MidlandAn industrial accident in a wire factory and the chance discovery of a birth certificate. Church services held in a ruined swimming pool. An unidentified elephant skull. Midland tells the stories of three young women as they fight to find their feet amidst the accumulated rubble of the twentieth century. From the bombsites of the 1940s to the construction sites of the 1960s and the school halls and decaying tower blocks of the 1980s, Honor Gavin has

Mike Jenkins is now a full-time writer and teacher of Creative Writing

The process began by interviewing each muse

the anatomical Venus: a life-sized female figure who comes apart to reveal a foetus in the womb

and Thomas Kinsella and edited the ground-breaking anthology Irish Poetry After Yeats

the book includes such well known and well-loved poems as 'Return to Cardiff' and 'In the Theatre' alongside many previously uncollected poems

in the place

Seaby was a pioneering

translated into 19 languages and won many international prizes

Sujata Bhatt was born in Ahmedabad

Leaves of Narcissus by Somaya Ramadan

and on Iraqi exile writing

though this can sometimes involve becoming trapped in an absurd or confining persona