Category: Uncategorized

  • Turns of the River, Turns of the Road

    A parcel reached the nest of the Cockatrice yesterday, containing reviewers’ copies of my two latest titles. The first is Gwyriad: Poems by Nigel Jarrett, sharp and striking in its poetic technique, reflecting on class, industrial heritage, and industrial decline, family and local history, and the history of the former Pen-y-Fal Psychiatric Hospital. The second…

  • For the Cost of a Crown…

    With the cost of the ceremony, policing, and arrests of peaceful protesters in London on Saturday estimated at £250,000,000 at the taxpayer’s expense, and with the taxpayer numbering 27,000,000, we have a bill per person of £9-10. At the Cockatrice Books online store, £9-£10 will buy you Roger Granelli’s collected short stories, Any Kind of…

  • Sale 3rd–9th May

    As a response to the celebrations taking place across the border this weekend, the Cockatrice offers discounts on two Welsh classics reflecting on monarchy, commonwealth, union, and England’s place in the world. Y diawl a’m llaw chwith: the devil and my left hand. The Sleeping Bard by Ellis Wynne Translated by T. Gwynn Jones, with an introduction…

  • Any Kind of Broken Man goes to Nation Cymru

    When the Cockatrice was a young hatchling in the early 1990s, publishing in New Welsh Review and The Swansea Review, and still with bits of egg-shell in its down, Roger Granelli was already establishing himself as one of the leading writers of fiction in Wales. Ten novels later, encompassing a range of genres and approaches,…

  • Books of the Year

    Cockatrice Books is very happy to find Pugnacious Little Trolls by Rob Mimpriss among The White Review’s books of the year. Explaining his choice, the translator Emyr Humphreys refers to the range of work in the collection, which includes realistic portrayals of Welsh life under the threat of climate change and rising English nationalism, and…

  • Seaside Towns goes to Buzz Magazine

    High praise for A. L. Reynolds’ new novel, Seaside Towns, from Rachel Rees, writing for Buzz Magazine. The book is ’a compelling love triangle between two men and the past… gentle yet searing, introspective yet intensely physical.’ This very warm review joins Jason Barlow’s searching reception of Of the Ninth Verse for Some Melodious Plot in…

  • Internal Difference: New fiction by Roger Granelli, Nigel Jarrett and A. L. Reynolds

    The Cockatrice happily endorses the view that a book should not be judged by its cover, because the content of these is even better. Roger Granelli’s is a rich and satisfying authorial voice. His work is simultaneously traditional and bold, accessible and challenging, fast-paced and affecting. His collected stories, Any Kind of Broken Man, with…

  • Close Ties: Fiction by A. L. Reynolds and Rob Mimpriss

    Of the Ninth Verse, a novel by A. L. Reynolds, and Pugnacious Little Trolls, a short-story collection by Rob Mimpriss, were published by Cockatrice Books in February 2021. A book launch with readings was held on Zoom, and featured on the North Wales Chronicle. As part of the celebration, the authors were recorded reading from their work,…