Folding Rock #3
170 x 245 mm, 144 pages
Barry, Wales
Triannual
Editorial directors: Kathryn Tann and Robert Harries
Art director: Matt Needle
‘New writing from Wales and beyond’
‘England, Scotland and Ireland have Granta, Gutter and The Stinging Fly... Wales now has Folding Rock.’ So do editors Kathryn Tann and Robert Harries boldly announce their new literary title, which aims to put contemporary Anglo-Welsh writing firmly on the map through fiction, creative non-fiction and literary criticism.
The ambitious Welsh literary journal returns with its third issue, featuring a nostalgic cover by Matt Needle that nods to the life-shaping soundtracks, vinyl and CD collections featured throughout the issue. Themed ‘Undersong’, this issue brings together writers both emerging and established: Jude Rogers opens with a feature on Irish musician CMAT, exploring her lyrics that are tonally jolly yet punctuated with escalating mental fragility; Natsuki Koyata’s first work of translated fiction meditates on the famous riddle, ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’; and Folding Rock editor Kathryn Tann, opens up about her latest book ‘Blueprints’, via old-school email exchange.
On the Journal
Robert Harries sheds light on the name: ‘While ‘Folding Rock’ was initially intended as a reference to Wales’s rich geographical association with, and reliance upon, rocks and minerals, particularly the country’s layered Orcovician formations, I must confess my mind leapt to the oxymoronic unfeasibility—even futility—evoked by the phrase... to attempt to actually fold a rock—or, say, run a literary magazine—would at first appear to be a fool’s errand.’
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