Our Annual Events
St. David's Day Banquet
Every spring the Society celebrates St. David's Day on the Saturday closest to March 1. In 2022, we held the celebration via Zoom and featured a guest from Wales, Dai Harris, sang us a plygain carol and gave us some background on this old Welsh tradition.
Annual Picnic
Every summer the Society members meet to elect board members and officers and enjoy food and games -- and the outdoors.
Christmas/Holiday Tea
Every winter in December, society members gather to sing together in four-part harmony, tell stories, listen to other members make music, and enjoy the sweet and savory treats that everyone has brought.
Welsh Events
For information on the 2021 North American Festival of Wales (NAFOW), go to IHQ@thewnaa.org.
Well-Read Dragons Book Group
Join us over Zoom to discuss books by Welsh authors and get to know other members. Contact Ilene if you need a Zoom link at ilene.dawn@gmail.com.
Join us to discuss:
June 3, 2023: I, Eric Ngall: One Man's Journey Crossing Continents from Africa to Europe
I, Eric Ngalle is an exploration of memory and trauma… it takes guts to tell all in this way… in these xenophobic times, when migrants and refugees are pilloried or vilified it is a useful corrective to read a story such as this, to appreciate the inner steel and simple survival skills necessary to make such journeys. Eric Ngalle says that Wales gave him back his name, his voice and his identity. In turn, he now works with other refugees helping them find their voices and redact their own stories… quintessential tales of our age, when war, oppression and poverty dispossess so many. In finding sanctuary migrants such as Ngalle also enrich society, as he has proved by his many contributions to Welsh cultural and civic life.” Jon Gower, Nation.Cymru
“Powerful and challenging... neki / nazromi / diolch!” Ifor ap Glyn, outgoing National Poet of Wales
New national poet of Wales; 2019, $12; Burning Eye Books
Hanan Issa is a mixed-race poet from Wales. She has performed at numerous events across the UK and her work has been featured on both ITV Wales and BBC Radio Wales. Her winning monologue was performed at Bush Theatre’s Hijabi Monologues. She is the co-founder of Cardiff’s first BAME [Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic] open mic series ‘Where I’m Coming From’. She is also one of the 2018 Hay Writers at Work. (Note: We’re leaving this til the last so that we can include any poems she writes during the first year as the Welsh poet laureate.
The Mab: Eleven Epic Stories edited by Matt Brown and Eloise Williams
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Fearless by Kristin F. Johnson
Slave Wales: The Welsh and Atlantic Slavery 1660 - 1850 by Chris Evans
History Grounded: Looking for the History of Wales by Elin Jones
Book Club Choices from Past Years
2022 - 2023
History of Wales in Twelve Poems by M. Wynn Thomas
The Blue Book of Nebo, by Manon Steffan Ros
Cove, by Cynan Jones
2021 - 2022
Salt, by Catrin Kean
Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve by Dannie Abse
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
Impassioned Clay by Stevie Davies
Stillicide by Cynan Jones
Poems by Gillian Clarke
2020 - 2021
Broken Ghost by Niall Griffiths
The Moving of the Water by David Lloyd,
Welsh Saints on the Mormon Trail: The Story of Welsh Emigration to Salt Lake City in the Nineteenth Century by Wil Aaron
The Salt Path: A Memoir by Raynor Winn,
The Valley, The City, The Village by Glyn Jones,
White Star by Robin Llywelyn
2019 - 2020
Flame in the Mountains, Williams Pantycelyn, Ann Griffith and the Welsh Hymns by H.A. Hodges, ed. E. Wyn James (scheduled but not discussed because of pandemic)
I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh
Ibrahim and Reenie by David Llewellyn
New Welsh Short Stories, ed. by Francesca Rhydderch & Penny Thomas
Pigeon by Alys Conrad
A Simple Scale by David Llewellyn
2018-2019
Shoes for Anthony by Emma Kennedy
Dark Territory by Jerry Hunter
Rebecca’s Daughters by Dylan Thomas
Aberfan by Gaynor Madgwich
Rice Paper Diaries by Francesca Rhydderch
Remember No More: A DS Kite Mystery by Jan Newton.
2017 - 2018
Bred of Heaven by Jasper Rees
A Childhood in a Welsh Mining Valley by Vivian Jones
The Long Dry by Cynan Jones
The Breathing and/or All the Souls by Mary-Ann Constantine
The Vegetarian Tigers of Paradise by Crystal Jeans
Reader Choice – Short Stories
2016 - 2017
Everything I Found on the Beach by Cynan Jones
The Bank Manager and the Holy Grail: Travelers to the Wilder Reaches of Wales by Byron Rogers
The Owl Service by Alan Garner
Addlands by Tom Bullough
Land of My Neighbours by Barry Pilton
Presenting Saunders Lewis by Alun R. Jones and Gwyn Thomas
2015 – 2016
Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones
I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers
The Dig by Cynan Jones
Contact! A Book of Encounters by Jan Morris
Wales on the Western Front by John Richards
Reader Choice – poetry
2014 – 2015
Dai Country by Alun Richards
Beyond the Pampas: In Search of Patagonia by Imogen Rhia Herrad.
David Jones in the Great War by Thomas Dilworth
Faith, Hope & Love by Llwyd Owen
American Interior by Gruff Rhys
The Awakening by Kate Roberts and/or Awakening by Stevie Davies
2013 - 2014
The Gospel of Us by Owen Sheers
Turf or Stone by Margiad Evans
Testimonies: A Novel by Patrick O’Brian.
Into Suez by Stevie Davies
One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard
Reader Choice – White Raven’s by Owen Sheers, or any other book(s) in the Seren Mabinogion series
2012 - 2013
Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal
Darkness Visible by Trilby Busch
History on the Welsh Church in Jackson, Ohio: Travel, Fishing and Farewells by Evan O. Roberts, trans. by Martha Davies
Dragon & Crescent by Grahame Davies
Rape of the Fair Country by Alexander Cordell
Resistance by Owen Shears
2011 – 2012
Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry
Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins
Written in Blood: Crime Fiction with a Twist, various authors
The Children of First Man by James Alexander Thom, or any book about Prince Madog
Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio's Industrial Frontier by Anne Kelly Knowles
A Man's Estate by Emyr Humphreys
2010 - 2011
History on Our Side: Wales & the 1984–85 Miner’s Strike by Hywel Francis
The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams
Real Wales by Peter Finch
Twenty Thousand Saints by Flur Dafydd
Stranger Within the Gates by Bertha Thomas
The White Lane by Kate Roberts
2009 - 2010
Baghdad Barcarolle. How Beatrice Ohanessian Became Iraq’s Foremost Classical Pianist by On Angel Mountain by Holly Windle
Before the Last All Clear by Ray Evans
Sea Holly by Robert Minhinnick
Falls the Shadow by Sharon Penman
Reader Choice – any book about King Arthur
Reader Choice – book by Robertson Davies, Canadian mystery writer
2004 - 2008
Here Be Dragons by Sharon Penman
On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
The Matter of Wales by Jan Morris
Feet in Chains by Kate Roberts
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
Travels in an Old Tongue by Patricia Petro
A View Across the Valley: Short Stories by Women from Wales, 1850-1950, Jane Aaron, ed.
What I Saw in Bethesda by Charles Sheridan
The Fight for Welsh Freedom by Gwynfor Evans
A Place in the Mind: A Boyhood in Llyn by R. Gerallt Jones
A Welsh Childhood by Alice Thomas Ellis
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
Urban Dreams: Rural Realities by Daniel Butler and Bel Crewe
Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare
Sugar for Slate by Charlotte Williams
The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi
Early History of the Welsh in the Proscairon District of Wisconsin by Daniel Williams; translated by Phillips G. Davies, updated by Martha Davies
Westering Home by Audrey McClellan
Wild Wales by George Borrow