Briffio Mis Chwefror | February 2024
A special message from the Cwlwm team to thank you for your support
Dear friends
First things first, we want to say diolch yn fawr – a big thank you to you all for subscribing to Cwlwm. So many things compete for our attention these days, especially online. Email inboxes are busy places and so we don’t take your support for granted – we hope you have enjoyed the stories we have shared with you so far. Please share this newsletter with others so that they can sample what Cwlwm has to offer too.
We’ve received a lot of goodwill and momentum in our first month of existence, with many readers pledging a paid subscription for the future. And while Cwlwm will continue to be free for the foreseeable future, we ask that, if you are in a position to consider pledging a paid subscription, to give this some serious thought – it’s just £5 a month, and every pledge helps us understand how Cwlwm is valued by its readers.
The story so far
Now for a brief recap in case you’ve recently joined our community. We began on December 30, 2023 by publishing Cymru itself is an anthology, an opening editorial which set out our vision for the kind of publication we’d like Cwlwm to become.
Then Emma Balch took us from Clyro to Porto with a reflection on living as a foreigner before James Bessant Davies provided a special report from Brecon, and an event that united the community there in an unprecedented way.
After that, we met Mansour, The Barber of Handpost, and Jose and Rocio Cifuentes, each of whom has made a new life in Wales after arriving from elsewhere.
More recently, Jasmine Donahaye offered thoughtful reflections on how the climate crisis makes us feel, while Joshua Jones pondered our relationship with objects.
And in the last week or so we’ve published three excellent stories from frontier villages where Welsh identity runs deep in close proximity to the English border. Sara Wheeler reflected on Rhosllannerchrugog and Tina Rogers painted a picture of Chirk before Merlin Gable questioned the very ways we think about the border.
Mewn // In
The arrival of February might mean we’re finally beginning to emerge from winter, but at Cwlwm we still recommend curling up with a good book under a Welsh blanket. If you haven’t read Local Fires by Cwlwm writer and workshop leader Joshua Jones, then now is the time. Joshua is joined on the longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize by fellow Welsh author, Caerphilly-born-and-raised Thomas Morris with Open Up – another great example of the health of the short story in Wales.
Meanwhile Dylan Thomas himself got a reworking last week from five more of Cymru’s leading writers. Marking the seventieth anniversary of Under Milk Wood on Radio 3 were ‘Swansea’ by Joe Dunthorne, ‘Tywyn’ by Manon Steffan Ros, ‘New Quay’ by Menna Elfyn, ‘Cardiff’ by Hanan Issa and ‘Rhondda’ by Rachel Trezise – available now on BBC Sounds. It’s a patchwork approach to communicating something of Wales’ rich diversity – and here at Cwlwm we wholeheartedly approve.
Allan // Out
If you are out and about around Wales this month, there are plenty of dates for the diary. Of course, the Six Nations championship kicks off this weekend, with Wales hosting Scotland in Cardiff on Saturday. Then Dydd Miwsig Cymru showcases the best of Welsh language music on February 9, with events including rap workshops in schools and gigs at pubs, clubs, community hubs and college campuses across Wales including in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Pontypridd, Anglesey and Wrexham. And throughout February, Lleuwen Steffan is touring chapels and churches across Wales with ‘Emynau Coll y Werin / Lost Welsh Folk Hymns’, a project that combines music with recordings from the People’s Collection Wales sound archive.
At the end of the month, attention turns to the Imperial Capital as the misnamed Wales Week in London sees dozens of events taking place across more than a fortnight in venues across the city, with highlights including Nye, Tim Price’s new play starring Michael Sheen as Aneurin Bevan, which opens at the National Theatre on February 22 and a pair of events showcasing the best of Welsh literature: Wales PEN Cymru at The Poetry Bookshop is followed by Hay Festival at the London Review of Books shop on the leap-year bonus date of February 29.
O Gwmpas // Around
As our first chance to address and thank our readers directly, our February Briffio newsletter is also the first opportunity we have had to fully explain the Cwlwm project.
As well as preparing the stories you receive every Wednesday and Saturday by subscribing, our team has been out and about around Wales, working with new writers to bring fresh perspectives and insights from people across the country. While we are very proud to be publishing new work from some of Wales’ leading writers – look out for articles coming soon from Professor Charlotte Williams, Guardian multimedia journalist Faisal Ali and award-winning poet Rachel Carney amongst others – part of our reason-for-being is to develop and platform the work of people from all parts of Wales, regardless of whether they consider themselves writers. We look forward to bringing you more of their stories soon.




We have been in Llangasty-Talyllyn in south Powys, working with the Llyn Syfaddan History Group to explore hidden histories related to the old railway junction at Talyllyn; at Y Stiwt in Rhosllannerchrugog, sharing stories through music, Cymraeg, English and BSL, and discussing the rise, fall and rise again of oft-neglected former mining communities in the northeast of Wales; and at a pair of former chapels in Llanelli – Ebenezer, now an antiques shop, and Zion which is home to the social enterprise People Speak Up – exploring how half-forgotten objects can elicit powerful memories and important stories in all of us.
And finally…
Thanks once again for subscribing to Cwlwm. Please do share our articles with family and friends who may be interested, and encourage others to subscribe and share too.
We are grateful for your support and interested in your feedback. Please use the comments function to join the conversation with others about individual articles.
And if you have comments about the publication in general, or stories of your own to share, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Cofion cynnes,
Dylan Moore – dylan@cwlwm.org | Merlin Gable – merlin@cwlwm.org