#WelshWordWednesday #nosdacariad

On November 1, 2017 By Sara GethinIn #welsh, New Book, New Novel, Not ThomasLeave a comment

Today’s Welsh word, for ‘Not Thomas’ readers unfamiliar with the language, is in fact three words: Nos da, cariad.

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On page 355 of ‘Not Thomas’, Tomos is thinking about his new foster mother, Tess, and how she says ‘Nos da, cariad’ when she puts him to bed. I’m sure, given the context, the meaning is pretty easy to work out.

Nos = night; da = good; cariad = love.

As it happens, there’s a David Gray song with exactly the right title.

Sara’s debut novel ‘Not Thomas’ – a story of child neglect, love and hope, shown through the eyes of five-year-old Tomos – is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher, from Amazon and from bookshops.

#WelshWordWednesday #NotThomas ‘Oh diawl!’

On October 25, 2017 By Sara GethinIn #welsh, New Book, Not ThomasLeave a comment

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Today’s Welsh word, for readers of Not Thomas who are unfamiliar with the language, is:

‘diawl’

On page 212, Tomos calls round to the lady next door. He doesn’t know where his mother is, so he asks the lady to ring the police. She says ‘Oh diawl, there’s no need for that.’

‘Diawl’ – which, when you say it fast, sounds like ‘jawl’ – means ‘devil’

(And call the police is exactly what the lady next door should have done.)

#WelshWordWednesday

On October 11, 2017 By Sara GethinIn #welsh, Music, New Book, New Novel, Not Thomas1 Comment

Today’s Welsh word, for readers of ‘Not Thomas’ who aren’t familiar with the language, isn’t a word at all, but a title. It’s Calon Lân and it’s the name of a well-loved Welsh hymn that’s often sung at funerals.

Calon lân translates as ‘a pure heart’:

calon = heart

glân (which loses its ‘g’ when it mutates after calon) = clean.

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On page 123 Miss mentions to Mrs Jones, the school cleaner, that Nanno had planned her own funeral. Calon Lân was Nanno’s favourite hymn and she wanted Tomos to sing it back at home after the chapel service. Of course, Ree had other ideas…

And since I never miss a chance to play my favourite version of the hymn, here’s Cerys Matthews once again.

Not the Booker Final Public Vote

On October 10, 2017October 10, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Child, Children, New Book, New Novel, Not the Booker Prize, Not Thomas, NottheBooker, Writing1 Comment

A huge thank you and diolch yn fawr to everyone who voted ‘Not Thomas’ onto the shortlist of the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize.

NotThomas cover final front only

The final public vote has just opened to help decide the winner. I know the original vote was fraught with problems because of the Guardian’s fiendishly difficult website, but if you’d like to vote for Not Thomas and have the energy to tackle that voting page again, this is the link.

Hopefully, having navigated the page once, second time around it won’t be quite so horrendous.

Of course, you’re still able to vote even if you didn’t vote in the first round. Click in the box that says ‘join the discussion’ near the bottom of the voting page.

The Guardian would like your vote to start with the word VOTE then the title and author of the book and a 50 word review. Your previous review should still be online, and if you click on your username it should take you to it.

It’s been a weird couple of months on the shortlist

and I have yet to take part in the Big Green Bookshop event, where I’ll meet some of the other authors, which I’m really looking forward to, and my scathing reviewer, Sam Jordison, which should be rather interesting. I’ll be reporting back when I get the chance!

In the meantime, thank you so much for your support of Not T and me – I appreciate it very much indeed.

Bye for now & diolch o galon,

Sara x

P.S. Here’s that voting link again

Not the Booker Madness

On August 3, 2017 By Sara GethinIn Author, New Book, NottheBooker, Writing6 Comments

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It’s been a very exciting week for me – a weird, amazing, crazy three days since I found out Not Thomas has made it on to the longlist of The Guardian’s annual Not the Booker prize.

To be fair, it didn’t have to do anything to qualify, apart from meet the simple criteria that the regular Booker prize entrants meet.

But it did have to be nominated.

I’m very proud to say that Not Thomas was initially nominated by book blogger, Anne Williams. I’m so delighted that out of all the very many books she’s read this year, she chose my little Not Thomas.

If you’ve read Not Thomas too, and liked what you read, you can vote now for it in the public voting stage. This ends at midnight on Monday, 7th August, so not long to go!

There are a couple of rules: you must vote for two different titles & you must review one of the titles you’ve chosen.

Why not go to the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize page and take a look at what people are saying in the comment thread?

And if you’re curious about Not Thomas – a novel for adults in the voice of a five-year-old child – you can find a sample on Amazon.

Not Thomas is available to buy for £2.84 on Kindle today.

Read it by Monday and then if you like it, please consider giving it one of your votes!

I’ve been keeping a nightly diary on my Facebook page since I heard about the Not the Booker longlisting. I thought I’d share last night’s snippet here:

Before I crawl off to bed after another weird but wonderful day, I thought I’d post a quick round-up of ‘Being on the Not the Booker prize Longlist’ Day 3.

It’s been a day when I’ve realised that there are so many people – who I’ve never even met in real life – going that extra mile to support me and Not Thomas.

I turned on my laptop this morning and found the wonderful book reviewer Being Anne’s blog post about why she loves The Guardian’s Not the Booker prize and why she nominated Not Thomas for it. It’s so kind of her to choose Not T out of all the books she’s read this year, and I’m very honoured she did.

This afternoon, the very talented YA author, Amy Kitcher created a wonderful graphic on twitter for Not T, plus a voting & buying link. It’s brilliant! I wouldn’t have a clue how to do it. She’s made one with all four of us authors from Wales on too. They’re on my twitter feed if you’d like to take a look.

There are lots of other instances of people showing their support too – the re-tweets, the shares, the supportive comments. My lovely neighbour kindly put a post on our town’s FB page, and my local post office suggested I put a poster up there.

And then there’s been the votes.

A huge thank you to everyone who’s voted or reminded someone else to vote – the tally was creeping towards 20 when I last looked, far more than I dreamed possible on Monday afternoon, when I first heard I was long-listed.

So that’s the end of Day 3. Thanks for your support. Dare I say this? I’ll whisper it:

If voting carries on the way it’s going, with nearly 20 votes at the end of today, maybe there’s actually a tiny, tiny chance of getting Not Thomas onto the short-list. A tiny chance. Tiny tiny…

Thanks for reading. There’ll be an update of Day 4 on my Sara Gethin Writer Facebook page tonight. Until then…