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9781781727522

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‘Here’s a literary voice blasting out at you, a writer of deep, deep authenticity with a real story to tell. It’s the tale of a young poet finding out that life is like pinball game, all flashing lights and obstacles, but thrillingly full of excitement too. Gemma June Howell is the real thing and then some, a brilliant new literary voice. Here is a novelist able to palp the rancid underbelly of life and yet find the lyricism, grit and beauty there, superbly well equipped to examine the tests and travails of the creative life and explore how society works for some and leaves others utterly marooned. Shot through with striking, in-your-face and often drop-dead beautiful writing, this novel is a work of art, but urgently so, with stuff to say about living now and living hard and living with complete and utter honesty.’ – Jon Gower;‘Brilliant edgy dialect poems evoking many working-class Welsh valley's voices. Reminded me of the Glaswegian dialect poet, Tom Leonard. She has the same sense of depth and honesty. Gemma June Howell is one of the best young poets with a genuinely unique talent!’ – Topher Mills, Poet.;‘Sharp, brilliant writing with a unique voice that needs to be heard.’ – Tanya Byrne, Author.;‘An omnivorous mind’ – Niall Griffiths;‘Gemma June Howell is a brilliant young woman writer in the best traditions of Wales. Inspiring to me, not just because I share the same Bedwas, Trethomas and Machen background of Gemma, but because she is a writer who needs to be read. Her book goes where the best writing goes – into the heart of the human condition. She shares with Albert Camus and J. M. Coetzee a passion for humanity’s light and dark. I’m sure she can write a classic.’ – Karl Francis, Film Director.;‘One of the dazzling new wave of young Welsh writers. Her voice is gritty and sparse, compassionate and sometimes shocking but always authentic and true to her Valley roots.’ – Alan Perry, Author.;‘Whilst this collection exposes issues specific to social deprivation during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it is also part of a great Welsh poetic and literary tradition. It is reminiscent of writing which emerged out of the valleys and elsewhere during the 1930's depression, and as such, is a more modern, brutal take on a world once inhabited by the ‘Tramp-Poet’ W H

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Dr Gemma June Howell is a multi-talented writer, poet, activist, academic and editor. She is Desk Editor at Honno, Welsh Women’s Press, Director of Women Publishing Wales – Menywod Cyhoeddi Cymru, and Associate Editor at Culture Matters. Her work has mainly appeared in the Red Poets, with her dialect poetry featuring in ‘Yer Ower Voices’ (2023). She has also been published by Bloodaxe Books (2015), The London Magazine (2020) and has featured on Tongue & Talk for BBC R4 (2021). In 2010 Gemma was a finalist for The John Tripp Award for Spoken Word. She published a volume of poetry, Rock Life (2014) and a collection of short stories Inside the Treacle Well with Hafan Books (2009). She has a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing from Swansea University. Her research focused on the disparities between social ontology and historical realism from a proletarian, feminist standpoint and led to her debut novel The Crazy Truth (Seren, 2024). Her work could be described as transgressional fiction which delves into the complexities of working-class identity in post-industrial Britain. She is an advocate for equality, representation and social equality in politics, publishing and the arts.

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