Here at We Are Cardiff, we are all about local businesses and locally produced goods, so we sent photographer Samuel Padget went down to check out Crafty Devil Microbrewery in Canton to have a snoop around. Here’s his report …
Stacked barrels of “Ryan Jones – Welsh Rugby Legends” beer at the Crafty Devil Brewery site, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
On Thursday, I headed down to check out the Crafty Devil Brewery in Canton to see what they were all about. Having opened two years ago, it’s still a small operation with partners Adam and Rhys running the business and brewing side of things and Rhys’ dad Gareth taking care of the newly opened shop. With brewer Adam operating out of a unit in an industrial estate in Canton, they are still managing to fill Cardiff’s pubs with Crafty’s beers appearing on the guest circuit of craft ale behemoth Brewdog and a permanent tap in the local favourite the Lansdowne.
Even if you can’t find a tap anywhere, there’s always the newly opened Crafty Devil’s Cellar on Llandaff Road, Canton. The store is open Tuesday-Sunday, with a bar area at the rear that is open for occasional events (check Crafty Devil Website for bar opening times). Having opened on 30 October, the shop stocks a full range of Crafty’s beers along with carefully selected craft beers from around the world.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Brewing equipment at the Crafty Devil Microbrewery, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Stacked barrels of “Ryan Jones – Welsh Rugby Legends” beer at the Crafty Devil Brewery site, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Brewer Adam checks the stocks of fresh hops at the Crafty Devil Brewery, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Beer pours into a vat at the Crafty Devil Brewery’s microbrewery site.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Beer pours into a vat at the Crafty Devil Brewery’s microbrewery site.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Brewing equipment at the Crafty Devil Microbrewery, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Brewer Adam stands by brewing equipment at the Crafty Devil Microbrewery, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Products on display at the Crafty Devil’s Cellar, Canton, Cardiff, Wales.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. The newly opened Crafty Devil’s Cellar store in Canton, Cardiff, Wales
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Crafty Devil Beer
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. Storekeeper Gareth serves up a pint at the Crafty Devil’s Cellar bar.
Cardiff, United Kingdom, November 26 2015. The newly opened Crafty Devil’s Cellar store in Canton, Cardiff, Wales
If you’re creative and are based in Cardiff, it makes ALL THE SENSE to join the wonderful new Creative Cardiff network. Plus, they’re having a Christmas party on Wednesday 16 December in Chapter – go along and get involved! Here they are to tell us more about it.
Over the last year we’ve been working to build a new city-wide network that connects people working in any creative organisation, business or job. You may have been to our freelancers’ breakfast, to our event at The Abacus, or have met with one of our team to share your thoughts about what this should or could be.
And now we’ve launched Creative Cardiff – a network which provides information and promotes new opportunities as well as enabling its members to find new people to work with, build their audience and promote their work. There’s already lots going on in Cardiff and there are many creative networks but, unlike other cities such as Edinburgh, Bath and Dundee we didn’t have something here which pulls it all together in one place and encourages people to work together across all the different creative sectors. We believe that by playing this connector role Creative Cardiff can help to make our city the most creative place it can be.
Over the first year we’re offering a programme of ‘52 Things’ which we want to make with and for the city’s creative community. Online we’re profiling the people and places in the city which give it a unique identity (look out for our forthcoming city guide which we’ve worked on with ‘We Are Cardiff’ and ‘I Loves the Diff’). And we’re running events – so far we’ve held a ‘Show & Tell’ event where people shared their work, we’ve had an ‘In conversation’ event with Dick Penny from Bristol’s Watershed and later this month we’re having a Christmas party.
Come and join us at Chapter for a Christmas party for the creative community on Wednesday 16 December from 7:30-11:30pm. We’ll have music from DJs, GRLTLK, and live performances. And we’ll have a few surprises up our sleeves too! Celebrate the work you’ve done in 2015 and you might even meet some new people to collaborate with next year. Tickets are just £10 and include a glass of mulled wine and a hot buffet. Buy tickets.
Creative Cardiff is free to join. You’ll receive our fortnightly newsletter, invitations to our events and the opportunity to list yourself on our members’ directory. To find out more about the network and join for FREE visit: www.creativecardiff.org.uk Creative Cardiff is run by Cardiff University with support from BBC Wales, the City of Cardiff Council and Wales Millennium Centre.
We popped along to the Meat and Greek pop-up restaurant in the Corys building on the corner of Bute Street last night. It was super special for a couple of reasons….
The building is grade II listed, and was built in 1889 for the Corys Brothers & Co. The business included ship’s chandlery, brokerage and the sale and export of coal. Ever since I’ve lived in Cardiff, this building has been boarded up, seemingly derelict.
The ever-wonderful Meat and Greek, who are a local Greek Cypriot family, have lovingly painted and cleaned the lobby of the building, and built an absolutely gorgeous inside garden, made of wood and pallets and fairy lights. This is not your usual thrown-together pop-up. They must have spent days and days making this place look so beautiful.
The second reason it’s such a wonderful experience is the food! The menu is tastefully short – offering one starter, two platters (one meat, one veggie) and one dessert. Platters comes with decent sized portions of pork, beef, halloumi, stuffed peppers, Greek salad, potatoes, aubergines, spanakopita (a savoury pastry), hummus and tzatziki….
The service is fast, everything is reasonably priced, and the staff are incredible. It’s only open for the first three weekends in December, so don’t miss out on this extra special pop-up!
It’s that time of year when Mary Bijou Cabaret get their baubles out for everyone! Yay!
This year’s performance, the usual mix of circus, comedy, sketches, music and lots of other kinds of ridiculousness, did not let us down.
The show began with a sultry rendition of Joni Mitchell’s River, followed closely by a playful Chinese pole act from Kate McWilliam. Trailing a bouncing silver balloon behind her, she flipped around the pole with a massive smile on her face!
Co-founder of the cabaret, George Orange, who we interviewed a couple of years ago, entertained the crowd between acts, drawing attention to the cock-ups in the customary Mary Bijou way. After finishing her own, special rendition of Silent Night, ‘Maxine’ (aka Paul Evans) got stuck suspended in mid air dressed as an angel. It took a good minute or so for the crowd to realise that it wasn’t part of the plan…
Other highlights included the bizarrely hilarious Austrian ski dance to a techno version of Vogue (I can’t explain it any better that that), George’s slackline, Kitsch n Synch‘s little sandman ditty, Catriona and Ben’s furious sketch about Christmas (“IT’S ONLY JUST BEGUN, ARGHHHHH!!”
), Maxine’s powerful static trapeze routine, Olga and Hannah’s silks act, where they transformed from toy dolls into real women to a Beastie Boys soundtrack and, of course, the finale – Eric’s unbelievable straps performance.
Mary Bijou shows have a warm, social vibe where everyone ends up dancing at the end of the night and acts are so close to the audience that you can feel their breath. The performers are a motley gang of incredible talent, and you always feel as if you’ve just dropped in on a house party where someone decided to hastily arrange a talent show, in the best possible way. Their shows are edgy, socially conscious, experimental and rib-achingly funny.
Oh, also a special shout out to Ernie Sparkles’ set design, which according to him included 4 tonnes of glitter….
If only they were doing more than two shows! Guess you’ll just have to wait until next year…We made a little video for you too – see below.
Today, Hana from We Are Cardiff Press talks about what it’s like to be poor at Christmas, and what you can do to help people in your community.
At this time of year, while frenetic consumerism takes hold, we get a pang of guilt.
We see the homeless people scattered around the cold corners of the city, the charity chuggers on Queen Street, the leaflets through your door, and the emotional appeals on TV. We all know that spending £20 on bath bombs is ridiculous, but we do it anyway.
In my day job, I’m a political writer specialising in equality, human rights and poverty. I also grew up in a household that would be classed as ‘in poverty’. I want to try and illustrate why this time of year is particularly hard for people who don’t have enough money to buy food, pay rent, heat their home, and do social things that other people do like buying presents. It’s not ideal to just consider these things once a year, but it’s better than nothing.
Christmas in our house was filled with embarrassment. My mum was embarrassed that she couldn’t give us proper gifts. We were embarrassed that our Christmas decorations were very old, very rubbish donations. We stayed quiet to avoid making our mum feel bad. We were never homeless, but we got very close.
My brother and I knew that we couldn’t have Christmas lists or any kind of requests for presents. We knew that we ‘weren’t as lucky’ as other kids. Anything we received on Christmas day was greeted with a childish joy alongside an uncomfortable understanding – how was it paid for? What would we do without next month? We got into even further debt in winter, and relied on the help of family friends to eat warm dinners and to replace worn-out school clothes.
Going back to school in January was something to absolutely dread. New clothes, bikes, and holidays in particular, were all things we couldn’t compete with. I usually feigned an illness straight after the Christmas break to avoid having to go through the comparison game.
Our family was on a knife edge throughout December, emotionally and financially; the end of Christmas was a relief.
This isn’t an unusual or extreme example.
Nearly a quarter of people in Wales (23%) live in poverty.One third of children in Wales live in poverty. It’s particularly high for lone parents (most are women), disabled people and ethnic minorities.
‘Not having enough money to get by’ is something that becomes much more pronounced at Christmas.
Below I’ve given a crude, and likely not comprehensive round-up of the charity campaigns that I’ve spotted that are running this Christmas in Cardiff for people who are in that 23%. If you know of any more, leave a comment.
The number of people declared homeless because they arefleeing domestic abuse has risen in recent years. We recently promoted Project Shoebox, but donations END ON SUNDAY 6th DECEMBER. If you want to give more help to women in refuges, check out Welsh Women’s Aid and Refuge’s Christmas present appeal.
The Huggard Centre is a Cardiff-based charity tackling homelessness. Services focus around the day centre that open 365 days of the year, a 20 bed hostel with additional emergency spaces, 14 shared houses with tenant support that accommodate 52 clients. In extreme weather conditions they also open the day centre at night, to provide shelter for people who would otherwise be forced to sleep rough. You can help them by donating money, clothes or your time by volunteering in their kitchen.
Oasis Cardiff is a centre for asylum seekers and refugees. They offer classes, employability workshops, dance classes, a women’s only area, mother and toddler groups and support with letters and phone calls regarding asylum and refugee issues. You can help them out by donating clothes – they post requests on their Twitter feed.
TheBevan Foundation is an important political voice for people in poverty in Wales. They influence politicians and decision makers by producing excellent research and policy proposals. You can become a member of the Foundation for £36 a year.
Llamau provide safe places for hundreds of vulnerable young people, women and children in Wales. They need donations of gifts or items to make up a gift for the hundreds of people they will support this Christmas, who without help would not receive anything. Why not make the most of 3 for 2 offers and donate your free item? If you shop online, sign up for Giveasyoulive and choose to support Llamau. Every time you shop online, the retailer will make a donation to us, at no extra cost to you. If you’re shopping online anyway, sign up and help unlock donations towards the cause.
The Wallich give vulnerable people the accommodation and support to live safer, happier, more independent lives and to become part of their communities. There has been a 64% increase in rough sleeping in Cardiff over the past two years- the charity’s winter appeal asks you to help bring people in from the cold.
The Salvation Army is running a Christmas present appeal, asking people to donate new unwrapped toys and gifts for children, families, older people and homeless people in need this Christmas.
Cardiff South Debt Centre is run in partnership with The Bay Church and gives free debt help to anyone who feels weighed down by debt. You can find out more about how CAP can help here.
Shelter Cymru helps thousands of people every year who are struggling with bad housing or homelessness, and they campaign to prevent it in the first place. They are an effective campaigning voice for homeless people in Wales. You can make a one-off donation to them to help fund their work.
Safer Wales is an independent charity based in Cardiff. They work to help people feel safer and improve the life of our communities in Wales. They offer support and services to people who are suffering domestic abuse; hate crime or harassment; or who are being forced to do things that they do not wish to do. They also work with young people in the Riverside Warehouse youth centre and in schools across Wales. You can volunteer for them or donate money.
Barnardo’s Cymru run incredibly important service for children in Wales, around fostering and adoption, young carers, sexual exploitation, child poverty and domestic violence. You can help them in loads of ways.
If you’re worried about money this Christmas, Step Change provide debt advice to people in Cardiff who are struggling with money.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have produced this great video about how the public define poverty:
The lovely Peter Finch has written a book called (you’ve guessed it) The roots of rock – from Cardiff to Mississipi and back. And to celebrate, there’s a launch party!
Peter’s book draws on a life long love of music and the need to trace its roots … he explains the book way more eloquently than I could ever dream of, so I’ll just let him tell you what it’s about:
“I want to find out where the material I listened to as a young man and which became the backdrop to my life came from. I want to discover where it lived. How it was. How it is. How it got there. I want to find out on the ground how the blues, hillbilly, old time dance music, bluegrass, Hank Williams country and western, rockabilly, Nashville slick and straight ahead Rocket 88 rock and roll came about. What were the components of these musics? How did they cross the Atlantic? What parts came from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales?”
“Most importantly I want to discover how the magic all this became made the transition back to rain drenched Wales. How did it flow across the Bay of Tigers to manifest itself in the bright blue drape jackets of Valley’s born Teddy Boys? How did it appear amid the banjos plucked in folk clubs in pub back rooms on the Welsh Capital’s Broadway and Charles Street?”
How did it rock in the dance halls of Sophia Gardens, Cowbridge Road and Death Junction? And, in particular, how did it inform the taste of more than one Welsh generation? Mike Harries, Man, the Sons of Adam, Amen Corner, The Sun Also Rises, Edward H, Meic Stevens, the Manic Street Preachers, Cate Le Bon, Richard James, Georgia Ruth, Gruff Rhys, Trampolene, Baby Queens, Climbing Trees, and Euros Childs.
The book starts in south Wales, in the place I come from. The Cardiff delta. The flood plain made by the three city rivers – the Ely, the Taff, the Rumney – aided ably by the Roath Brook, the Nant, and that long lost waterway, the Tan. Cardiff is not the centre of the music universe by any means but it has had its moments. Bill Haley came here in 1957 and played the Cardiff Capitol. Lynyrd Skynyrd did the same thing in 1975. John Lee Hooker was here in 1964 at a surf club on the Wentloog flatlands. Jerry Lee played Sophia Gardens in 1962. Dion wandered to the Capitol in 1964. Chuck Berry duck walked there a year later. Johnny Cash visited in 1966. Elvis never. How and why? I want to know.
So there you go! I can’t wait to read it.
See you at the party?
Butetown Arts and History Centre
4 Dock Chambers, Cardiff CF10 5AG
Monday 7 December, 19.00
Author Nick Rippington recalls the jailer of Cardiff nick, ‘arf and ‘arf curries and hobnobbing with the famous in Kiwis.
I handed over my £9 rent money for the week and Cliffy grasped it gratefully. “Come on then,” he said. “As it’s pay day we should go out and celebrate.”
I’d been in Cardiff for just a few days, a new recruit on the journalism training course at the further education college in Colchester Avenue, and was lodging with Cliffy and his family in a terraced house in Penylan.
I had the downstairs front room in a home that always seemed to be full. A constant stream of foster kids were in and out of the Simmonds house, mingling with their own offspring, two boys and a girl.
Forgive me if I can’t remember all the names, but we are talking 1978 – almost 40 years ago now. It was my first introduction to the ’Diff and the first steps in a love affair.
Despite my failing memory, though, I will never forget Cliffy. An enormous, larger-than-life character, he was jailer at Cardiff nick and in his spare time drove celebrities around in a Rolls Royce.
That first night he took me to the Albany Pub in Roath. It was long before the days of gastro-pubs, wine bars and new fangled phrases like “refurbishment”. This little backstreet boozer was a typical spit-and-sawdust Brains pub and locals greeted Cliff as if he was a long-lost friend, even though he’d seen them all the night before.
Immediately he dipped his hand in his pocket and shouted in the round, ordering without bothering to ask what my drink preference was. I was presented with a pint of Brains Mild (thank goodness it wasn’t SA) and as he chatted away to his mates about the latest Six Nations rugby tour he was organising I focussed on a small TV in the corner showing that evening’s episode of Coronation Street.
By the time the programme finished half an hour later I was staring rather forlornly at my fourth pint of mild. Cliffy, his pint-glass resembling an egg cup in his massive hands, was just getting into his rhythm. Not once had he asked me to put my hand in my pocket. When I offered he just said “It’s your money”, waving a few pound notes in front of me, the rent I had handed him just an hour earlier. I’ve no idea what his wife thought of his generosity with this extra cash but I had an idea from the raised voices I heard upstairs later.
On one such ‘rent night’, Cliff introduced me to the “best Chinese in Cardiff” – next to the student-friendly Claude pub in Albany Road – where an excitable Oriental man served me pancake roll and chips which he insisted had been made “very special for you”. Later I sampled the famous “Curry ‘arf and ‘arf”, rice and chips – a traditional Cardiff delicacy.
During those student days my classmates and I discovered a favourite haunt in the Philly, or Philarmonic to give it its full name, a lively nightclub on St Mary’s Street. The best gigs though were at the Student Uni. I recall fabulous nights there seeing the Jam and Graham Parker and the Rumour.
After that year in Cardiff alas I had to leave, taking up a job back on my local paper in Bristol. From there I travelled the country with my new profession, working in Stoke-on-Trent and Oswestry as a sports writer, before moving to Swansea in the mid 80s.
In 1989, I got my chance to return to Cardiff. The Western Mail and Echo were poised to launch their first Sunday newspaper and I landed the job as Chief Sports Sub-Editor. Establishing a completely new newspaper was a brilliant experience, and while many predicted Wales on Sunday wouldn’t last more than a couple of months it has just passed its 26th anniversary, so we must have done something right.
Wales on Sunday was the first “national” paper to contain a pullout sports section and gave blanket coverage to the Welsh football and rugby scenes, something locals were unable to get from the London-based media.
Eventually I moved in with a mate, Nick Lewis, who had bought a house in Cathays. Sadly, Nick is no longer with us but in those days we enjoyed everything Cardiff had to offer. On evenings off my housemate would rub his hands together with a twinkle in his eyes, and announce it was time for an “adventure”.
These “adventures” would take us down the docks to places like the Brown Windsor pub, where we could see brilliant Cardiff bands in action or enjoy a behind-closed-doors lock-in to watch televised coverage of the L’Arc de Triomphe.
Or, better still, we could go to Sam’s Bar on the corner of St Mary’s Street before winding our way down one of the arcades to a popular late night haunt called Kiwis. If we were really in the mood we might top it off with a Steak in the Taurus Steak bar.
On one such night we bumped into the actor Hywel Bennett and a pal who he was lodging with in Cardiff. Back in the days when I had hair people claimed I resembled him, so I recall going up to introduce myself with the immortal line: “People say I look like you”. It led to us spending a memorable night in his company, Nick and Hywel quoting Shakespeare at each other as the drink flowed (only the previous weekend we had published a story of how Hywel had kicked the booze!).
I was later promoted to sports editor and eventually left to try my luck on the Independent and, later, the Sunday Mirror in London. Five years later, though, Wales on Sunday came back to headhunt me and offer me the job of Assistant Editor. Many of my stories of that third time around in Cardiff, vaguely remembered, can be found on a blog I wrote called What I Cooked Last Night.
It was when I later took up the job of Welsh Sports Editor at the News of The World, only to lose it at 48 hours notice when Rupert Murdoch closed down the paper due to the phone hacking scandal, that I came up with the idea for my novel Crossing The Whitewash.
It draws heavily on my experiences in both Cardiff and London, and is set against the backdrop of the Rugby World Cup. It’s my debut novel and so far I’ve been very happy with some of the reviews I’ve been getting. Maybe when I make my first million I’ll return to Cardiff for good.
Nick Rippington currently lives in London with wife Liz and youngest daughter Olivia and works for the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday. His novel Crossing the Whitewash is available from Amazon in paperback and for Kindle. It can also be found on iBooks, Kobo and at selected stories including The Wellfield Bookstore in Roath.
Gilberto Torres, the trade unionist who was kidnapped and tortured after he challenged oil companies is coming to Wales to tell his story TONIGHT at 6.30pm at the Temple of Peace, where there’ll be an evening of Colombian food, music and performances. Tickets are STILL AVAILABLE.
Gilberto is bringing a case with Deighton Pierce Glynn Solicitors against British Petroleum for his ordeal where he was taken, held for 42 days in insect infested pits, tortured and made to watch fellow captives being dismembered. He now lives in exile but wants to share his experience. He states:
“I want to discuss what action British people can take to stop the damage that multinationals are causing to human rights and the environment around the globe”.
Gilberto’s case is almost unheard of as he escaped with his life, something he puts down to the solidarity and support he received from people all over the world who called for his safe release. His case is just one of thousands of similar cases in Colombia and his region over 12,000 people have been murdered or disappeared since BP started oil exploration. He sees international solidarity from British Trade unionists and other groups as a crucial part of their struggle.
There has also been huge environmental destruction in his region due to the oil exploration people unable now to farm the land and experiencing grave drought and huge losses of livestock.
This is part of a UK wide tour being put on by Oil Justice which is a collaboration of War on Want, Colombian NGO COSPACC, and Deighton Pierce Glyn Solicitors. His solicitor Sue Willman said:
“Gilberto Torres is risking his safety by suing oil companies in UK and by coming here to seek the truth. He and his community face huge barriers in accessing justice. We hope his courage and the Oiljustice initiative will be a small step in breaking down those barriers, and changing the behaviour of corporations.”
Tom Lebert of War on Want said:
“Big oil companies are devastating communities across the world. Their operations have forced people from their land, polluted the environment, and led to widespread human rights violations. It’s time these companies were held to account..”
The event is being held by the Welsh Centre for International Affairs and is part of their series on celebrating human rights and is free to attend.
You can read a preview chapter from the book online here.
Hana
On Friday, I did an interview for a WalesOnline story about the launch of the We Are Cardiff Press and our debut book.
The reporter asked me why I decided to set up the Press, and I began to describe the hundred reasons why I wanted to get into a dying industry.
Here are the five top:
1. I love books
Words have been my closest friend since I was about six years old. I used to get told off for reading in the bath and making the pages go all crinkly, and staying up until 3am reading Point Horror when I had school the next day.
I tasted razor-sharp suspense reading Rebecca for the first time, and fell in love with Edmund Dantès on a 26-hour south American bus journey.
I’ve been on adventures with Graham Greene, Paul Theroux and Alex Garland.
I’ve weed myself laughing at White Teeth and Alexei Sayle. I discovered injustice reading 1984 and The Killing Fields.
I recoiled at Ian McEwan’s The Innocent, and read Roald Dahl’s short stories over and over and over.
My bookshelves strain under the weight of unexpected buys, swaps, gifts and mysterious acquirements.
My bookshelves are rainbow colour coded… too far?
I can’t imagine a day when I won’t buy books. My house would be empty, for a start, but I’d have no presents to give people, no more afternoons wandering the damp depths of Troutmark and nothing to accompany me on long journeys.
Many of my friends feel the same, and even though book sales have been plummeting for years, I think there is still a place for beautiful, physical books in our lives.
2. I wanted to contribute to a new kind of publishing
I received an offer for a publishing deal for our debut book, The 42b, in 2013. It was yet to be written, the illustrations were undrawn, and we didn’t know whether it would be any good.
The publisher told me that they could ‘turn around’ a 30,000 word book in three days – that meant editing, formatting and designing a cover. The unit price of the printing was suspiciously low, and the contributors would receive a tiny royalty for each copy sold.
It was tempting: easy, fast, on to the next project. But the publisher handed me a copy of a book they had recently launched… and they had spelled the author’s name differently on the cover and the spine. ‘Mistakes happen, it’ll be corrected in the second edition’, they told me.
The cover looked like it had been made on Microsoft Publisher, using Clipart from 1998.
It repulsed me. I hate seeing books with bad design or terrible marketing – the Lousy Book Covers website is almost too much for me – the grammar, the designs, the audacity…
The eleven people who had agreed to write and draw for the book are passionate about writing and art. They spend their free time writing stories, giving feedback to other writers, re-writing their work, attending creative writing classes, and submitting their work to journals and publishers and websites. They know that there’s no big money in writing, but they do it because they love it.
I wanted a publisher that cares about the work as much as we do. Someone that aches over a perfect cover design, proof-reads it a million times, and promotes it with all the intensity with which it was created.
And so I thought, ‘I can do this better’.
The Duracell bunny that is Helia Phoenix set up We Are Cardiff five years ago, with the intention of telling a different story of Cardiff to the one written in the tabloids at the time. She saw all the creative and cultural vibrancy of this city and created an outlet to champion it.
I came home from that meeting with the publisher and told her that I wanted to set up a small press to publish Cardiff’s best writers, artists and photographers, and I wanted to call it the We Are Cardiff Press. She said (as she always does) – ‘YES!! GO FOR IT!!!!!’ (with a hundred more exclamation marks). She also wrote eight blog posts while we had that conversation (or thereabouts).
After throwing the idea around with some incredibly talented and wonderful friends, and after getting inspiration from small presses such as Tiny Hardcore Books, the We Are Cardiff Press was born…
I decided that it would be completely non-profit – all the contributors work for free.
Any profit from the books will go into the Press to fund the next project, and to run writing workshops to help new people contribute to our future books.
We decided that we would only print what people wanted to read. If people didn’t want to buy the books, we wouldn’t print them: that’s why we are running a pre-order campaign to judge the level of interest in the book, and then print the right number of books.
I made a conscious decision to not apply for funding from the Arts Council or Literature Wales. This project takes up a lot of my spare time, and if I had to fit in writing applications and funding evaluations, I wouldn’t have time to write, edit, or promote our books. It also means that we’re free to do whatever we want with our books – we are not confined by funding restrictions.
3. Writers deserve to have their work showcased and nurtured
Typically, writers aren’t good at self-promotion; they need encouragement and exposure and confidence. Large publishers reject work without telling people what’s wrong with it, so it’s impossible for work to improve without feedback.
Creative writing classes such as Briony Goffin’s are brilliant spaces, where writers feel safe to read their work out loud without the fear of ridicule. The work written in these classes deserves to have a wider audience, if the writers want it.
People write for different reasons: some genuinely aren’t interested in publishing, they do it for themselves. Some want to make a career, and some want to create a legacy that will live in libraries and bookshelves for years to come.
There’s an opportunity for small presses to take risks on alternative, challenging literature that the larger publishers don’t consider marketable. We know that some work will have a niche market, but does that mean that it should only exist online?
Online publishing is fantastic, but it can be short-lived.
When we click ‘publish’ on We Are Cardiff, we instantly reach over 35,000 people for the moment that the piece flashes in their inbox, on their Twitter feed or Facebook timeline. But it risks being missed or forgotten.
By publishing the very best work we discover in printed form, the slow-burn of old fashioned books spreads slower, but lasts longer.
We may only sell a few hundred copies of our book, but a copy of it will sit in the British Library, the National Library of Wales, and Scotland and the Bodleian in Oxford. And, after only two weeks and minimal marketing, we’ve already received orders for The 42b from unexpected places – France, the USA and Scotland!
The acclaimed literary critic and writer Peter Finch recently told us that he is ‘so impressed with the way [we] are going about publishing and selling The 42b’. He said that it is ‘the best approach’ that he’s seen ‘in an age’. And he speaks as a former publisher, bookseller and a present day writer!
The best advice I’ve read on starting a small press is:
4. The We Are Cardiff community is capable of amazing things
As soon as I put a Batsignal out that We Are Cardiff wanted writers and illustrators for a new book, I received about 20 pitches for stories in a month.
While setting up the Press, I’ve realised the incredible strength of the We Are Cardiff brand and team. People and organisations want to support and grow the creative community in Cardiff, and it’s exciting.
Dan at Porter’s, where we are holding our launch party on 5 November (more info on Porter’s next week) has bent over backwards to help us arrange our event;
Abbey Bookbinding is an amazing Cardiff-based, family-run printer; Darren has spent hours perfecting the print of our detailed cover design, and providing brilliant creative advice; and
I also got excellent guidance on the Press’s legal structure and finances from Branwen at the Wales Co-op Centre.
We found performers and musicians to play at the launch within days, and people have volunteered to proofread the book and give advice on stuff like distribution and ISBN numbers. Just look how gorgeous the book is:
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Due to Helia’s incredible marketing skills, James’s design and video ideas, Alice’s events management expertise and Lisa’s proofreading, the book and the Press has come together in people’s spare time.
I also have to give a shout out to our developer Matt Harris, who made our gorgeous online preview chapter. He’s the only person who doesn’t live in Cardiff, but we figured Bristol is like an honorary Cardiff 😉
5. Our ideas are endless
As soon as we launch our first book, we’ll begin taking submissions for the next one. I have at least a million ideas, but here are a few:
a book of portrait photography and personal stories of refugees and asylum seekers in Cardiff – how they got here, what they brought with them, and how they’ve made Cardif their home;
a book of recipes from chefs in the city. There has been an explosion in pop-up food in Cardiff, from Hangfire to Lia’s Kitchen, and it would be fantastic to bring together the best dishes that this city has to offer; and
a collection of street photography, paired with poetry or a piece of writing.
BBC Wales Drama Award Winner Kelly Jones presents The Drowned Girl at Chapter! AND YOU CAN WIN TICKETS TO THIS WEEKEND’S SHOWS!
After a phenomenal run at Cardiff’s pub theatre, The Other Room, the team behind Blud present The Drowned Girl at Chapter, Cardiff from 30 September – 3 October at 8pm.
TO WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS TO EITHER FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER or SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER, LEAVE A COMMENT UNDER THIS BLOG TELLING US WHAT NIGHT YOU’D LIKE TO ATTEND AND WHY YOU DESERVE TO WIN TICKETS!
Kelly’s Nan told her she was born a mermaid, and with it her childhood was full of mermaid adventures and cornflake box tails. It didn’t matter that Kelly couldn’t swim
But that was a long time ago, and things are now different. Kelly is drowning in a dead-end job at Asda and her beloved Nan passed away three weeks ago. She takes comfort in dreaming and diving into a very different reality full of mermaids and happy memories of being by the sea. But as the dreaming starts to take over, Kelly has to learn to swim all over again.
At times funny, at times sad, The Drowned Girl is a one-woman play about lost youth, lost loved ones and mermaids.
Writer and Performer: Kelly Jones.
Director: Anna Poole.
Musician: Chris Young.
Producer: Olivia Harris.
The Drowned Girl is supported by the Arts Council of Wales.
Ticket Prices – £12/£10
Age Guide 14+
The show’s running time is approximately 50 minutes.
Can you BELIEVE it’s that time of year AGAIN? Students are back, the nights are drawing in, and before you know it Swn Festival will be upon us again!
This year’s Swn Festival is two full days of the best up and coming bands and talent, mixing local with national. It’s also going to be ESPECIALLY amazing because We Are Cardiff are running a Swn fringe event, celebrating publishing our DEBUT BOOK on the We Are Cardiff Press! (pre-order the book here now and get your name in the credits!)
Anyway. Enough about us … on with the Swn Show!
This year’s Sŵn will take place on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November, across a bundle of venues in Cardiff. If you’re new to the festival, all you need to know is that one wristband gets you in to all the venues (subject to capacity), as you walk/run/meander around to discover as much new music as possible.
Sŵn is all about music discovery, so though you may well know a few of the acts on the line up, we’re pretty confident you won’t know them all, and if you know none, then even better. Welcome! This is where the fun starts. There’s links to all the music on the acts profiles, and we’ll post playlists of their songs too. You’ve plenty of time to listen to them all and start to pick the ones you like. All you need to know is that we handpick every band. They’re all tip top. Just ask any regular Sŵnster, or know that in recent years the likes of Alt J, Ben Howard, Wolf Alice, The Vaccines, Disclosure, Foxes, Lucy Rose, Drenge, John Grant and many more have all played in small venues at Sŵn when perhaps only a handful of people knew who they were, but all will affirm they were unforgettable shows.
[ps in case you’re new to Wales or Welsh, then Sŵn is pronounced ‘soon’ and is Welsh for ‘sound’]
More information about the We Are Cardiff book launch fringe event: The 42b
Hope to see you, somewhere around the city, during Swn! In the past, We Are Cardiff have curated a stage at the city music festival, featuring some super lovely local musicians. Information about Swns past on We Are Cardiff
They are inviting budding artists, designers (and everyone else!) to enter a design. The 3 winning entries will be available to screen print onto second hand t-shirts and tote bags at Exchange in Roath at The Gate on Saturday 17th October.
The theme for the design is SWAP IT /SHARE IT. It can feature the words ‘Swap it/share it‘ or ‘Exchange in Roath 2015‘ but neither are a requirement – just get creative with the theme!
Your design must be no larger than A3 and in one colour. Deadline for entries Thursday 8th October.
All entries to be emailed to swapit@greencityevents.co.uk as a high res jpeg or pdf.
Green City is working with the wonderful Printhaus who will be running live screen printing workshop on the day.
Check out this awesome video of last year’s event:
We Are Cardiff 