Reading Wales Month (also known as Dewithon) is a chance for book lovers around the world to come together to celebrate fiction and non fiction from one of the Celtic nations.
Paula at BookJotter launched this event in 2018 because — in her words — she “wanted to wanted to introduce as many non-Welsh-speaking readers as possible to the literature of my country.” From that small seed of an idea, Dewithon grew and grew every year with support from readers from far flung corners of the world.
Sadly Paula has decided that it’s time for her to take a step back from Reading Wales Month. As she explained in her recent blog post, her time and energy is needed on other elements of her life and she doesn’t feel she would be able to do justice to this event in the future.
I’ve never met Paula in real life. But I know we’d get on well because we share a similar passion for the culture of our country. I simply couldn’t let Reading Wales Month fizzle out, especially after all of Paula’s hard work to build it from scratch.
So the good news is that Reading Wales Month will take place again this year with a new host. Me. I’ve never hosted a reading event before so it’s a little scary. All I hope is that I don’t make a hash of it and that I can persuade a few of you to join me. After all it wouldn’t be much of a reading event if it’s just me doing the reading would it?
Reading Wales Month ’25 — What to Expect
We will be kicking off our reading adventure on March 1, a date which happens to be a significant one in the Welsh calendar. This is St. David’s Day , the feast day of our patron saint when, according to tradition, you might spot some of wearing our national emblem of the daffodil. Don’t worry — you won’t be expected to adopt that habit or wear any of the elements of our national dress (i think I was about nine years old when I last wore one of those hats! )
The whole month of March will give you an opportunity to discover literature connected to the nation of Wales. That could be in the form of fiction; essays; memoirs; travel diaries; poetry or plays. In fact anything that has a connection to Wales will count, whether written by an author from Wales or one who has settled in Wales.
I’ll be setting up a dedicated page so you’ll have a one-stop shop for everything related to this event — announcements and your reviews for example. You’ll also find suggestions for what you might read during the month.
For those of you keen to get ahead and decide what you might read, there are some good resources already available at:
Reading Wales Library: this is an index of titles read by participants in previous years
Reading Wales: Where to Begin This is a list of more than 70 books starting with a classic collection of fables from the fourteenth century.
I’d love you to join me during the month. Leave a comment below to share any plans you have and a link to your post. You can help spread the word by using the image above and the hashtag #ReadingWales25 in your social media channels.
More details to follow in the next few weeks but until then Darllen Hapus (Happy Reading)
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