Jane Fraser will be in conversation with Alan Bilton about her latest novel, Weights and Measures, on Wednesday 20th May at 6pm, Waterstones, Swansea.

Weights and Measures is an unhurried historical novel that ends as surprisingly for the characters as the reader. It follows an outwardly ordinary family, during the early days of World War II, exploring inner lives of fear, passion, and hope.

Jim Froom is hiding things: his gambling, his black market antics, the fact that now his son William has enlisted, he is haunted afresh by the carnage of the Great War. Mary Froom is a capable woman, perpetually frustrated. Mother to four – five if she counts Jim, who needs watching too – guiltily, she lives for the day when her youngest will be out from under her feet at primary school. Teddy is thirteen, but already obliged to fill William's shoes. Working in the family butcher’s shop, he dreams of becoming a surgeon, a dream as unattainable as that of his sister Dora, eldest Froom child, returned to Swansea from a life of relative freedom in London.

Preoccupied with their secrets, they live in almost suspended animation, waiting for an end to the weeks and months of apparent nothing – the so-called 'phoney war.’ None of them are prepared for the real war when it begins – devastating and senseless, reconfiguring their lives forever. But out of tragedy, there is a speck of hope…

This is a free event, and there is no need to pre-book.

“This book is, fundamentally, a paean of praise to human innocence and purity (quite apart from the notions of ‘racial purity’ that were fuelling the global abattoir of the times) and that part of the soul that will, in spite of all efforts to pollute it, remain unsullied … a profound respect and reverence for human resilience glows on every page of this book. Mary ‘couldn’t explain the feeling’ we are told, when she’s in bed with her husband post-coital as the world outside the window burns: ‘Necessary, was the word that would come closest to it’. That’s an apt phrase for this accomplished novel, too.”

Niall Griffiths. Nation Cymru. You can read the whole review at

https://nation.cymru/culture/book-review-weights-and-measures-by-jane-fraser/

Once again, Watermark’s own Alan Bilton has been honoured with the task of hosting this year’s International Dylan Thomas Prize in Swansea on Thursday May 14th.

Launched in 2006, the annual Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is one of the most prestigious awards for young writers, aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide. It celebrates and nurtures international literary excellence.

It is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes as well as one of the world’s largest literary prizes for young writers. Awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under, the Prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama.

You can watch the livestream online at https://www.swansea.ac.uk/dylan-thomas-prize/award-ceremony-2026/

Jane Fraser will be appearing alongside the wonderful Francesca Rhydderch at the Caerleon Literary Festival on Saturday 2nd May. Tickets available now from online@caerleon-arts.org or on the door

Published in November, Watermark Press is delighted to announce that the first printing of Jane Fraser’s deeply moving WWII novel, Weights and Measures has now sold out, but the good news is that the second printing is now available from www.watermarkpress.co.uk and all good bookshops!

Bardic Books will be welcoming Jane Fraser to Llantwit Major Writing Circle on Tuesday 17 March at 7.00pm. Jane Fraser is an award-winning fiction writer, based in Gower. She is the author of two novels: ‘Advent’ (HONNO 2021) which won the Society of Authors’ Paul Torday Memorial Prize for a debut novel in English in 2022, and her latest novel ‘Weights and Measures’ (WATERMARK PRESS 2025) as well as two collections of short stories, ‘The South Westerlies’ (SALT 2019) and ‘Connective Tissue’ (SALT 2022). Jane’s work has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of its ‘Short Works’ series.
If you would like to join us, please contact Kath at bardicvintagebooks@gmail.com

Alan Bilton delivered the Bird Research Lecture on ‘Nightingales and Nightmares: The Subversive and the Supernatural in Central European Comic Opera at Cardiff University on February 11th.

Bilton discussed his new novel, At Dawn, Two Nightingales, a comic opera in fictional form, set in Eighteenth Century Bohemia in the time of Mozart. In this session, he will discuss comic opera, singspiel, puppet theatre,  and the idea of 'forbidden' poetry in 18th Century Europe. His paper explored the balance between the supernatural and the comic in Central European Singspiel, interrogating how shifts in tone and genre prefigure notions of the Uncanny, the Surreal and the Magical in Twentieth and Twenty First Century thought. The talk also explored how popular songs and entertainment were frequently viewed as dangerous vehicles for sedition and revolution during the Eighteenth Century, poetry transitioning from high to low culture, and in this way attacked as a means of agitating the masses and fermenting revolution.

You can read an interview with Alan Bilton in the new edition of the brilliant Seventh Quarry magazine, alongside new poetry from India, Albania, the UK, US, the Czech Republic and beyond! https://seventhquarrypress.com/

The award winning Jane Fraser will discuss her brilliant new home-front novel, Weights and Measures, with the wonderful Carolyn Lewis (Time, Again) in Caldicot Library, Wednesday 11th March, 10am. All welcome and free entry. Woodstock Way, Caldicot, NP26 5DB

Cultural Institute
Literary Salon Series

Thursday 19 February

18:00 – 19:00

Taliesin Create, Singleton Campus, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP

‘Scenes from a Tragedy’
Carole Hailey in conversation with
Alan Bilton

Scenes from a Tragedy by Carole Hailey
When journalist Carly Atherton decides to investigate Daniel Taylor, the pilot of a mysteriously crashed plane, the only family member who will speak to her is his sister.

Glamorous and self-assured, Izzy Taylor seems happy to take Carly into her confidence, filling her in on Daniel’s family history and the events leading up to the crash. 

But when Daniel’s widow finally agrees to an interview, everything Izzy has said is called into question, and Carly realizes she has been drawn into a story far darker than she could possibly have imagined.

Because the bonds that shape us can also tear us apart – and sometimes there are monsters living among us, hiding in plain sight…

About the author...
Carole Hailey abandoned a career as a lawyer to study first an MA then a PhD in Creative Writing (the latter at Swansea University). Scenes from a Tragedy is her second novel. Carole’s debut novel, The Silence Project, was published in 2023 and was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick, a Waterstones’ and Independent Booksellers’ Book of the Month and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize. Carole lives in Wales with her husband and two rescue dogs.

In partnership with Atlantic Books and Cover to Cover Bookshop
*Please note: Event delivered in English

TICKETS:

https://bit.ly/scenesfromatragedy

Catch Jane Fraser in conversation with Roy Noble on BBC Wales, Sunday 14th December, 5pm, talking wartime Swansea, butchers’ shops, and the art of the historical novel.

Alan Bilton will be talking Folk Horror, Magic Realism, and the Uncanny with Julie Ann Rees, author of the brilliantly terrifying Sea Glass in the Taliesin Café Bar, Swansea University, Monday 24th November, 6pm. All welcome