FORMER Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and twice-chaired Bard Ceri Wyn Jones will take the stage together at PENfro Book Festival this Saturday (September 13).

They will read and discuss their poetry and answer questions from the audience in the bilingual headline event at Rhosygilwen.

Rowan Williams will be reading mainly from his latest collection of poetry, ‘The Other Mountain’, which will be published in November. His first collection, 'After Silent Centuries', was published in 1994. A new work, 'The Poems of Rowan Williams' was published by Carcanet in April this year. He speaks Welsh and nine other languages.

Ceri Wyn won the Chair for the second time at this year’s Eisteddfod with this work, ‘Lloches’ (Refuge), which tells the story of Cardigan town and its Castle. He has been Welsh Children's Poet Laureate, and continues to travel far and wide conducting workshops and performing his work, including at the Smithsonian Festival in Washington DC in 2009.

On the Friday night (September 12) at PENfro there will be a screening of ‘La Casa di Dio’, the award-winning film of the fantastic church created by Italian inmates in a prefab building at the prisoner of war camp at Henllan. The event will mark the 70th anniversary of the opening of the church, in September 1944. Director Owain Ll?r will introduce the event and there will also be a bilingual question and answer session afterwards.

Saturday is writers’ day, with workshops on poetry, novel writing, writing for radio drama, memoir and getting published.

The Sunday Book Fair opens at 10.30am and at many events around Rhosygilwen visitors will be able to meet and chat with a range of authors. There is no charge to visit the book fair and most of the special events featuring a wide range of writers are just £4.50 each, or you can get a Sunday festival pass for just £10, which gives entry to all events all day. There are special events for children too.

Chair of PENfro Book Festival, Derek Webb said: “We have a great programme over the whole weekend this year. We are covering a broad spectrum of literary interests to provide something for everyone, whatever their interest in books.”