Writing
I became a full-time writer in 2017, following a long career as a film maker in documentary and drama (BAFTA Cymru Awards, Oscar Foreign-language entrant et al). A Writer’s Bursary from Literature Wales helped me complete my collection of 26 short stories set in Wales, Northern Ireland and Italy: A City Burning was published by Seren Books in 2020. It has been longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2021. You might like to read one of the stories, All Through The Night in Crannog . It was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2019. Geraint Lewis reads from it here:
A SIAP Award 2020 – 21 from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland supported the creation of my collection of poetry on the theme of Sanctuary. Seren Books published this on 30th May 2022 as Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere.
Reviews of both books can be found via the links to the Seren Books website.
August 2024 will bring, STAR: Poems for the Christmas Season, a 56-page collection of 32 poems, with illustrations by Martin Erspamer, published by Culture And Democracy Press.
Another SIAP Award 2019 – 20 supported my prose and poetry exploration of Place and Displacement in Northern Ireland. Poems from this have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, The Bangor Literary Journal, CAP Arts Anthology and The Interpreter’s House. I hope this will be my next published work before too long!
I won First Prize for Poetry in the inaugural Linen Hall Ulster-Scots Writing Competition 2021 and have poetry in Yarns, an anthology of Ulster-Scots Writing 2021, 2022, 2023. A half-hour documentary about my work was broadcast in the tv series A Mighty Mallet 2023 and I feature in Northern Ireland Screen’s new archive of writers in Ulster-Scots. Double Band’s hour-long BBC documentary on women writing in the Ulster-Scots tradition, Out Of The Silence, includes an interview with me; due for broadcast early 2025.
A SIAP Award in 2017/18 helped to develop my novel Thorn which is about the politics of language (Irish and Ulster-Scots) in contemporary Northern Ireland.
I was Libraries Wales Writer of the Month, December 2022; the Scots Language Centre’s Makar o the Month for February 2024 and will again be Libraries Wales Writer of the Month for December 2024.
Since 2018 my poetry has been widely published, for instance in The Honest Ulsterman, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Open Ear, Infinite Rust, The Ogham Stone, The Interpreter’s House, Black Bough Poems, The Lonely Crowd, New City and the special issue of The North, 2019 devoted to contemporary Irish Poetry. Also in the CAP Arts anthology Vision: 2020 and 2024 drawn from entries to the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, and in anthologies by Dedalus Press, Arachne Press, Parthian Books and 3 volumes of Arlen House’s Washing Windows series of Irish women’s poetry.
Also in the anthology Places of Poetry; The Stony Thursday Book 2020; Black Bough’s anthologies Vol 2 Deeptime; Freedom/Rapture; and Christmas/Winter Anthology 2021, 2022, 2023. I was Black Bough’s featured poet of the month January 2021. I contributed to the composite poem Litany For Ireland for Poetry Day Ireland and to Carl Griffin’s curated poem Arrival At Elsewhere and been featured in the online anthology A Plague of Poems.
My poem, The Irish Civil War was featured in the Poetry As Commemoration Poetry Jukebox on Derry’s walls, 2023 and 2 other poems are in the project (see link).
I am also a journalist and reviewer. I have a project on Fiction in Wales and Northern Ireland at the University of South Wales.
Writing
Television
In November 2022 I was awarded an Honorary Life Fellowship by the Institute of Welsh Affairs for the work I have done on media policy development for Wales.
I am an award-winning producer in documentary and cinema and a BAFTA Cymru nominee for screenwriting and production. Having begun my career in ITV Wales, I spent eight years as a producer at one of Britain’s rare production co-operatives, the phenomenal Teliesyn. I’ve enjoyed making more than 100 documentaries and factual programmes for BBC, ITV, S4C and Channel 4, including The Story of Wales. This landmark BBC history of the nation, presented by Huw Edwards won 2 BAFTA Cymru Awards. It is currently on the BBC iPlayer here.
I was producer and co-screenwriter of the feature film Branwen, an entry from Wales to the Foreign-language category of the Oscars and Best Film at the Celtic Media Awards. It earned 6 BAFTA Cymru nominations, including Best Film and Best Screenwriter. I was screenwriter on projects set in Italy, Romania and Ireland.
I was a lecturer in Documentary Practice at Cardiff University for five years. I have had a career-long interest in media politics, chairing the Media Policy Group of the Institute of Welsh Affairs. I am a trainer for CULT Cymru of professionals belonging to the Creative Unions: Equity, Prospect/BECTU, Writers’ Guild and Musicians’ Union.
Television
Radio
I was shortlisted for the Jerusalem Award for Radio in 2012. I contribute regularly to BBC Radio Wales as a writer and interviewee. I presented a highly regarded documentary for BBC Wales to commemorate the centenary of World War 1, Of Mourning and Memory. I have contributed to many radio programmes.
