The very first Tȳ Newydd on Tour day was held in Cardiff on Saturday 6th May as the writing centre begins to showcase its courses around Wales. A dozen writers got a flavour of ‘A Novel Journey: Writing a Novel from Beginning to End’ which will run at the centre near Criccieth from Monday 12th to Saturday 17th June. A few places are left and the taster day was a great advertisement.

Novelists, Kate Hamer and Holly Müller aimed to address beginnings and  ‘overcoming the internal critic’. They are an engaging, inclusive and stimulating pair of tutors and, with A.L. Kennedy as June’s course guest speaker, there’s no doubt participants are in for a wonderful week.

Kate Hamer’s The Girl in the Red Coat was a Sunday Times bestseller and her new novel The Doll Funeral is, I guarantee, a page-turner in all the best senses.

Holly Müller’s debut novel, My Own Dear Brother is published by Bloomsbury.

The full course will ‘explore the  mysteries of the novel’, from developing a plot  to editing and finding an agent and a publisher. This is an ambitiously wide brief. During the Taster Day the tutors created an atmosphere of immediate, craft-based solidarity, involving everyone irrespective of level of experience.  This bodes well for a constructive longer opportunity. Details via Ty Newydd Website