Janet Brown from Powys attended our Writing Historical Fiction weekend course in October 2018 with Phil Carradice and Louise Walsh. She has been writing for the last 7-8 years, and is currently working on a historical novel based on the story of her great grandmother who was a cook at Gregynog Hall in the 1890s.

Coming to Tŷ Newydd was refreshing and stimulating and the feedback and constructive criticism was a real confidence boost.

Here’s a poem she wrote about her stay at Tŷ Newydd. 

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Writing weekend

We arrived at Ty Newydd

From both near and far.

One by one

Descending the stairs

To meet,

Who knew what?

A mixture of faces,

Of ages, of races.

Palms sweating,

Knees knocking,

Nerves pounding,

As we wondered

Why we had come?

We sat round a table

With cake and with tea,

Louise bubbled with energy

Fizzed with goodwill

And as light fell

We relaxed

Just a little.

Out came the paper

The pencils and pens

We scribbled and scrawled

Wrote and re wrote

While Phil proved

Once and for all

That words and not blood

Ran in his veins.

Mesmerised by stories,

Language and imagery

Tales of the past,

The value of nouns

Our brains flagging

The relief of yet

Another pot of tea.

All things have to end

And in just such a way

We woke to the knowledge

That today was the day

To return to our worlds,

To our jobs

To our folks,

But wiser

With souls fired up to write

Be it stories or poems

Lyrics or tales

We owe it all to

Literature Wales!