AN AWARD-winning writer is set to launch her debut novel set in war-time Chester at the city’s literature festival this week.
Gladys Mary Coles will hold two events in the city to mark the launch 'Clay', a novel set against a background of the First World War.
The book, which is based on the life of a young soldier-poet, William Manderson, has chapters set in the city, as well as a military hospital in Liverpool, Wirral and North Wales.
The protagonist is sent to fight on the Western Front as an infantry soldier with the Cheshire Regiment, but is gassed and eventually invalided out of the army.
The novel explores the physical and psychological effects of war injuries, as all the characters struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of the conflict.
The book also features many dramatic historical events such as the Battle of the Somme, the 1917 Welsh National Eisteddfod in Birkenhead attended by PM Lloyd George, the 1919 Police Strike and unemployment riots in Liverpool.
The author, who has won the Wilfred Owen Association Open Poetry Competition, a Welsh Arts Council Award and major prizes in the National Poetry Competition, among others, is an expert on the First World War poets, lecturing on Wilfred Owen and war poetry.
She said: "Visiting the war cemeteries of northern France was deeply moving, seeing the endless rows of graves.
“After this I wrote a series of poems and began to plan a novel set in the First World War period."
Mrs Coles, who lives on the Dee estuary, is also a familiar figure on the Cheshire literature scene and has twice judged the Chester Literature Festival short story competition, as well as leading the Chester Writers Workshop for many years. She has ten published collections of poetry to her name as well as an internationally-acclaimed biography on the Welsh Border writer, Mary Webb, and has edited 15 anthologies, including Poet's England:Cheshire.
'Clay' will be launched at St Mary's Centre in Chester on Wednesday, October 20, at 1pm and at an evening event at Liverpool's Bluecoat Arts Centre on Friday, November 5.
'Clay' is published by Flambard Press at £8.99 and is available from selected local bookshops or direct from the publishers www.flambardpress.co.uk