Mick Felton: Tributes

The Welsh publishing and writing community was saddened this week to learn of the passing of Mick Felton, who ran Seren Books for four decades, discovering, developing and supporting the work of legions of Welsh writers, including some of Nation.Cymru’s regular contributors.

Mick Felton; Beloved Bold-School Book Hero

Julie Brominicks

I only met him once. Several emails, two phone calls. I hate phone calls, but his were good.

He liked my blog and over the years I spent writing the book he hoped to sign for Seren, he sent chivvying messages without being really sure what I was writing and forgetting whenever I told him.

It wasn’t a done deal; I sent him the first draft too early. It was a mess and not knowing how to respond, he didn’t. Hugely embarrassed, I improved the book, tried (and thankfully failed) elsewhere. It was Mike Parker who assured me I could try Mick again.

Mike said I needed to be proud of my first book, that Seren made beautiful books if I could put up with the chaos, and he was sure Mick wouldn’t mind me approaching him with a second (OK, fiftieth) draft. (‘That Mike Parker is a very fine man’ beamed Mick when I told him, several months later, at our only encounter; two minutes after he’d expressed sorrow that Mike had not shortlisted the book for an award.)

I won’t forget that first phone call. I was at home by the stream, dreading it (phones – yugh). Mick put me at ease from his office in Pen-y-bont (Bridgend). He said he could see a bit of brick wall from his window and a pigeon, and there were people banging on the door and a noise in the street. But he’d put time aside.

And as he discussed plans for my book, he spoke so reverentially, I was and still am utterly humbled. I had an impression of him being a kind of literary mid-wife. But it wasn’t just the birth of the book (the font, the hardback, the silky feel) he cared about, or exactly where it be placed on the Seren spinners. He foresaw its entire future and that care extended to me. He was so kind. We were both so glad we’d come together in the end.

Our correspondence continued in much the same vein. Mick understood the challenges of writing for a living but in his quiet way, implied they might be overlooked – writing well, being a writer, making good books were the important things. An outlook that sustains me.

Mike Parker was right about the chaos. My publication date was rescheduled twice, and I did three events – including the launch – without any books. I didn’t mind. I was honoured to be championed by someone who loved books; their content, their integrity, their manufacture and presentation, their journey, their future, so very deeply.

I had a dream after that first phone-call, that Mick and Sarah Johnson (Seren’s deputy publisher who Mick highly regarded) were taking me to a nightclub, and I was having trouble choosing a dress because my fingers were stuck in my hair.

I told Mick, then forgot the dream till the morning before going on stage to speak at Hay Festival, when, trying to tidy myself after wild-camping in a brutal wind on a mountain, my fingers actually did, momentarily, get stuck in my hair. When I told Mick later, he replied that once, his wife had got a comb so entangled in her hair she’d had to get it cut out at the hairdressers.

That was the only time we met; Hay Festival, 2023. A few weeks before he retired. We had an hour, half of which he spent queuing to buy us paper cups of tea, now and again shrugging apologetically across the crowded canteen. He was even more modest, respectful and gentle in real life than I’d thus far ascertained.

I tried to convey how much I admired his work and spirit. Surely, I wondered, retiring, after all he’d achieved, after such intense involvement, would be tough? He conceded that he’d had his moments. But nothing lasts forever. He’d be able to spend more time now, with his grandson Josh.

He asked what I was writing next, and his eyes lit up and took on an eager glint, as if he could see it. His great vision, concern, delight, kindness and passion for books and authors was so very vivid, so profound and evident.

A handful of emails, two phone calls, one meeting, one book. What an almighty privilege. Thank you, Mick.

Euron Griffith

I was driving to London when my phone pinged. Looking down, I saw that it was an email from Mick Felton, and my heart sank. A few months earlier I’d sent him the complete manuscript of ‘Miriam, Daniel and Me’ which he’d requested after having been intrigued by the sample.

I’d been waiting for a response but had prepared myself for the worst, after all, a writer’s life was one of almost constant rejection. It was too dangerous to read the email whilst driving so I pulled into the services about ten miles up the road, stopped the car…and braced myself for the awful news.

Seren would reject it. I knew they would. Okay, Mick had said that he’d loved my short story ‘Theme park” and even went so far as to say that it was ‘the best short story we’ve ever published’, but a novel was different. A novel presented risks. I’d published four novels in Welsh, but this was my first serious attempt in English. I was an unknown quantity in that language. So, I read it.

And my pounding heart almost stopped! He said that he was going to ‘propose publication’! I almost got out of the car and danced my way through the drizzle into the café to perform a vaguely messy handstand. But luckily for everyone, I just held my joy in like some enormous sneeze and resumed my journey up the M4 with no need for warmth from the heater.

I can’t say that I ‘knew’ Mick. By all accounts he was a very private person and, in the many subsequent phone calls that we had running up to publication, this was confirmed to me. He was always gracious but, for a man who dealt in words, he used very few of them. The ones he did use however were always well-chosen and encouraging.

When Mick took on my second novel (‘The Confession of Hilary Durwood’) I was astounded. Pleased. But astounded. Because I’m pretty sure no publisher in the world would ever have taken the risk of publishing a psychedelic Victorian story concerning, among other things, a rapacious giant centipede, a giant cat with a wooden leg and a psychopathic gentleman traveller bent on revenge who mistakes a man for Jesus.

See? Try that on Random House and see how far you get! But Mick believed in it and put it out there. I’d love to say that it outsold Richard Osman but, surprisingly, it didn’t. But since it came out it has gathered a dedicated (but small!) coterie of admirers and, for that, I’m grateful to Mick for going with his gut rather than with his accountant.

I think he felt that if a book was good, or fun or had something interesting to say about either Wales or the wider world, it should be given a chance to reach readers.

I was saddened when he retired. But I was devastated when I heard that he’d left us for good. Wales needs people like Mick Felton. In these challenging times, the natural instinct for publishers perhaps is to try to second guess what’s going to sell and to place too much importance on focus groups.

Of course, publishers -especially comparatively small ones like Seren- need to at least break even, and finance inevitably enters the fray. But I think Mick passionately believed that readers didn’t always know what they wanted until they were presented with it.

As Henry Ford once said about his Model T- “If I’d asked what people wanted they’d have said ‘faster horses’.” Mick had vision, guts and an ear for a good book. He is a great loss to Welsh cultural life.