Thanks again to Books From Lithuania, who were kind enough to invite me back to Vilnius last week for the launch of their anthology, Vilniaus ikvepti - a feast for polyglots everywhere, and quite the challenge for editors, comprising stories in seven different languages and various translations of same. Ah, Europe! Vilnius in November is quite a different prospect to Vilnius in May, although the snow had yet to arrive. My story ‘The Graveyards Of Vilnius’ (which will also be in the spring edition of New Welsh Review) is May all over; the harmony of ideas I found in the central parks of the city, many of which were cemeteries bulldozed by the Soviets, could never have worked in rain yet colder than the rain here in the Brecon Beacons. That said, I went to the famous Antakalnis cemetery on Friday, and just as the Welsh hills are most themselves if not most beautiful in the blasting bloody rain, so the memorials to the victims of the Second World War had a fitting gauntness among the leafless birches and bedraggled flowers, and with water dripping from the brim of my hat. So, the Faculty Of Philology welcomed me to Vilnius University and Books From Lithuania had me interviewed along with three of the fine translators involved in the project, and it was lovely to see the great Inga, Gintaute and Kotryna again, and all manner of things was well…

Except for the wretched rail service of this country (if you will excuse a quick rant), which charged me £132.57 for a return ticket from Abergavenny to Gatwick Airport and then delivered me two hours late and so too late for my plane. The incompetence is so breathtaking that I wonder it doesn’t bring about full-scale revolt. The result was that I not only had to buy another plane ticket for £153, I then had to remain in the airport and lie down on a bench so as to check in at 4:30 the next morning, fly two hours and then go straight to Vilnius University to address the students in a state of hopeless exhaustion, and since no single train - no single company - was a whole hour late nobody was actually responsible, and if that’s not an argument for the renationalisation and reunification of the railways and having everybody involved locked into churches for a year on stale bread and the water dripping from the holes in the roof to pray for their miserable souls then CHRIST.

In truth, I was knackered already due to the arrival six weeks ago (October 9th) of the magnificent Edwyn Bullough, our extremely noisy little son. So, I’ll end this on a happy note, because that’s just what he is, and a photo of C, he and me:

Thousand thanks to all who came along to Newfoundland last weekend. I shall remember superlative readings, magnificent tent with coloured rope lights running lengthways, Mike Parker shouting the last five minutes of his set through a neighbouring PA system where others might have capitulated and slunk off to the bar, Deborah Kay Davies and Norman Schwenk clinging to their sofa as firmly as their wine glasses, James Miller reading the darkest, most twisted bit of 'Lost Boys' and discovering for all of us that we had a place where we could read properly without swallowing f-words or offending anyone, Jasper Fforde's account of the forthcoming Fforde Ffiesta in Swindon, where his version of 'Hamlet backwards' will be performed, with every murdered Hamlet character restored to life as a zombie at the start (sample line: 'To not be, or not not to be'), the expressions of the many battered punters who happened to sit down in a corner and got themselves entranced for half an hour, and all the rest of an exceptionally busy three days. I shall hope that we get to do it all again next year...

Well, Newfoundland week is upon us. No doubt the Indian summer will descend imminently, but even if it doesn’t the glorious literary stage will be covered and comfortable, with a bar situated conveniently at the back.

Here is the basic line-up:

Friday night kicks off at 7pm with Maggie Harris, eminent poet and winner of the 2000 Guyana Prize for Literature. I’ll do a slot at 8:30, followed by travel writer, TV presenter and erstwhile stand-up comedian, the delicious Mike Parker at 10, and at 12 Dan Drummond, poet and master of fresh-faced fury.

There’s open mic late Saturday morning - ALL WELCOME - then at 1pm we have Richard Gwyn, poet, traveller, sometime support act to The Cure and the only Welsh novelist to have been translated into Turkish. 3pm brings Newquay’s Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Picador-published, all-hailed, short listed for this year’s Wales Book of the Year, while at 4:30pm it’s Deborah Kay Davies, who will be reading from her electric, Book of the Year-winning collection, ‘Grace, Tamar and Lazslo the Beautiful’.

Saturday evening goes thus: 6pm, the incomparable Jasper Fforde, whose many accolades include the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction, who will be describing Rhayader two thousand years in the future. 7:30pm: Brian Chikwava, Zimbabwe’s leading novelist, winner of the 2004 Caine Prize, darling of the masses. 9pm: Tiffany Atkinson, one of the most entrancing poets I‘ve ever seen. 11pm: James Miller, “a formidable writer” says Beryl Bainbridge, apocalyptic prophet of the very near future…

12am onwards. If you can still stand or see after that lot, there’s another blast on the open mic.

More open mic on Sunday, then readings from Rhayader’s finest, Marion Eaglestone, plus cutting-edge poets Alex Iamb and Jonny Fluffy Punk and more…

Get involved! www.newfoundlandfestival.org.uk

I'm extremely pleased to announce that Richard Gwyn, Mike Parker and Deborah Kay Davies (this year's winner of Wales Book Of the Year) will be joining the literary line-up at the 2009 Newfoundland Festival. I can also confirm that the site will be next to the river in the Elan Valley - just west of Rhayader, in mid-Wales, one of the most beautiful places in the known world. Weekend tickets are a bargain at £38. Frankly, it's worth £38 just for the camping, and this way you get all the best writers to listen to and grill at your leisure - to say nothing of the jazz, ska, trance, jungle, solar-powered cinema, you name it. It's going to be great. You must come!

And the reservoirs are right there...

I'll be giving a reading at the Windsor Arms in Penarth, this Thursday (July 2nd). It's a Cardiff University event and kicks off 6:30pm. I should be on 8ish, either with some novel-in-progress or else some reflections on Vilnius. So now you know.