Patience Agbabi FRSL is the author of four poetry collections including Telling Tales, a 21st century retelling of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This was shortlisted for the 2014 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Agbabi’s debut, middle-grade novel, The Infinite (Canongate, 2020), won Wales Book of the Year 2021: Children & Young People category.
Adedayo Agarau is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a 2022 Robert Hayden Scholarship fellow and a recipient of the 2022 Stanley Awards for International Research at the University of Iowa. He obtained his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop ’23. His poems have been featured in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Society of America, World Literature Today, Iowa Review, and Boulevard. He is the author of the chapbooks, Origin of Names (African Poetry Book Fund), and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press). Adedayo is the Editor-in-Chief at Agbowó: An African magazine of literature and art.
Abeer Ameer is a poet of Iraqi heritage who lives in Cardiff, Wales. Her poems have appeared widely online in journals including: Poetry Wales, Magma, Atrium, The Rialto and The Poetry Review. Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/ Exile (Seren 2021) was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2022.
Elin ap Hywel is a Welsh poet, translator and editor. Her collected poems in Welsh, Dal i Fod (Still Here), edited by Menna Elfyn, was published by Barddas in 2020 and was short-listed for the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2021.
P.A.Bitez or Princess Arinola Adegbite is a poet, musician, voiceover artist, and filmmaker from Manchester. She is a winner of Slambassadors, BBC Words First 2020, One Mic Stand 2021, Common Word Going Digital, and Manchester Young Creative of The Year 2021. She is a Young Identity member. Bitez received a Castlefield Gallery Associates prize for her film Drapetomania and was commissioned by Selfridges, BBC, and the University of Cambridge. She’s been longlisted for the AUB International 2022 Poetry Prize.
Miranda Lynn Barnes, a poet from the US now living in the UK. She is the author of two pamphlets: Blue Dot Aubade, published in 2020 with V. Press, and Formulations, a chapbook of newly-created poetic forms based in chemistry co-authored with chemist and poet Stephen Paul Wren (Small Press/Tangent Books, 2022).
Gay/queer Australian poet Stuart Barnes is author of Like to the Lark (Upswell Publishing, 2023), winner of the 2023 Wesley Michel Wright Prize, and of Glasshouses (UQP, 2016), winner of the 2015 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Prize, commended for the 2016 Anne Elder Award and shortlisted for the 2017 Mary Gilmore Award. With Willo Drummond, Stuart guest-edited the ‘Queering Ecopoet(h)ics’ issue of Plumwood Mountain: An Australian and International Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics. Stuart, Nigel Featherstone, Melinda Smith and CJ Bowerbird are Hell Herons, an Australian spoken-word/music collective whose first record is due in June 2024. @stuartabarnes (X/Instagram) @hellherons (Instagram) www.stuartabarnes.com
Sarah Bitter is a writer from Seattle, Washington. Her poetry has been published in Denver Quarterly‘s FIVES, River Mouth Review, The Seventh Wave, and other publications, and has accompanied art at the Page Gallery and the Goldfinch Gallery, while her prose has been featured in Poetry Northwest and EcoTheo Review. Sarah has an MFA from the University of Washington.
Sharon Black is from Glasgow and lives in a remote valley of the Cévennes mountains in France. She has published 4 collections, her latest being The Last Woman Born on the Island (Vagabond Voices, 2022) and The Red House (Drunk Muse, 2022). She also has a pamphlet, Rib (Wayleave, 2021). www.sharonblack.co.uk
Author Sophie Buchaillard is the former policy advisor for the collective Stop Climate Coalition Cymru and a contributor to An Open Door: New Travel Writing for A Precarious Century (Parthian, 2022). A long-term environment campaigner, she shares her experience of living a plastic-free lifestyle on Twitter @growriter #plasticfree . Her debut novel This Is Not Who We Are (Seren, 2022) focuses on the themes of identity and migration.
Jane Burn is an award-winning hybrid writer and working-class person with autism. Her first collection, Be Feared, is available from Nine Arches. Her second collection, The Apothecary of Flight, has been published this year also by Nine Arches. She is the Michael Marks Awards Environmental Poet of the Year 2023/24.
Madailín Burnhope is a disabled, queer, transfeminine poet based in Warwickshire. Her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Magma, Under The Radar, Ink Sweat and Tears, Gallus, Poetry Wales, and Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and disabled poets write back. Her debut collection was Species (Nine Arches Press).
Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction. Capildeo’s eight books and eight pamphlets include Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, November 2021) and The Dusty Angel (Oystercatcher, 2021). Their interests include plurilingualism, traditional masquerade, and multidisciplinary collaboration.
Sampurna Chattarji is a poet, fiction writer, editor, translator and teacher with twenty-one publications to her credit. Her translation of Joy Goswami’s prose poems After Death Comes Water (Harper Perennial, 2021) has been lauded as a recreation of the Bangla originals in ‘a living voice, as inventive and vivid as the English of Joyce’. The most recent of her eleven poetry titles is Unmappable Moves, just out from the Mumbai-based indie-press Poetrywala.
Mae Sampurna Chattarji yn fardd, awdur ffuglen, golygydd, cyfieithydd ac athrawes wedi cyhoeddi un ar hugain o gyhoeddiadau. Mae ei chyfieithiad o gerddi rhyddiaith Joy Goswami After Death Comes Water (Harper Perennial, 2021) wedi ei ganmol am ail-greu’r Bangla gwreiddiol mewn ‘llais byw, mor ddyfeisgar a byw â Saesneg Joyce’. Y mwyaf diweddar o’i 11 teitl barddoniaeth yw Unmappable Moves, sydd newydd ei gyhoeddi gan wasg indie Poetrywala o Mumbai.
Rachael Clyne’s prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams 2014) concerns our broken connection with nature. She has long been a campaigner on eco issues. Her latest collection, You’ll Never Anyone Else, covers themes of identity and otherness, including her Jewish migrant heritage, sexual orientation and relationships. See: https://www.serenbooks.com/shop/Poetry
George Colkitto was born, brought up and lives in Paisley, Scotland. An ex- Inspector of Taxes, Chartered Account, and Bookshop owner, he writes both poetry and prose. His latest collection, was Shake the Kaleidoscope (Cinnamon Press 2023).
Florrie Crass is the poetry host at Home Stage, an arts broadcasting platform, unearth and champion talented poets. They showcase new poetry through online programmes (such as Meet the Poet and pFITE), podcasts, competitions, in-person events, festivals, theatre shows and tours. Home Stage are driven by a desire to enliven poetry for a new generation.
Hildred Crill is a poet and translator living in Stockholm, Sweden, where she taught scientific writing for 16 years at Stockholm University. Her poems have appeared most recently in 14 Magazine, Long Poem Magazine, The North, The Moth, Ambit, among other journals.
Claire Crowther has published five collections with Shearsman. Solar Cruise was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh Best First Collection prize and received a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Claire has a PhD in Creative Writing, teaches Creative Writing at Oxford University and is Deputy / Reviews Editor of Long Poem Magazine.
Mae Meleri Davies yn Gyfarwyddwr gwirfoddol gyda Ynni Ogwen ac Ynni Cymunedol Cymru. Mae hi hefyd yn Brif Weithredwr Partneriaeth Ogwen – menter gymdeithasol sy’n datblygu prosiectau adfywio cynaliadwy yn Nyffryn Ogwen. Enillodd wobr Pencampwr Cynaladwyedd Cynnal Cymru a Gwobr Green Energy Pioneer Regen Awards yn 2019. Cyhoeddwyd cyfres o len meicro Meleri yng nghyfansoddiadau buddugol Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Amgen 2020 a mae rhai o’i cherddi wedi eu cyhoeddi yn Poetry Wales a Ffosfforws 1,2,3 a 5 Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp. Bydd ei chyfrol cyntaf o farddoniaeth yn cael ei gyhoeddi gan Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp eleni.
Meleri Davies is a volunteer Director with Ynni Ogwen and Community Energy Wales. She is also Chief Executive of Partneriaeth Ogwen – a social enterprise that develops sustainable regeneration projects in the Ogwen Valley. She won the Cynnal Cymru Sustainability Champion award and the Green Energy Pioneer Regen Awards in 2019. Meleri won first prize for a collection of micro fiction at the Amgen National Eisteddfod 2020 and her poems have been published in Poetry Wales and Ffosfforws 1,2,3 and 5 by Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp. Her first volume of poetry will be published by Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp this year.
Nia Davies is a poet experimenting with embodied practice and performance. Her
publications include All fours (Bloodaxe, 2017), editorship of the journal Poetry Wales (2014–2019) as well as several pamphlet and performance projects. All fours was shortlisted for the Roland Matthias Prize for Poetry in the Wales Book of the Year poetry category in 2018 and longlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize for First Collections in 2019. Her second collection of poems,Votive Mess, will be out with Bloodaxe in 2024.
Jeremy Dixon is a prize-winning poet, performer, workshop leader and maker of Artist’s Books. His poetry has appeared in many print and online magazines including: Butcher’s Dog, Roundyhouse and Queerlings. His first collection A VOICE COMING FROM THEN (Arachne Press, 2021) won Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award 2022.
Australian Cath Drake‘s collection, The Shaking City (Seren), highly commended in the 2020 UK Forward Prize and longlisted in international Laurel Prize, followed Sleeping with Rivers, a Poetry Book Society choice & winner of the Seren/Mslexia pamphlet prize. She hosts The Verandah, quality online poetry teaching & events, and is an award-winning journalist and mindfulness teacher with a specialism in environmental issues. https://cathdrake.com
Mari Ellis Dunning‘s first poetry collection Salacia was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award, and was followed by The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass, a pamphlet of dramatic monologues written in collaboration with Natalie Ann Holborow. Her next collection, Pearl and Bone, was selected as Wales Arts Review’s Number 1 of 2022. She has won the Terry Hetherington Young Writers Award and placed second in both the Lucent Dreaming Short Story Competition and the Sylvia Plath Poetry Prize. A PhD candidate at Aberystwyth University, exploring Welsh witch trials and the reproductive body, Dunning also teaches
Taylor Edmonds is a poet and writer from South Wales. Her debut pamphlet Back Teeth was published with Broken Sleep Books in 2022. Taylor was previously Poet in Residence for the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. Her publications include Poetry Wales, Butcher’s Dog, BBC Wales and Parthian.
Elisabeth (Lisa) El Refaie has spent much of her academic career studying the communicative potential of metaphor across different modes and media.
Pat Edwards is a writer, reviewer and workshop leader from mid Wales. Her work has appeared in Magma, Atrium, and IS&T. Pat hosts Verbatim open mic nights and curates Welshpool Poetry Festival. She has three pamphlets: Only Blood (Yaffle 2019); Kissing in the Dark (Indigo); Hail Marys (Infinity Books UK).
Rhian Edwards is a multi-award-winning poet and poetry editor for Seren. Her first collection Clueless Dogs (Seren) won Wales Book of the Year (2013) and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2012. The Estate Agent’s Daughter (Seren) was a National Poetry Day Recommended Read for 2020.
Daw Gareth Evans-Jones o Ynys Môn ac mae’n ddarlithydd Athroniaeth a Chrefydd ym Mhrifysgol Bangor. Mae’n awdur nifer o gyfrolau, gan gynnwys Cylchu Cymru (Y Lolfa 2022; enillydd Gwobr Ffeithiol Greadigol Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2023) ac Y Cylch (Gwasg y Bwthyn 2023).
Gareth Evans-Jones comes from Anglesey and is a lecturer in Philosophy and Religion at Bangor University. He is the author of a number of volumes, including Cylchu Cymru (Y Lolfa 2022; winner of the Book of the Year Creative Non-fiction Award 2023) and Y Cylch (Gwasg y Bwthyn 2023).
Laura Fisk‘s translations of Elin ap Hywel’s poetry have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation and Syndic. Recent publications of her own work include full collections translated into Estonian by Ilmar Lehtpere and Macedonian by Julijana Velichkovska.
Naomi Foyle is a British-Canadian poet, novelist, dramatist and essayist. Her poetry publications include The Night Pavilion, an Autumn 2008 PBS Recommendation; and the transatlantic collection Adamantine (US/UK,2019). Her fourth collection, Salt & Snow, and eleventh pamphlet, Alphapelago: Fragments and Variants, illustrated by Peter Seddon, are forthcoming in 2024.
Linda France’s latest collection is Startling (Faber & New Writing North 2022), from
her Writing the Climate Residency. The Knucklebone Floor (Smokestack 2022) won
the Laurel Prize. Linda was Environmental Poet of the Year 2022-23 in the Michael
Marks Awards and won the 2013 National Poetry Competition.
Ganwyd Mari George a’i magu ym Mhen-y-bont ar Ogwr a bellach mae hi nôl yno’n magu ei phlant, Elen a Morgan gyda’i gŵr, Gwyn. Mae hi’n fardd, awdur, cyfieithydd, golygydd ac yn aelod o dîm talwrn Aberhafren ar gyfer y Talwrn Radio Cymru. Cyhoeddodd ddwy gyfrol o faddoniaeth, Y Nos yn Dal yn Fy Ngwallt (Gomer, 2004), Siarad Siafins (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2014) a sawl llyfr i blant. Enillodd wobr Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2024 am ei nofel gyntaf i oedolion Sut i Ddofi Corryn (Sebra, 2023).
Elizabeth Gibson (they/them) is a queer, neurodivergent poet based in Manchester, with poems published/upcoming in Atrium, Banshee, Butcher’s Dog, Cardiff Review, Lighthouse, Magma, The North, Spelt, Under the Radar, and the LGBTQ+ anthology He, She, They, Us from Pan Macmillan. Elizabeth’s debut collection will be published by Confingo in 2024.
Michael Goodfellow is the author of the poetry collection Naturalism, an Annotated Bibliography, published by Gaspereau Press, 2022, and of a collection in draft titled Folklore of Lunenburg County, which is supported by a Research & Creation Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. His poems have appeared in the Literary Review of Canada, The Dalhousie Review, The Cortland Review, and Reliquiae. He lives in Nova Scotia.
Cathy Greenhalgh is a filmmaker who makes essayistic, ethnographic documentaries and teaches filmmaking. Their current project is on the historiography of Manchester.
Mae Hywel Griffiths yn Ddarllenydd mewn Daearyddiaeth Ffisegol yn Adran Daearyddiaeth a Gwyddorau Daear, Prifysgol Aberystwyth. Mae wedi ennill Cadair a Choron yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, a chatergori barddoniaeth Llyfr y Flwyddyn. Cyhoeddwyd ei bedwaredd casgliad, Y Traeth o Dan y Stryd ym Mawrth 2023. —– Hywel Griffiths is a Reader in Physical Geography in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University. He has won the National Eisteddfod Chair and Crown and the Welsh Book of the Year poetry category. His fourth collection, Y Traeth o Dan y Stryd was published in March 2023.
Philip Gross’ Thirteenth Angel (Bloodaxe, 2022) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Recent collaborations include, with artist Valerie Coffin Price, A Fold In The River (2015), and Cyril Jones, Troeon/Turnings (2021). The Shores of Vaikus, a creative re-inhabiting of Estonia, his refugee father’s birthplace, comes from Bloodaxe in November.
Richard Gwyn is a Welsh writer and translator. His most recent poetry collection is Stowaway and his latest novel is The Blue Tent. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages. He is the author of Ricardo Blanco’s Blog, which can be found at richardgwyn.me.
Rosie Hadden won Teignmouth Open Competition in 2022 and was Highly Commended in the Rialto Nature & Place Competition 2023. Her work appears in Ink, Sweat &Tears, A New Ulster, Art.earth, The Hovel Press and Fal Publications. She’s Chair of Falmouth Poetry Group. She’s mentored by Katrina Naomi.
Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. She held a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Award in 2017. In 2019, her pamphlet A Small Space was placed first in the Paper Swans competition. Her first full collection, Objects for Private Devotion (Pindrop 2022) was long listed for the Highland Book Prize. Her second collection’ Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World is out with Blue Diode now.
Paul Henry’s books include The Brittle Sea, Boy Running and The Glass Aisle. Originally a songwriter, he’s guest-edited Poetry Wales and presented arts programmes for BBC Radio Wales, Radio 3 and Radio 4. As If To Sing, his latest Seren collection, appeared in the Spring.
Yn wreiddiol o Lundain, gwnaeth Jo Heyde droi at farddoni ar ôl caffael y Gymraeg. Mae newydd gyhoeddi ei phamffled cyntaf, Cân y Croesi (Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp), ac mae ei cherddi wedi ymddangos yn Ffosfforws 2-5, ac yng nghylchgrawn Barddas. Mae’n gydlynydd Barddy Mis, ac yn aelod o Ysgol Farddol Caerfyrddin.
Originally from London, Jo Heyde turned to writing poetry after learning Welsh. Her first pamphlet, Cân y Croesi (Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp) has just been published, and her poems have appeared in Ffosfforws 2-5 and Barddas magazine. She coordinates Bardd y Mis and is a member of Carmarthen Poetry School.
Rhiannon Fielder Hobb’s work has been published previously in The New Welsh Review and the ASP Literary Journal. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Lampeter University. Rhiannon was featured in the Just another Poet’s “Seren Esgynnol” Youtube series and has an interview forthcoming on the Sinister Myth Poetry Podcast.
Mae Mererid Hopwood yn Athro’r Gymraeg ac Astudiaethau Celtaidd yn Aberystwyth ac yn ysgrifennydd Academi Heddwch Cymru. Enillodd Gadair, Coron a Medal Ryddiaith yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol a Gwobr Llyfr y Flwyddyn, categori barddoniaeth, am ei chyfrol Nes Draw. Bu’n fardd plant Cymru ac mae wrth ei bodd yn llunio llyfrau plant. Eleni bydd hi’n derbyn Medal Gŵyl y Gelli am Farddoniaeth. —- Mererid Hopwood is Professor of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth and secretary of Academi Heddwch Cymru. She won the Chair and Crown for poetry and the Prose Medal at the National Eisteddfod, as well as the Welsh Book of the Year Prize in the poetry category for her collection Nes Draw. She has been Children’s Laureate for Wales and takes great pleasure in writing books for children. This year she will receive the Hay Festival Medal for Poetry.
Gill Horitz lives in Dorset, UK, close to trees. Through community theatre she explores new tellings of local stories and landscapes, using archives and sense of place. Her poetry has been published in various magazines, and her pamphlet All The Different Darknesses was published by Cinnamon Press.
An urban-based poet writing about nature, Jack Houston‘s poetry has appeared in The Butcher’s Dog, Finished Creatures, Poetry London, The Rialto, Stand, The TLS, and in a debut pamphlet, The Fabulanarchist Luxury Uprising (Emma Press). Their Lockdown Poetry Workshop can be joined for free by emailing jack.houston@hackney.gov.uk.
Matt Howard’s first full collection, Gall, was published by The Rialto in 2018 and was winner of the 2018 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry, shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Prize in 2019 and won Best First Collection in the inaugural Laurel Prize 2020. His second collection, Broadlands is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in 2024. After eleven years working for the RSPB, Matt was the Douglas Caster Fellow in Poetry at the University of Leeds 2021 – 2023.
Rae Howells is a poet, journalist and lavender farmer from Swansea. Her debut collection, The language of bees (Parthian), was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023. She has previously won the Rialto Nature & Place and Welsh poetry competitions and been featured widely in journals including Magma, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Acumen and Poetry Ireland. A keen environmentalist and a believer of the restorative power of wild places, she is poet in residence at Llanelli Wetland Centre. This Common Uncommon is her second poetry collection. www.raehowells.co.uk
Kexin Huang (She/her) won a poetry prize awarded by The Chinese Writers Association (over 1,000 GBP), prizes awarded by The Poetry Society and is shortlisted for The Bridport Prize. Her poems are in Modern Poetry in Translation, Magma, Poetry Wales (forthcoming) and others. Her poetry pamphlet is Unlock (Veer Books, 2023).
Suzanne Iuppa is a poet and conservationist living and working in the Dyfi Valley, mid Wales. Recent work appears in Natur Cymru, Ambit, Bad Lilies, Poetry Wales, and Gorwelion, a climate futures anthology edited by Robert Minhinnick. She is mentored by Photojournalism Hub, London for visual narratives of climate adaptation.
Harriet Jae, a wanderer with a wheelchair, lives in Ghent, Belgium. Published in Poetry Wales, Poetry London, Modern Poetry in Translation, Mslexia, Under the Radar, Harana Poetry and elsewhere, she was longlisted for the 2020 and 2022 Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition and shortlisted in 2022 for the Bridport Prize and the Live Canon Pamphlet Competition.
Bethan James is a storyteller and marketer from south Wales. In 2022, she received Arts Council of Wales funding for a climate storytelling project, and was shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Award. Bethan represented Wales in the United Nations’ anthology Awake Not Sleeping – retelling fairy tales for gender equality. Tweets: @thebethanjames.
Jill Jones was born in Sydney and now lives in Adelaide. Her latest book is Acrobat Music: New and Selected Poems. Her books have won or been shortlisted for a number of major literary awards. Her work is widely published in Australia, Canada, Ireland, NZ, Singapore, Sweden, UK and USA. Instagram: @jill_jones__ Facebook: Jill Jones.
Jayant Kashyap is a scientist and writer, and has published two pamphlets and a zine, Water (Skear Zines, 2021). His works have appeared in POETRY, Magma, Arc, Acumen and Poetry Wales.
Jonathan Kinsman (he/him) is a trans poet living in High Peak. His poetry has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Bad Lilies, Butcher’s Dog, Fourteen Poems, Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Under The Radar. As well as being a performer and slam champion, he has written several pamphlets and his debut collection, The Fireman’s Daughter, is out now with Broken Sleep Books. Find him online @manykinsmen
Lisa Kelly‘s second collection, The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet), is a Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation. Her first collection, A Map Towards Fluency (Carcanet), was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2021. She has single-sided deafness and co-edited What Meets the Eye (Arachne Press).
Barbara Kennedy was born in Hartlepool in 1959. As an adult, they worked in the City of London and elsewhere but retired early due to illness and angst. This gave them the opportunity to study psychology and shamanism, and develop their passion for poetry. Barbara lives in south-east London a short walk from the Thames with their husband and cats.
John Kinsella‘s recent publications include the three volumes of his Australian collected poems: The Ascension of Sheep (UWAP, 2022), Harsh Hakea (UWAP, 2023) and Spirals (UWAP, 2024). Other poetry books include Drowning in Wheat: selected poems (Picador, 2016), The Pastoraclasm (Salt, 2023) and Graphologies (Arc, 2023). A frequent collaborator with other poets, writers, artist, musicians, and activists, he lives on Ballardong Noongar land at ‘Jam Tree Gully’ in the Western Australian wheatbelt. A recent collaboration with Kwame Dawes is UnHistory (Peepal Tree, 2022). He is a committed environmental and rights activist.
Dyfan Lewis is a writer and publisher from Craig-cefn-parc. He has published two poetry pamphlets – Golau (2018) and Mawr (2019) as well as a collection of travel essays Amser Mynd (2020). All were published through Gwasg Pelydr, an independent press set up by himself. He curates the experimental cultural labyrinth creiriau.cymru, and along with Steffan Dafydd is the creator of Creiriau Sain, a live event that blends improvised music and words. At the Eisteddfod AmGen in 2021 he won the crown for his collection of poems
Rachael Li Ming Chong is a poet and teacher of Chinese-Malaysian heritage, born and based in London. She is a winner of The Poetry Archive’s WordView 2021 Competition. Her debut poetry pamphlet The Red Strings Between is forthcoming with Verve Poetry Press in early 2024.
Simon Maddrell is published in numerous anthologies and other publications including Acumen, AMBIT, Butcher’s Dog, The Moth, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Stand and Under the Radar. Simon has four pamphlets: Throatbone (UnCollected Press, 2020); Queerfella (The Rialto, 2020); Isle of Sin (Polari Press, 2023); and The Whole Island (Valley Press, 2023).
Simone Mansell Broome’s a Welsh-born envirophile. She’s written nine books – poetry, memoir and children’s fiction. Published in magazines, eZines and anthologies, produced commissions for ITV, radio & Welsh venues. Current projects – promoting the charity eco-anthology, Words on Troubled Waters, (first publication of Simone’s new Lutra River Press), curating an exhibition – ‘Arts at Ceridwen’, & editing another children’s book. www.simonemansellbroome.com / www.LutraRiverPress.uk / www.artsatceridwen.co.uk
So Mayer is the author, most recently, of A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing (Peninsula, 2020) and jacked a kaddish (Litmus, 2018), and co-editor of Unreal Sex (Cipher, 2021) and Mothers of Invention: Film, Media and Caregiving Labor (Wayne State, 2022). They are a bookseller at Burley Fisher Books. @Such_Mayer.
Bruach Mhor loves sea slugs. His poems have most recently appeared in Gutter, Causeway, Dream Catcher, Raceme, Confluence, Tentacular, Black Box Manifold. And in recent anthologies from Dreich Press, Soor Ploom Press.
Robert Minhinnick is one of Wales’s and the UK’s foremost poets. He is the prize-winning author of essays, poetry, and fiction. He has also edited a book on the environment in Wales, written for television, and provided columns for The Western Mail and Planet. He is the co-founder of the environmental organisation Sustainable Wales, and was formerly the editor of Poetry Wales. Most recent books are his nonfiction essays Delirium (Seren Books), his novel Nia (Seren Books), and the poetry collection Diary of the Last Man (Carcanet) which was Wales Book of the Year, winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award, and shortlisted for the Forward Prize.
Jenny Mitchell won the Gregory O’Donoghue Prize 2023 for a single poem, and the Poetry
Book Awards 2021 for her second collection, Map of a Plantation, which is on the syllabus at Manchester Metropolitan University. The prize-winning debut collection, Her Lost
Language, is One of 44 Poetry Books for 2019 (Poetry Wales), and her latest collection,
Resurrection of a Black Man, contains three prize-winning poems and is featured on the US
podcast Poetry Unbound. She’s won numerous competitions, is widely-published and has
performed at the Houses of Parliament.
Winner of the Laurie Lee and Geoffrey Dearmer prizes, JLM Morton has been published in Poetry Review, Rialto and elsewhere. Her first collection, Red Handed, is out with Broken Sleep (2024). She’s currently poet in residence at Sladebank Woods, a semi-urban woodland sandwiched between a housing estate and an AONB.
Mae Grug Muse yn fardd ac ysgrifwr o Ddyffryn Nantlle. Daeth ei chyfrol ddiweddaraf, merch y llyn i’r brig yng nghategori barddoniaeth Gwobr Llyfr y Flwyddyn, 2022. Mae hi’n un o sylfaenwyr a golygyddion Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp a chylchgrawn barddoniaeth Ffosfforws. Mae hi hefyd yn un o gyd-olygyddion y gyfrol Welsh (plural) (Repeater, 2022), cyfrol o ysgrifau sy’n dychmygu Cymru gynhwysol a neilltuol.
Caleb Nichols is a queer writer and musician from California. Their poetry and prose has been published in places like the New England Review, 14 Poems, Poetry Wales, Redivider, 45th Parallel, Talkhouse, and Truthout. They’re the author of several pamphlets of poetry and prose via presses in the US and U
Mae Sian Northey yn fardd, awdur, cyfieithydd, golygydd a chyw ddramodydd, ac yn ysgrifennu bron yn gyfangwbl yn Gymraeg (er ei bod wedi bod yn arbrofi ychydig efo Saesneg yn ddiweddar). Ei chyfrol ddiweddaraf o’i gwaith ei hun yw Cylchoedd (Gwasg y Bwthyn, 2020), casgliad o straeon byrion gyda ffotograffau gan Iestyn Hughes. / Sian Northey is a poet, author, translator, editor and wannabe playwright, who works almost completely in Welsh (though she has been experimenting more with English recently). Her latest volume of her own work is Cylchoedd (Gwasg y Bwthyn, 2020) a collection of short stories paired with photographs by Iestyn Hughes.
Ness Owen lives on Ynys Môn (Anglesey) in Wales where she writes poetry between lecturing and farming. ‘Gathering Blooms’ is taken from Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim, due for publication by Parthian in April. Her first collection Mamiaith (Mother Tongue) was published in 2019. Her poems have been translated into five different languages. She has recently taken part in Ù O’ | SUO, a poetry exchange project between Wales and Vietnam, supported by the British Council and co-edited the A470, a bilingual poetry anthology about the infamous road running from the north to the south of Wales. Twitter @nessowen
Pascale Petit’s eighth collection, Tiger Girl was shortlisted for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection and for Wales Book of the Year. Her seventh collection Mama Amazonica won the inaugural Laurel Prize 2020, the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize 2018 and was the Poetry Book Society Choice. Four of Pascale’s earlier collections were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
clare e. potter is a poet and radio presenter who studied and taught in New Orleans. As an arts practitioner she facilitates creative projects with community groups and is driven by the belief that poetry can be a force for personal and social change. Her awards include two Literature Wales writing bursaries and Arts Council Funding for a poetry/jazz collaboration to respond to the trauma of Hurricane Katrina. She has translated for National Poet of Wales, was a Hay Festival Writer at Work, and directed a BBC documentary about her village barber which encouraged community action. Her recent poetry collection Healing the Pack will be followed by her first Cymraeg pamphlet Nôl Iaith.
Mae clare e. potter yn fardd a chyflwynydd radio a fu’n astudio a dysgu yn New Orleans. Fel ymarferydd celfyddydol mae’n hwyluso prosiectau creadigol gyda grwpiau cymunedol ac yn cael ei hysgogi gan y gred y gall barddoniaeth fod yn rym ar gyfer newid personol a chymdeithasol. Mae ei gwobrau’n cynnwys dwy fwrsari ysgrifennu gan Llenyddiaeth Cymru a chyllid gan Gyngor y Celfyddydau ar gyfer gwaith barddoniaeth/jazz ar y cyd oedd yn ymateb i drawma Corwynt Katrina. Mae hi wedi cyfieithu gwaigh Bardd Cenedlaethol Cymru, bu’n un o Awduron Wrth Eu Gwaith yng Ngŵyl y Gelli, a cyfarwyddodd raglen ddogfen BBC am ei barbwr pentref – gwaith i annog gweithredu cymunedol. Healing the Pack yw ei chasgliad barddoniaeth diweddaraf, a bydd ei phamffled Cymraeg cyntaf Nôl Iaith yn cael ei gyhoeddi gan Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp yn fuan.
Amanda Rackstraw has an attachment to the landscape of Wales. An MA at Cardiff University led to teaching creative writing. Her poetry: published in Mslexia, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Acumen and Planet. Amanda finds wonder in walking close to home. She has a poem on a sculpture in Dunraven Bay.
Deryn Rees-Jones is a poet and a critic. Her recent books include Paula Rego: The Art of Story (Thames & Hudson, 2019), Erato (Seren, 2019) and Fires (Shoestring: 2019). She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool and is currently in residence at the Citeì internationale des arts, Paris.
Katherine Robinson‘s poems have appeared in The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland, and The Hudson Review, and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The Bloomsbury Handbook to Sylvia Plath, and Ted Hughes: Nature and Culture. Katherine is a PhD candidate at Cambridge University, and trustee for Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary, Shetland.
Mae Sam Robinson yn wneuthurwr seidr, cerddor a bardd sy’n byw ym Mro Ddyfi. Sam Robinson is a cider maker, musician and poet who lives in Bro Ddyfi.
Eve Ruet is a PhD student in Sociology at Cardiff University working on Wales, Welsh identity and photography.
Karishma Sangtani is a poet based in London. Her work appears in magazines such as The North and Ink Sweat and Tears. She was shortlisted for the 2021 Aurora Prize for Writing and the 2022 Creative Future Writers’ Award. Karishma is also a member of the Writing Squad.
Durre Shahwar is a writer and PhD Candidate in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. She is the editor of Gathering (forthcoming 2024), and a Future Wales Fellow. She is the co-founder of ‘Where I’m Coming From’ open mic collective. Her non-fiction work-in-progress was highly commended in the Morley Prize 2022.
Ruth Sharman is the author of Birth of the Owl Butterflies (Picador) and Scarlet Tiger (Templar’s Straid Collection Award, 2016). In 2019, she received a Society of Authors Foundation Grant to revisit South India – where she was born – and produce the poems for her third collection, Rain Tree (Templar, 2022).
Penelope Shuttle lives in Cornwall. Her thirteenth collection, Lyonesse, appeared from Bloodaxe Books in June 2021, and was Observer Poetry Book of the Month. Noah, a pamphlet, appears in September 2023 from Broken Sleep Books. She is President of the Falmouth Poetry Group. Lyonesse was long-listed for the Laurel Prize.
Originally from Kent, Dave Simmons now lives on the Kapiti Coast in Aotearoa New Zealand with his wife and their two cats and two Kaimanawa horses. He writes poetry in moments grabbed between his job as an editor and hours spent in paddocks come rain or shine. Dave counts a range of poets as significant influences, including Ted Hughes, Robert Creeley, John Glenday and Alice Oswald. He is currently working on his first collection.
Zoë Skoulding‘s latest collection is A Marginal Sea (Carcanet) and she is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Bangor University.
Di Slaney lives in Nottinghamshire where she runs Manor Farm Charitable Trust and Candlestick Press. Widely published, broadcast and anthologised, she was the winner of The Plough Poetry Prize 2022. Her collections are Reward for Winter and Herd Queen, with Hard Graft forthcoming 2025, all from Valley Press.
A British-American poet, translator, and researcher, Michelle Szobody now lives in the UK where Michelle received a DYCP grant to mentor with Fiona Benson whilst working on a first collection. Michelle’s poems have most recently appeared in bath magg and Propel, and Michelle’s children’s adaptation of Beowulf won an IPPY award in the US.
Christina Thatcher is a poet and academic, whose work focuses on creative writing as a therapeutic or wellbeing intervention in a wide range of community settings.
Iestyn Tyne was brought up in Boduan, Pen Llŷn, and now lives in Caernarfon with his family. He is co-founder and co-editor of Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp, an independent publishing house platforming new voices in Welsh-language writing. He is co-editor, with Darren Chetty, Grug Muse and Hanan Issa of Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales (Repeater Books, 2022), and his most recent collection of poetry, Stafelloedd Amhenodol, was shortlisted in the Wales Book of the Year 2022 poetry category.
Mae Lowri Hedd Vaughan yn hwylusydd, actifydd a chreadigolyn o Fôn. Mae ei cherddi wedi eu cyhoeddi mewn blodeugerddi, eu perfformio mewn digwyddiadau rhyngwladol a’u plethu gyda ffotograffiaeth, ffilm a cherddoriaeth. Bu Lowri yn fardd y mis BBC Radio Cymru eleni.
Lowri Hedd Vaughan is a facilitator, activist and creative from Ynys Môn. Her poems have been published in anthologies, performed on international stages and woven with photography, film and music. Lowri was BBC Radio Cymru poet of the month this year.
Mel White is a page poet, spoken-word artist, and activist/artivist based in Cloughjordan Ecovillage in Ireland. Her poems have won awards at Cuirt Festival Of Literature, Eigse Michael Hartnett, Tower Poetry Slam, and Westport Arts Festival. Publications include Crannóg, Boyne Berries, and The Ogham Stone. Her poetry can also be found at www.youtube.com/@melwhite9347/playlists
Joe Wilkins is the author of a novel, Fall Back Down When I Die, praised as “remarkable and unforgettable” in a starred review at Booklist and short-listed for the First Novel Award from the Center For Fiction. Joe is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, and four collections of poetry, including When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award, and, most recently, Thieve. Joe’s work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Harvard Review, Poetry Northwest, The Sun, and Orion. He lives with his family in western Oregon.
Lottie Williams is a part-time MA student in Creative Writing (Swansea University), and a full-time mum. Alongside spoken word and a number of published poems, flash fiction, articles and reviews, she has featured on the YouTube channel Just Another Poet.
Leanne Wood is co-director of Community Energy Wales, a not for profit membership organisation that has been set up to provide assistance and a voice to community groups working on energy projects in Wales. he has held many roles in political life including local councillor, MS for the Rhondda and leader of Plaid Cymru. She was the first woman to represent the Rhondda and the first woman to lead Plaid Cymru.
Modron Magazine 