The Writers of Wales Database

NISBET, ROBERT

Tiree, 9 Scarrowscant Lane, Haverfordwest SA61 1EP
Tel: 01437 763511
Email: merlin1941@btinternet.com

Short–story writer, poet and creative writing tutor. Robert taught English for 30 years in grammar and comprehensive schools and is now an associate lecturer in creative writing at University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Writer in residence, Llangatwg School, Neath, in 1999. He now has 100 short stories published. His work has appeared regularly in Planet, Anglo-Welsh Review, New Welsh Review, Cambrensis and Blue Tattoo, in American literary quarterlies like Webster Review and New England Review, on BBC Radio 4, and in translation in Germany and Romania. His book Sounds of the Town (Alun Books, 1982) was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Award in 1983. In 2007 he turned to poetry and has had work accepted by Poetry Wales, Planet, Borderlines, Roundyhouse, Cambria, The Seventh Quarry, Red Poets, Prole, Dawn, The Interpreter’s House, Obsessed with Pipework, Orbis, Other Poetry, Smiths Knoll, Weyfarers, 14, The Red Wheelbarrow and Poetry Scotland. A lifelong supporter of Haverfordwest Football Club, Robert is now their media officer.

Reviews:

"…I think of Frank O’Connor … Robert Nisbet’s work merits comparison on that level. There is the same tenderness, the same compassionate understanding. I consider him the most affecting Anglo-Welsh short story writer that we have…"
Martin Haslehurst, Anglo-Welsh Review

"…South Pembrokeshire is fortunate in having so sensitive, so dedicated and so sane a chronicler…"
Glyn Jones, BWA (Welsh Academy)

".. his short stories evoke an inner life behind their detail, thus celebrating the richness of the ordinary.."
Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature

"…(one of) the most accomplished writers of short stories in Wales today…"
Meic Stephens, Western Mail

"…There is no-one to touch him as a recorder of small-town life…"
Herbert Williams, SWAGMAG

"…He is Wales’ fictional laureate of small town life…"
Dewi Roberts, Welsh Books Council

"…Wales’ greatest contemporary exponent of the (short-story) form..."
Peter Finch, Western Mail


Selected Publications:
Dreams and Dealings (Christopher Davies, 1973)
The Rainbow’s End (Alun Books, 1979)
Sounds of the Town (Alun Books, 1982)
Downmarket (Alun Books, 1988)
The Ladybird Room (Alun Books, 1991)
Entertaining Sally Ann (Alun Books, 1997)
Downtrain (Parthian, 2004)
Merlin’s Lane (Prolebooks, 2011)

Contributed to:
Magpies: Short Stories From Wales (editor) (Gomer, 2000) 

Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:

1. Read and discuss own work
2. Writing workshops
3. Dylan Thomas’s prose