uk/flash.magazine/. You can find out if you might be not too shabby by submitting. In April you can even read my 'An Alternative History of Rhyl' there - unless you really ARE from Rhyl in which case don't look. It'll only upset you.