The Cellar Bards 2017

At the start of 2017 I was pleased to become a co-organiser of The Cellar Bards, the popular live literature event held regularly in Cardigan's Cellar Bar (where else would you find Cellar Bards!).

We meet on the last Friday of each month (not August or December) and often have a special guest as well as open mic slots for our very talented local writers.

I do all the organising – booking guests, make funding applications, publicity; while Dave Urwin is our compere.

The video above was very helpfully put together for us by David Powell and shows a few highlights of the February 2017 event, which was a pure open mic night. Good to see a couple of musicians bringing a song or two into the mix.

We have some great plans for the rest of 2017. Already on the scheduled are:

Maggie Harris, who will be reading from her stunning new short story collection, Writing on Water (Seren) on March 31. https://www.serenbooks.com/author/maggie-harris

Martin Locock will be with us at the end of April with his latest collection. http://martinlocock.blogspot.co.uk/

Roger Garfitt is our guest in May with his poetry and the new jazz CD composed by Nikki Iles – In all my holy mountain,  a celebration in poetry and jazz of the life and work of Mary Webb. http://www.londonjazznews.com/2017/02/cd-review-roger-garfitt-poet-nikki-iles.html

June 30^th will be our fifth birthday and we’ll be celebrating with the wonderful Natalie Ann Holborow, whose first collection was published by Parthian last month.

Our meet at the end of July will be a pure open mic night, giving a chance for all our talented local writers to share their work

In the autumn we’ll have the totally fabulous Sophie McKeand, and the wonderful Mark Blayney as our guests, plus others soon to be announced. More details and more links will be posted later, in the meantime to keep up with our events check into our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333544513348067/

That page is not only about our event, we also share news in there that may be of interest to writers and performers everywhere.

Our thanks to Literature Wales and Parthian Books for their generous sponsorship, and always to The Cellar Bar for the fantastic venue.