The Abergavenny Writing Festival returned – in real life and online – between April 7 and April 9.

There were three days packed with events at the Kings Arms, The Melville Centre for the Arts as well as pop-up events at Abergavenny Library and The Wool Croft.

Thursday started with a workshop exploring the transformative journey of motherhood with Lily Sequoia, a workshop for Men’s words and a talk on writing for wellbeing with Graham Hartill.

Cath Barton and Liz Aiken ran a Flash Fiction writing session, Francesca Kay a Letterpress printing workshop and a film produced by eight local writing groups was premiered. Marvin Thompson ended the day with a poetry webinar for health and wellbeing.

On Friday Welsh language writer Alun Davies gave a talk on how to ‘Write with Bite’, Catherine Fisher talked about Machen’s Gwent (in collaboration with the current exhibition at Abergavenny Museum).

Abergavenny Library hosted top literary agent Natalie Jerome who talked about her love of the library, her career and the need for greater diversity and inclusion in the publishing world.

Two panel discussions – ‘Working Writers’ and ‘How a Story gets written’ - provided a wealth of knowledge for aspiring and established writers. James Hawes visited to talk about his book ‘Brilliant Isles’, which accompanies the BBC TV series ‘Art That Made Us.’ An online open-mic was held in the evening in partnership with Press Speak Not Delete and Disability Arts Cymru, followed by film screenings.

On Saturday events for children were run by clare e. potter and Medi Jones Jackson. Nicola Davies, Bob Walton, Jan Thomas, Liz Pearce and Phil Madden gave an inspiring array of workshops, talks and discussion. Love Zimbabwe was represented by Martha Holman who shared updates and raised awareness about a library and learning centre for the community of Chinamhora Village.

Tudor Thomas, Mayor of Abergavenny, presented young writers with their certificates at a ceremony at the Melville Theatre.

The winning writers stayed for an afternoon of mentoring sessions with three of Wales’s leading writing talents: Connor Allen, Jonathan Edwards and Rufus Mufasa.

The festival was rounded off with powerful performances from poets Des Mannay and Lily Sequoia. Cardiff University Creative Writing MA students hosted an open-mic.

The evening was completed with an incredible performance by singer songwriter Kizzy Crawford (pictured bottom left).

Event organiser Lucie Parkin commented: “It was wonderful to be back in 2022.

‘‘The feedback was so warm and positive we are already excited to start planning for 2023.

‘‘Huge thanks to our partners, without whom the event would not have been possible: Arts Council Wales, Abergavenny Town Council, Christie Residential, Abergavenny Rotary Club and Waterstones Abergavenny. We formed some very worthwhile partnerships for 2022 with Disability Arts Cymru and Mind Monmouthshire.

‘‘Thank you to all those who took part, attended and supported.”