I was delighted to take part in last weekend’s On Land’s Edge Festival, which took place in Theatr Gwaun, Fishguard, as well as in a few other venues around the town.

On Land’s Edge is a multi-discipline Arts Festival, featuring music, visual art, film, literature, story-telling (and more) brought by some of Wales’s top artists, together with plenty of local talent.

My contribution was a reading, in the Spoken Word section of the programme. This was on the Sunday evening, the final night of the Festival, during the Simffoni Mara performance.

The performance began with a short film by Connor Malone, including different aspects of the landscape.

Then it was my turn.

I had decided to read my story, ‘A Cure for all our Ills’. 

This is the story that won the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize – a story I am very proud of, as the competition was judged by Irenosen Okojie and drew over two thousand entries from all over the world… yet mine was set at a bleak-looking church in a field, somewhere between Mathry and Hayscastle, about a mile or two from where I live.

I read some of the story at the Prize-giving event in Bristol, but, as I was so shocked at winning, I can’t remember much about that (I may have read all of it – I really don’t know!). I also read an exert at a Word Factory event in London. But I had yet to read this North Pembrokeshire-set story locally. And I was so glad to have the opportunity to do so, at last.

Besides being set locally, it is based on some traditional folklore attached to the church – eating the grass from the churchyard was thought to cure rabies.

I think it went well. I certainly received several positive responses from audience members, which is always welcomed.

I then had the pleasure of reading one of the two prize-winning entries for the under-18s poetry award, on the theme of connections.

The poem was ‘The Coast’ by Laurie, a pupil from Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi.

The second winner was read by the poet herself, Ebony, from the same school.

Congratulations to both! I hope this gives them the encouragement to keep writing!

The first half ended with a beautiful performance by David Pepper and Daniel Davies, of ‘Between the Sea and the Stars’, by composer Dan Jones. 

Unfortunately, I needed to leave at the interval, so missed the Simffoni Mara Trio – by all accounts, a wonderful programme of music.

Thank you to the appreciative audience, and to Theatr Gwaun, for hosting such an inspiring finale to a successful weekend. Here’s hoping that the Festival will continue year on year – a festival that is very much ‘on land’s edge’.