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Mari Ellis Dunning
Mari Ellis Dunning is an award-winning Welsh writer of poetry, short stories and children’s books. Her debut poetry collection
Salacia launched in October 2018 with Parthian Books. Mari has an MA in Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University. The coast is hugely important to her writing and wellbeing. She lives in Aberystwyth with her husband. She tweets at
@mariiellis.
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Rhiannon Hooson
Rhiannon Hooson is a poet from the Marches. Her first collection,
The Other City, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award. She has been featured in the Guardian and Magma, has a PhD in poetry, and is an Eric Gregory Award winner. She is working on a novel with the help of a Literature Wales bursary.
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Janine Barnett-Phillips
Janine Barnett-Phillips has been an English teacher for 25 years and is now director of Writers’ Cwtch. Her novel
Asterix Clementine was shortlisted for the Times/Chicken House Competition and she’s represented by the Blair Partnership Literary Agency. She is currently working on her YA debut,
The Sunshiners. Janine is a 2019 Literature Wales Bursary recipient.
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Georgia Carys Williams
Georgia is a part-time Creative Writing tutor at Swansea University. Her short story collection
Second-hand Rain (Parthian) was shortlisted for the Sabotage Short Story Award, longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Prize. Her debut novel was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition 2018.
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Wendy White
Wendy’s first children’s book, ‘Welsh Cakes and Custard’ (Gomer Press), won the Tir Nan’Og Award in 2014. She has three other children’s books published with Gomer. She writes for adults as Sara Gethin and her debut novel, ‘Not Thomas’ (Honno) was shortlisted for The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize 2017.
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Dyfan Lewis
Dyfan writes in a variety of genres. He was raised in Craig-cefn-parc near Swansea and now lives in Cardiff. Dyfan's current project is a collection of essays based on his time travelling in South-east Asia.
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Jane Fraser
Jane Fraser lives and works in Gower, writing fiction and being a co-director of NB:Design. In 2017 she was a finalist in the Manchester Fiction Prize, and in 2019 shortlisted for the Cambridge Short Story Prize. Widely published in anthologies, her debut collection of short fiction,
The South Westerlies, is forthcoming from SALT Publishing in June. She has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing (Swansea University) and is represented by Sheil Land Literary Agency. Work in progress includes a second collection of short fiction and a historical novel.
Website -
www.janefraserwriter.com
Twitter -
@jfraserwriter
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Hanan Issa
Hanan is a mixed-race Welsh writer whose work has been featured on ITV Wales and BBC Radio Wales, published in Banat Collective, Hedgehog Press, Sukoon mag, and
MuslimGirl.com, and performed at the Bush Theatre’s Hijabi Monologues. She is the co-founder of Cardiff's BAME open mic 'Where I'm Coming From' and is currently working on a feature film project in partnership with Film4.
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Durre Shahwar
Durre Shahwar is a writer, creative practitioner, Associate Editor for Wales Arts Review and co-founder of ‘Where I’m Coming From’ (open mic promoting BAME writing in Wales). She writes about a broad range of topics, including identity, gender and mental health. Durre has been published in various magazines and anthologies including Know Your Place (2017), The Lonely Crowd, Cheval, and We Shall Fight Until We Win (2018).
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Elan Grug Muse
Grug Muse is a PhD student at the Welsh department in Swansea University. She won the chair at the 2013 Urdd eisteddfod; is co-editor of
Y Stamp; a member of the
Cywion Cranogwen collective; and in 2017 published her first volume of poetry,
Ar Ddisberod with Cyhoeddiadau Barddas.
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Samantha O’Rourke
Samantha O’Rourke is a playwright, originally from Cheshire now living in North Wales. She is currently Writer on Attachment with Liverpool’s Everyman Playhouse. Recent projects include ‘No Persons Only Women’ (Volcano Theatre, Swansea), Liverpool First (Everyman/Williamson Tunnels) and Quantum (YEP, Everyman Theatre).
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Gareth Evans-Jones
Gareth lives in Traeth Bychan, Anglesey and he is a lecturer in the School of Philosophy and Bangor, Bangor University. He was awarded a New Author Scholarship by Literature Wales in 2017, and his first volume of creative prose,
Eira Llwyd, will be published in the autumn this year.
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Emily Vanderploeg
Emily Vanderploeg’s writing has been published in both the UK and Canada, shortlisted for the Impress Prize, Melita Hume Prize, and Arc Poem of the Year Contest, and longlisted for The Poetry School’s Primers series. She is also a 2019 Literature Wales New Writer’s Bursary Award recipient. Emily holds an MA and PhD in Creative Writing (Swansea University) and teaches at Queen’s University and with the Young Writers Squad. Originally from Aurora, Ontario, Canada, she lives in Swansea.
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Morgan Owen
Morgan Owen is a poet and writer from Merthyr Tydfil. In 2017 and 2018 he won the D Gwyn Evans Memorial Prize for the best poem in a competition for poets under 25, held by Barddas. In 2018, he was poet in residence at the Architecture Exhibit in the Lle Celf at the National Eisteddfod for Wales in Cardiff. In the same year, he was part of the Her Can Cerdd ('Hundred Poem Challenge'), held by Literature Wales, whereby four poets write 100 poems in 24 hours. He also came second in the Medal for Drama in the Urdd National Eisteddfod in 2018. During January 2019 he was Radio Cymru's Poet of the Month. His work is published regularly in magazines such as
O'r Pedwar Gwynt,
Y Stamp, and
Barddas. His first book of poems will be published later this year. Twitter
@morgowen.
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Eloise Williams
Eloise Williams writes fiction for young people. A Literature Wales bursary recipient, her second novel
Gaslight (2017 Firefly Press), won Wales Arts Review Young People’s Book of the Year 2017 and is shortlisted in the Tir na n-Og Awards 2018. Eloise is currently working on her fourth novel, set in Llantrisant, where she (almost) grew up.
Website -
www.eloisewilliams.com
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Eric Ngalle Charles
Eric Ngalle Charles is a Cameroonian born, Wales based writer, poet and playwright. His first play "My mouth brought me here" was performed at London’s South Bank Centre in August 2016 and at the Hay Festival on 30 May 2017. Eric’s latest play "The Last Ritual" was performed at Hay Fetstival on 28 May 2018.
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Alison Powell
Alison Powell, originally from South Wales, writes short fiction that has appeared in various publications, including
Mslexia. She is also working on a novel and won runner-up prize in 2016’s Bridport First Novel Award. She is co-founder of the Bristol-based WriteClub and is currently co-editing the National Flash Fiction anthology.
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Ruth Richards
Ruth Richards lives in Anglesey. She divides her writing between the past and present, and the rest of her time between lobbying for the Welsh language and studying photography and Welsh literature in the nineteenth century for a PhD at Bangor University.
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Meg Elis
Meg was born in Aberystwyth in 1950, but has lived and worked in Gwynedd since 1976. She is a freelance translator and writer, who graduated in Welsh from Bangor in 1972 and obtained a doctorate in Creative Writing from Bangor, 2017. She is the author of 3 novels, 1 volume of short stories and is a regular contributor /reviewer to Welsh press.
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Rufus Mufasa
Rufus is a literary activist and lyrical genre hopper, and has travelled and toured profusely but always returns to Pontypridd, which she has made her home. Rufus' work explores a cocktail of disciplines, the avant-garde "ness" of multilingualism, the threading of ancestry, filled with hope and heart. Currently developing a poetry collection with support from a Writers Bursary from Literature Wales.