Authors Elizabeth O’Connor and Alex Hubbard will be discussing their new novels at an Ar Ymyl y Tir 2026/On Land’s Edge Festival event at Fishguard’s Pepper’s Gallery On Sunday, September 27 beginning at 11am.

The event is part of the three-day Moby Dick-themed festival and – appropriately enough – both novels feature a beached whale!

‘Stories from the Edge-lands’ – exploring the novels Storm and Whale Fall which are both set in Welsh coastal communities – sees the authors in conversation with Mike Ponsford.

Elizabeth O’Connor is the 2020 winner of the White Review Short Story Prize as well as the author of the debut novel Whale Fall.

Based in Birmingham she holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Bir-mingham.

Whale Fall takes place on a small Welsh island where a local woman becomes entangled with two ethnographers hoping to learn more about the isolated culture there.

O’Connor explores the tension between personal ambition and community integrity, cap-turing a woman’s struggle on the brink of transformative change.

Set during the last four months of 1938, the novel follows 18-year-old Manod and her quest to break free from her imprisoning surroundings.

Three miles long and home to only 12 families, the island has an economy sustained by what its remaining inhabitants can catch from the sea – “most of the young men had been killed in the war, or were trying to get a job on the mainland”.

Storm, Alex Hubbard’s scintillating debut novel, is an intriguing story about love, friendship and our links with the past – a contemporary Gothic masterpiece which will leave you nos-talgic for your small-town uni days.

Josephine is haunted. At university in Aberystwyth she is grateful to be away from home and further each day from her past. But still the spectre of her dead mother torments her.

Elizabeth O’Connor's debut novel Whale Fall.
Elizabeth O’Connor's debut novel Whale Fall. (Land's Edge Festival)

Glynn isn’t like the other people she knows. When she kisses him on a night out it feels new and exciting. Only the town is held captive by a violent storm and weird things keep happening.

A whale washes up on the shore. Strangers appear in town, though no-one can leave. The old buildings seem suddenly alive.

Alex Hubbard is a writer from London, living in Wales. He first came to Aberystwyth in 2015 and, like so many, fell in love with it.

As a child he was diagnosed with dyspraxia and struggled to learn to read. Once he worked it out he quickly became passionate about stories, words and thinking about things which aren’t real.

Now, he is interested in how fiction can augment our shared senses of place and experi-ence.

Stories from the Edgelands will be held at Peppers on Sunday, September 27 at 11am.

Entry is £5 and lunch is available following the event.

See onlandsedge.co.uk for further info.