Ö÷²¥´óÐã

's festival of literary innovation, , is fast approaching - and it has in store an eclectic line-up of events across a variety of venues in Cardiff Bay.

Before the main events in this bilingual literary festival start from Monday 25 October, two smaller warm-up events are planned to whet the appetite.

Poet and actor Thaer Al-Shayei hosts Poems & Pints today, Wednesday 13 October, at the Cardiff Central Library, in an evening that will showcase Cardiff's emerging and already established poetic talent.

Simon Murray. Photo: Martin LeSanto Smith

The poetry theme continues as the launch a new anthology of contemporary black British poetry, Red, tomorrow. Poets Maya Chowdhry, Simon Murray, Monika-Akila Richards and Daljit Nagra will read and discuss their poems at this free event at the .

Byron Vincent. Photo: Academi

BayLit begins properly on Monday 25 October with two workshops, Behind the Zine and Augmented Reality, while a Welsh language event in the evening discusses S4C's major new drama and the issues involved in dramatising a nation's history. Director Gethin Scourfield and one of the stars of the drama, Ryland Teifi, are set to attend.

Wednesday 27 hosts one of the most exciting events on the line-up. TXT2BayLit hopes to combine texting, performance, poetry and psych-pop, with hip hop artist Rufus Mufasa, poet Liam Johnson and fellow artists Ceri Elen, Hannah Silva, Byron Vincent, Aneirin Karadog and Colorama all set to appear. Plus, audience members will be able to contribute their literary snippets during the evening via text.

Meanwhile, Thursday 28 sees Welsh authors Gwyneth Lewis, Owen Sheers, Russell Celyn Jones and Niall Griffiths come together to discuss their works as part of ' series New Stories from the Mabinogion, modern reworkings of the medieval Welsh tales.

The four titles in Seren's New Stories From The Mabinogion series. Images courtesy Seren Books.

Highlights on Saturday 30 October include a breakfast event - Getting Up - that sees Kate McAll, the executive producer for radio drama at Ö÷²¥´óÐã Wales, and author Siân Preece discuss the misunderstanding that surrounds the genre of short story collections.

Another morning event entitled Enter Stage Left, this time in the Welsh language, sees playwright Dafydd James - the writer of Llwyth, which ran at earlier this year - give an introduction to writing for the theatre.

In the afternoon Bright Young Things authors Susie Wild, Tyler Keevil and JP Smythe talk about their new novels - the results of s hunt for fresh new literary talent.

Rhys Trimble. Photo courtesy Academi

There are also two cool-down events to round off the festival in early November. Theatre practitioner Gerald Tyler, trumpeter Tomos Williams and writer Jon Gower get together to discuss the work of Jim Perrin - with visual accompaniment provided by film director Grant Gee.

While The Welsh Underground sees discussion from editors John Goodby and Andrew Duncan, guest readings from Rhys Trimble, David Greenslade and Graham Hartill, while Peter Finch performs 500 Cobbings.

For a full list of what's going on at the festival, take a look at the BayLit website - - and contact for further details and information.