Wales Book of the Year Focus: Stevie Davies
Ask the Author: Stevie Davies
When did you first realise that you wanted to be an author?
I started writing stories at the age of 5 or 6, more or less the age when an intuitive feminism kicked in: I saw the way the world was organised along gender lines and felt compelled to argue with it. My earliest works included an illustrated tale set in the Second World War in which a group of Nazis gunned down everyone in sight, including one another – at which point the story found its natural terminus. In my teens I began to write poetry: I am a failed poet.
What inspires you?
Poetry. Feminism. The Peace Movement. Loving friendships. Greenness.
Who’s your hero and why?
I distrust the idea of heroism but am forever grateful to Aneurin Bevan, Ernest Bevin and Clem Attlee who created the Welfare State, in which the child of parents who’d left school at 14 received free education until the age of 22, free spectacles, NHS care.
Your favourite place on earth and why?
It would have to be Rotherslade Beach when the tide is in and the sea tranquil. And conversely when the tide is out and the sea is stormy.
What are you currently reading?
Rereading for the n’th time Muriel Spark’s Loitering With Intent. Dates of readings are inscribed on the front page, the last being: ‘October 2024 – & yet again the Spark lights the wakeful nights.’
What inspired the idea for your book?
My Air Force childhood was spent constantly on the move (Egypt, Cornwall, Scotland, Germany), attending 16 different schools, never belonging. Only later did realisation dawn that my little life had coincided with moments in the great sweep of history and might yield insights into the world we have inherited.
Who should read your book and why?
Any reader interested in the complexities of World War II and our contemporary geopolitical conflicts, who is willing to think and feel outside the box.
How does it feel to have reached the WBOTY 2025 Shortlist?
It’s an immense honour and joy. At the same time there’s an all-too-familiar feeling of imposter syndrome.
Do you have any other work/events in the works?
A lot goes on in a writer’s private world unseen in public, but vital. I write and illustrate stories for my grandchildren, based on the eccentric characters of their cuddly toys. Handwriting letters to dear friends. Keeping my ‘Commonplace Book’ up to date (a handwritten record of every book I have read since January 1981, with comments and quotations).
In the words of the judges…
