The skinny on me: Jon

The name on my birth certificate is Jonathan Doyle, but Jon will do just fine. I am from Port Talbot in South Wales and am unfortunately another Cardiff expat, having occupied an array of houses in/near Roath during my studies. I was also partly responsible for the muddy state of the Roath Rec football fields circa 2008-2012. 

I write stories that are of no particular genre which pretentious people or weirdos might label literary fiction. This essentially means nothing much happens in them. I’d list Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy and David Foster Wallace as my favourite authors, but that is just the tip of my reading iceberg.

I originally studied Zoology and completed an MRes degree in Biosciences. However, not content with studying weevil DNA and tropical parasites and termite mounds in Kenyan national parks, I crossed to the dark side of humanities, completing an MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University this summer (just like Rebecca. The beady-eyed among you might see a pattern forming). 

In my spare time I write about music over at Wake the Deaf and spend too much time worrying about football results.

I am ashamed to say this will be my first experience of the Made in Roath festival, but I am very much looking forward to it. Stay tuned all week to meet the rest of the blog team.*

Hope to see you soon.

J-

*As Roy hinted, there must be a better collective noun for fledgling writers suffering from post-university existential crises. There may or may not be a prize for the best suggestion.

Other places where I present an idealised version of myself:

Website: http://jonathanedwarddoyle.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @Jon_Doyle

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jon.doyle.148

Photos: http://thenewblueblood.deviantart.com/ 

Wake the Deaf: http://wakethedeaf.co.uk/

The skinny on me: Rebecca

Hello again! 

I briefly hand-waved at you guys in the last post, but as promised here’s a proper introduction and a few personal titbits, to kick things off in the proper cordial fashion.

Full name’s Rebecca Roy. My friends however, uniformly refer to me as ‘Roy’, as if we’re all boarders at a 1930s prep school. (Sorry Mum and Dad, but I went to reception with four other Rebeccas - a regrettable precedent for my adult life - so you get what you deserve for your slightly too zeitgeisty naming.)

I write poetry. You may have seen me performing at this year’s Made in Spring, or perhaps manically scribbling away at the Poetry Takeaway stall.* I probably spend more time reading, than I do writing, and never have anything less than 6 books on the go. I am both a massive bibliophile, and a bit of book bigamist. A bibliamist? 

I’m fresh off the Creative Writing MA at Cardiff University, and a recent expat of Roath. I only fled as far as Bristol, which happily lets me return to Cardiff as much as I like. This proves particularly handy in my duties as intern to the lovely Christina Thatcher – who many of you know as the literary events organiser for Made in Roath!

I’ll be running the blog this year, so you can expect to see many more of these posts. But don’t start fretting yet, I won’t be alone! Watch this space for personal features from the rest of the Made in Roath blog team (gang? motley crew? what’d you guys reckon?) who’ll be posting theirs over the course of this week. 

Look forward to it – they’re a charming bunch.

R-

*In the company of the lovely and talented Uschi, who has a made a welcome last-minute addition to our blogging strike-team! Check us out in action:

Other places I live on the internet:

Wordpress: http://roypoi.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @roypoinill               

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.roy.96

Tumblr: http://roypoi.tumblr.com/ (though fair warning, this blog is 100% unfiltered flaily nerd. Enter at your peril.)

And so it begins ...

Welcome back to the blog everybody!

Made in Roath 2014 quickly approaches and we’re all very excited to kick-off this year’s festivities.

Over the course of the festival week our crack-team of bloggers will be hitting the pavements of Roath; bringing you on-the-ground coverage of the always fantastic array of events and stalls, as well as interviews with the acts and organisers – all of which will be collected and posted here, for your perusal.

During the next few weeks we’ll also be keeping this blog busy, covering the run-up to October 15^th: watch this space to learn about the behind-the-scenes action that makes Made in Roath what it is, and for sneak peeks of the main events. 

This year’s team is composed of Jon, Rosey, Sara, and myself (Rebecca). We’ll be posting blogger bios on here in the next few days, for you all to get to know us better, so keep ‘em peeled. 

In the meantime we hope you all join us in looking forward, to what is sure to be another fab Made in Roath. 

R-