Bryn Glas Blog

Thoughts stimulated by books and other media by Gillian Paschkes-Bell, editor of Pantolwen Press.

Fantasy Fiction and Reality

Guest post by author, A G Rivett. Fantasy, Sci Fi and Speculative Fiction Some see a disconnect between Fantasy Fiction and Reality. But is there, really? In a recent piece in The Author, Nadia Attia…
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Staying in Chartres

A visit to Chartres Last October, we were staying in Chartres. Chartres holds so much history, all the way back to the pre-Christian cult that once flourished there, centered on a Virgin and Child. There’s…
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Looking across the quad to Darlington's Great Hall

How to use history

The Historical Novel Society chose a venue steeped in over a thousand years of history for its 2024 conference, held at the Dartington Estate in Devon. We met and mingled in medieval buildings where once…
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Film poster

This Being Human – Panʼs Labyrinth

What is it about Spanish culture that enables their film-makers to create such masterly evocations of other-worldly states? We recently watched Panʼs Labyrinth (El laborinto del fauno), the award-winning 2006 film by Guillermo del Toro that opens…
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St Ives. Photo by Zed-Zacovics on Unsplash

Truth and Priorities: The Serpentine Cave

The quest for truth Peeling away assumptions that blind us to our true priorities is a central motif for Jill Paton Walsh in her 1997 novel, The Serpentine Cave. Honesty in business dealings… The gradual realisation…
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Cave explorer looking at flowstone formations by Cheile Cutler, curated by Adrian Mag on Unsplash

Initiation Rites – The Womb of the Mountain

Several readers of The Priestʼs Wife have commented on the passage in which Morag, the protagonist, descends to a cave deep in a mountain and there spends three days and nights in darkness. The Priestʼs Wife is…
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Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

Sycamore Gap

This Easter, we heard Newcastleʼs Bishop Helen-Ann give the Good Friday meditation on BBC Radio 4: reflections arising from the felling of the tree at the Sycamore Gap which, for three hundred years, grew beside…
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Epona is always seen with horses

World’s End

A late summerʼs evening. The doors thrown wide, light and warmth attracting some members of the local insect population to join us. A full auditorium, listening to the broadcaster and storyteller, Euros Lewis, taking us…
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New light kindled in the dark of the tree

A Sense of Otherness

This January, the Bryn Glas Blog has a guest post from A G Rivett, who writes about the sense of Otherness that is an essential part of being human. How that is conveyed – or not…
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First edition cover

An Unknown Woman

This post is the second of my series about women who, against the odds, arrive at some form of emancipation. (My first post on this theme was: The Godmother—Can You be Too Honest?) I like…
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Jacket design

Things Fall Apart

  “Read this,” said a friend. “Itʼs different.” For the first time I was to be transported to the world of an African village by a writer whose words felt authentic. Chinua Achebeʼs 1958 novel,…
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Earth, Air, Fire and Water
Earth, Air, Fire and Water on Penbryn Beach

Reading The Seaborne with Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Reading The Seaborne with Earth, Air, Fire, Water, the four elements of ancient times, offers a fertile way of reflecting on this first book of A G Rivett’s Isle Fincara Trilogy. The Ancient Elements We…
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Editor and Author at the Logie Steading Bookshop

The Seaborne by A G Rivett – the inside story

Listening to the BBC Radio 4 version of Haydn Middleton’s novella, The Ballad of Syd and Morgan (by Roger James Elsgood, broadcast on May 20th 2023), I heard Morgan (E M Forster) explain to his…
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Old Street Publishing 2019 edition

The Godmother – Can you be too honest?

With The Godmother, I begin a short series of occasional blog posts on novels about women who, against the odds, arrive at some form of emancipation. What form that takes depends, not only on the…
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Eric, taken by himself

RIP dear Eric

It was on the first anniversary of the start of the present Ukraine war, a day when Jupiter and Venus – Joy and Love – were conjunct, that a small gathering of family and friends…
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Stock photo on Unsplash
Stock photo on Unsplash

Where’s Frodo?

This month, it will be a year since the war on Ukraine began. I mark this by going back to an essay written by a Russian and published in The Guardian on 27 February 2022.…
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Glastonbury tor - drone picture on Unsplash

“Godʼs back!”

“Godʼs back!” I quote Tim Freke, sharing the current cutting edge of his philosophy at a wonderful New Year retreat Andrew and I have just attended where he lives in Glastonbury. (Andrew is my husband.…
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Stock photo

Heading for the Light

I was once told that spiritual traditions tend to place too much emphasis on Light, since Darkness is just as important in getting any creative process going – as anyone who has ever planted a…
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Programme notes cover

Operation Julie – How to Change Your Mind

We went to see Operation Julie, the new rock musical from Theatr Na nÓg that premiered in the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, toured to Brecon, and then to the Lyric at Carmarthen, which is where we…
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James Fox looks at an Egyptian figurine

Nature and Us

In this first post of the Bryn Glas Blog I want to begin with the big picture and describe how I feel about our present global situation. And Iʼd like to begin as I intend…
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