Anthony Shapland is an artist, writer and curator from south Wales. He grew up in Bargoed and was the first of his family to go to college, where he studied Fine Art. Anthony came to creative writing a little later in life after a long career in the visual arts. His debut novel, A Room Above a Shop, was published by Granta in 2025.
We caught up with Anthony at Tŷ Newydd, where he was tutoring a fiction course for emerging writers alongside Francesca Reece, to find out how the support, mentoring, and peer networks offered by Literature Wales have shaped his journey over recent years.