THE next Cellar Bards event in Cardigan will have two star headliners on Friday (12 May)..

Special guests for the Cellar Bards May event will be Ness Owen and Julia Bell.

Both have had collections published by Parthian Books earlier this year.

Ness Owen is a poet and further education lecturer at Ynys Môn. She had her first collection called Mamiaith published in 2019 by Arachne Press, with her second title Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim, published last month.

She has had her poems translated into five different languages and co-edited The A470, a bilingual poetry anthology about the famous road that connects the north and south Wales.

Ness has also had a poem – And Then the Geese Turned Up – named as a winner of Greenpeace’s Poem for the Planet 2022.

Julia Bell is a west Wales writer and academic. She is the daughter of a vicar and her first poetry collection Hymnal was recently published. It is a memoir in verse which focuses on a series of snapshots into religion and sexuality.

She has also written novels, short stories and essays and has had work published in the Paris Review, Times Literary Supplement, The White Review, Mal Journal, Comma Press and recorded for the BBC.

She is the co-editor of Creative Writing Coursework and her Radical Attention book was named Book of the Year in the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement in 2021.

The Cellar Bards welcomes writers of poetry, short stories, micro-fiction and novels to take part in the open mic night. Each will be a maximum of five minutes and names must be put down by 8pm on the door on the night. People are welcome to turn up and try their hand or just watch the performances.

Ness and Julia will be performing at Cellar Bar, Quay Street, Cardigan, on Friday, May 12. Doors will open at 7.30pm and entry costs £3.

We are grateful to Literature Wales for financial support for Cellar Bards events.