Fresh Apples

Sarah's not abnormal or ugly, just a little bit fat, and she's got cerebral palsy. 'No way was it rape or even molestation... she's fourteen, not a child. I'm not a paedophile.' Gemma's mother had shagged Tom Jones. Nobody knew who her father was, least of all her mother. Spiderman doesn't want to inflict his petty-thief persona on self contained Caitlin, but he finds himself getting off at her stop. When chickens that belong to 'Chelle's grand-dad start to peck each other, sounding like death warming up, she wrings one of their necks and ends up doing worse. Johnny Mental was sitting on his porch wearing sunglasses, drinking lager, his teeth orange and ugly. Someone was painting their front door a few yards away, with a portable radio playing soul music; Diana Ross or some shit. A big burgundy Vauxhall Cavalier came around the corner, real slow like an old man on a hill. Eleven wry and defiant stories on the power and beautiful transience of youth.

Rachel Trezise is a novelist and playwright from the Rhondda Valley, south Wales. Her work has won the Orange Futures award and International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her most recent play Cotton Fingers toured Ireland and Wales and won the Summerhall Lustrum Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. Her debut novel In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl won a place on the Orange Futures List in 2002. In 2006 her first short fiction collection Fresh Apples won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second short fiction collection Cosmic Latte won the Edge Hill Prize Readers Award in 2014. Her first play Tonypandemonium was produced by National Theatre Wales in 2013 and won the Theatre Critics of Wales Award for best production. Her second play for National Theatre Wales, We're Still Here, premiered in September 2017. Her latest play, Cotton Fingers, also for National Theatre Wales, has recently toured Ireland and Wales. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019 it was chosen by The Stage as one of the best shows in the festival and received a Summerhall Lustrum Award. Her debut novel has recently been reissued in the Library of Wales series, a project re-publishing classic Welsh literature in English.