The sixth edition of Junction Box has more of a Welsh-based feel to it than usual, with\u00a0contributions from writers working along or deriving from the south of the country, in an area stretching from Newport to Cardiff to Swansea, then up along the Swansea Valley, across to the Black Mountains and down again along the eastern edges of the now grassed-over\u00a0coalfields. A circuit of endeavour. Nothing programmatical about this, it’s just the way it happened. So Chris Paul talks about the amazing Bosch Collective in Newport; Rhian Bubear, who has just completed a book on Dylan Thomas, discusses a late work by the other Thomas, RS; John Freeman recounts an incident on a childhood holiday;\u00a0Brighton-based\u00a0Bridgend-born\u00a0artist, David Rees Davies, unleashes\u00a0a human\/not so human pictorial avalanche.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere,\u00a0Junction Box traverses\u00a0channels and oceans: Ric Hool and Peter Finch\u00a0explore aspects of American music and culture; John Goodby translates Pierre Reverdy. Musician Chris Vine, now living in Brazil but with many links to Wales, sends us a missive\u00a0from his adopted country. A very timely one, with images of world cup glitz and its troubled and deeply troubling lead-up still clattering\u00a0dissonantly in our heads.<\/p>\n
There are two featured interviews filmed at Glasfryn, one with the Chinese writer and academic, professor Wu Fusheng of the University of Utah, in Wales at the invitation of Swansea University, to talk about his ongoing project of translating Dylan Thomas into Chinese. He speaks here to\u00a0the poet, Graham Hartill, about their collaboration on translations of ancient Chinese poetry, with a glancing look at Fusheng’s work on Dylan Thomas. The other interview is of the Liverpool-based improvising voice-artist, Steve Boyland, speaking to\u00a0poet Scott Thurston, with whom he had performed the night before at the Hen and Chickens pub in Abergavenny, and previously at one of the Glasfryn events.\u00a0Meanwhile, Scott Thurston’s own work is examined by Frances Presley.<\/p>\n
There are only two women writers in this issue, which feels like\u00a0a failing on our part and one that needs to be addressed. In our defence, the percentage of female to male\u00a0writers over this and the other five\u00a0editions of Junction Box so far reflects pretty accurately the ratio of responses to our requests for contributions. All the same, it’s disappointing and Junction Box is determined to get it right, or as right as possible. Some great women writers have written for the magazine, and we want more.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Glasfryn Project is happy to announce the birth\u00a0of its own press,\u00a0Aquifer Books. The press sees its mission as manifold and fluid.<\/p>\n
Aquifer\u00a0will publish occasional poetry collections, but also intends to explore modes of writing that inhabit the less public spaces of a writer or artist’s oeuvre; for instance: notebooks, letters, email exchanges, informal critical and theoretical lucubrations, journals, and so on. There are already some intriguing productions of this nature\u00a0under discussion.<\/p>\n
It will produce some publications recording literary\/artistic events taking place at or in connection with Glasfryn. For instance, an anthology of writing and images relating to the Orpheus Project, a long-running multi-form-and-venue Glasfryn vehicle,\u00a0is currently being put together.\u00a0This will feature contributions from the many different kinds of practitioners who have been involved in their various ways with OP.<\/p>\n
Aquifer will also work with individuals and groups based elsewhere, on projects, events and collaborations which interest it.<\/p>\n