The turning of the year and the current lockdown has gotten me thinking closely about home. While I am grateful for my home here in Wales, I realize that it is going to be a long time before I am able to visit my friends and family back in America. It has already been over…
Category: Landscape
Being Grateful
This time last year I asked my Roath Writers group to make a list of things they were grateful for. Not generic things but specific people, experiences, qualities, places, and anything else that mattered to them. My initial list included both my ankles and my energy. Since then, I have continued thinking about the importance…
Counting Pheasants
Following the success of our Landscape Writing series, Emma Beynon and I are currently booking a beautiful venue in Pembroke for our first weekend writing residential. Held in October, this retreat will give up to six participants a chance to write, read, walk, and explore the countryside with other writers. Full details will be posted shortly!…
People and Place
Today the street I live on in Canton is preparing to host a Big Lunch event. The pavement is being swept, the bunting is going up, and the bouncy castle is on its way! If you don’t know, the Big Lunch is a UK-wide initiative which aims to get millions of people to have lunch…
Arcades and Alleys
When I first arrived in Cardiff I had my own ideas about what its arcades and alleys would be like. I assumed the arcades were places kids went to play pinball and the alleys were something I had to steer clear from at night. I could not have been more wrong. In the four years…
City Writing
I have been trying to write the things I love about Cardiff for years. There is something here that excites me, that comforts me, that pulls me back when I’m away. This city deserves poetry more than most. With this in mind, Emma Metcalfe and I decided to set up a City Writing series which…
Winter Light
This week, when I walked to work in darkness, I thought about poetry. I thought about the Ciliau and the wilds of mid-Wales. But most of all, I thought about light. In our January Landscape Writing workshop, Emma and I discussed the significance of light in winter. We examined how it can magnify our experiences,…
On the Drover’s Road
Autumn came to Cardiff this week with brisk winds and beautiful colors. The season is changing: scarves are coming out, kettles are boiling longer and more often. It is time to say goodbye to summer. I know I speak for Emma when I say that our summer was quite a meaningful one. We ran our…
View from the Hill
Summer does not tread lightly in Wales. It swoops in unexpectedly and disappears without a trace. Given the limited time we have with this season, Emma and I were delighted to host our third Landscape Writing workshop under the bright and cleansing sun. There is nothing quite like heat in the Welsh hills. Like all…
Past and Present
May is a complicated month – not quite winter, not quite summer, but oh so full of memories. It reminds me of the days when my grandmother still baked birthday cakes in the shape of butterflies, horses, and dinosaurs. It reminds me of the blueberry bush in my back yard and the deep, woodpile splinters…
Christina Thatcher 