Featured books

Browse through the ever changing section of featured books from our stock.

Explore Now Visit shop

Latest news

17 Nov

Hay Winter Weekend Readings

Saturday 30th November

Poetry at the Clocktower

Join Welsh indie publisher Parthian Books and the Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye on Saturday 30 November for a day of short poetry readings on the hour at the clocktower. Coinciding with the Hay Winter Weekend, why not wrap up for the weather and join us for more literary festivities on the streets of this wonderful town of books?

Parthian Books has been publishing a carnival of voices from Wales and the wider world for over thirty years. www.parthianbooks.com
 

About the Poets:

Niall Griffiths was born in Liverpool and has lived in mid-Wales for a long time now. Author of eight novels, a book of poetry, several works of non-fiction. The film of his third novel, Kelly+Victor, won a BAFTA. He has won the Wales Book of the Year twice, for the novels Stump, in 2004 and Broken Ghost in 2020. His work has been translated into around twenty languages and he has delivered readings from it all over the globe.

Lewis Davies is a founding partner of Parthian which he set up with Gillian Griffiths and Ravi Pawar in 1993. His work has received a number of awards, including the Rhys Davies short story prize and the John Morgan writing award. He has also worked extensively in Welsh theatre. Davies has been involved in the literary scene in Wales since 1990 and is the current commercial director of Parthian.

Nigel Jarrett is from Pontnewydd and read botany and zoology at Cardiff University. A former journalist with South Wales Argus he is now a poet, essayist, novelist, story-writer, and critic. He won the Rhys Davies Award and the inaugural Templar Shorts award. His short story collection Funderland and poetry collection, Miners At The Quarry Pool, are published by Parthian. He has since published a novel, Slowly Burning, a second story collection,Who Killed Emil Kreisler?, and a second poetry collection, Gwyriad.

Ifor Thomas was born in Haverfordwest. He received the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry in 1992, and is the author of the poetry collections BogwiserUnsafe SexBody Beautiful and Stalking PalomaBody Beautiful, which is concerned with the experience of prostate cancer, was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2006.

Natalie Ann Holborow lives in Swansea andis a winner of the Terry Hetherington Award and the Robin Reeves Prize and has been shortlisted and commended for the Bridport Prize, the National Poetry Competition, the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, and the Cursed Murphy Spoken Word Award among others. She is the author of the poetry collections And Suddenly You Find Yourself and Small – both listed as Best Poetry Collections of the Year by Wales Arts Review – and, with Mari Ellis Dunning, the collaborative poetry pamphlet The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass. Her acclaimed third collection, Little Universe, was recently released through Parthian.

Christina Thatcher grew up between a farm and a ranch house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her poetry and short stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including AmbitButcher’s DogMagmaPoetry WalesThe NorthThe Poetry Review and more. She has published two poetry collections with Parthian Books – More than you were (2017) and How to Carry Fire (2020) – and her third, Breaking a Mare, will be published in 2025. 

Mari Ellis Dunning’s debut poetry collection, Salacia, was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2019. She has since placed second in both the Lucent Dreaming Short Story Competition and the Sylvia Plath Poetry Prize. Her second collection, Pearl and Bone, was chosen as Wales Arts Review’s Number 1 Poetry Choice of 2022. Mari is working on her debut novel, exploring the witch trials of sixteenth-century Wales.

Ness Owen lives on Ynys Môn (Anglesey) in Wales where she writes poetry between lecturing and farming. She has been widely published in journals and anthologies including in Planet MagazineMslexiaThe Cardiff ReviewThe Interpreter’s HouseInk Sweat & TearsThe Atlanta Review, and Poetry Wales. She is the author of two poetry collections – Mamiaith (Arachne Press, 2019) and Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim (Parthian, 2023). She co-edited the A470, a bilingual poetry anthology about the infamous road running from the north to the south of Wales.

Patrick Jones has over 30 years of words bearing witness to the world we live in and the soul we inhabit. He is the author of six performed works and many more published. His most recent work includes the poetry pamphlet Inviting the light (2024), writing lyrics for James Dean Bradfield’s Even in Exile album (Sony Records 2020) and the special 20th anniversary edition ofFuse/Fracture: Poems (2001-2021) with Parthian. He was born in Tredegar, Wales.

Tracey Rhys is a Bridgend-based writer, originally from the Rhondda. Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in Poetry WalesNew Welsh ReviewPlanetThe Lonely Crowd, Ink, Sweat & Tears, A470Yer Ower Voices: Dialect Poetry from Wales, Lipstick Eyebrows and more. Listed for various competitions including the Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Competition, Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition and Cardiff International Poetry Competition, her first pamphlet Teaching a Bird to Sing was a judge’s favourite in the Michael Marks Award. In 2020, she won the Poetry Archive’s Now: Wordview competition. Her debut collection Bathing on the Roof will be published by Parthian in 2025.

Susie Wild is author of the poetry collections Windfalls and Better Houses, the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals. Her work has featured in many publications including Poetry WalesInk Sweat & Tearsand The Atlanta Review and she has performed at festivals including Hay, The Laugharne Weekend, Green Man and Glastonbury. Also Publishing Editor at Parthian Books, Susie lives in Rhondda Fach with a TBR pile almost as high as Llanwonno.

Roberto Pastore is a British-Italian poet based in Cardiff. He studied Creative Writing in Carlisle where he was part of the renowned Speakeasy spoken word scene, and currently hosts a local monthly poetry group in Lufkin CoffeeHis first collection Hey Bert(Parthian 2019) was highly commended by the Forward Poetry Prize and subsequently appeared in the Forward Book of Poetry 2021. In 2022 he released a poetry pamphlet entitled Absolute Joy which led to a collaboration with artist Rob Churm, who adapted one of the poems into a performance piece and comic. Roberto’s second full collection, Graveyards On Other Planets, will be published by Parthian in 2025.

14 Nov

TOGETHER FOR TIMBUKTU

A Family Fundraiser for Timbuktu Crisis Appeal

To Donate please click here Together for Timbuktu

Join us at The Globe at Hay for a morning of family fun as we raise money to send to our friends in Hay’s twin town of Timbuktu, currently under siege and cut off from the world once again!

All writers are appearing for free with all monies raised from ticket sales and donations going directly to our Timbuktu Crisis Appeal

ALL TICKETS ARE PAY WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD  but can be reserved in advance for free

10.30am The fun begins when AF Harold brings us his wacky poetry show ‘Welcome to Wild Town‘ (age 6+) Tickets available here

11am (ish) Nicola Davies and Petr Horacek take us on an interactive live painting & poetry adventure with The Star Whale (ages 6-100!) Tickets available here

15min BREAK

12 noon After a short break we join Jackie Morris and Cathy Fisher in conversation with Nicola Davies as they expolore the making of their new book The Panda’s Child (all ages welcome) Tickets available here

All writers will be available for book signing after the event – books can be bought in advance at a reduced price for ticket holders via the links above and can be collected at the event.

1 May

Mischief Makers: Jackie Morris in conversation with John Mitchinson

Join Jackie in conversation with her publisher and friend, John Mitchinson while she summons one of her magical creatures into life in paint on stage

Tickets on sale now here

Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. She lives in a small house beside the sea in Wales, with cats and dogs for company. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Art and Bath Academy and has illustrated many books, and written some. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019. In the same year she published The Unwinding with Unbound, and they have committed to re-issuing and re-designing her backlist beginning with Song of the Golden Hare (Sep 2020) and East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Mar 2021) and The Wild Swans (Mar 2021).

Accordion Books are an exciting new series created by Jackie Morris and published by Unbound.

An Accordion Book doesn’t open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal: sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations – inspired by the same animal.

Together they work as spell to summon the animal’s spirit. Jackie has painted them using antique watercolours, some from boxes which haven’t been opened for over 150 years, woken from their slumber with a single drop of water.

Beautifully produced at 152mm x 103mm, and printed on 440 gsm card, with foiled paper board covers foiled and a sleeve to hold the book snug, they have been designed by Alison O’Toole, who has worked with Jackie on all her recent books, including The Lost Words and The Unwinding.

Testimonials

Donate

Donations to ‘The Poetry Bookshop’ are going towards putting free events and readings

Sell us your books

Sell us your books

New Books

Browse our catalogue of new books