Wales Book of the Year Focus: Katrina Moinet
Ask the Author: Katrina Moinet
When did you first realise that you wanted to be an author?
Growing up in Wales gifted me a love of languages. Writing was ever-present but as a personal vehicle for processing emotion or navigating the world. Later, any latent desire to become an author transformed into language studies and travel, gathering experiences.
Being furloughed in 2020, brought into sharp focus the realisation we get one life and to fill it with what you love. I discovered creative writing and went back to study an M.A. which brought me the confidence to call myself a poet, a writer. That’s when I began to visualise my writing as publishable in a single-authored collection.
What inspires you?
The news, politics, social shifts, injustice, off-the-cuff phrases, music lyrics, birth, grief, menopause. We’re surrounded by words, wordplay, and I love the musicality and rhythms that pop and burst out from the everyday.
Who’s your hero and why?
There are so many unseen heroes in life, people who perform tiny daily miracles. My mum who was a carer for my grandma is the person I admire most, who has taught me all I know about resilience.
And resilience is something every writer needs in bucketloads!
Your favourite place on earth and why?
I’ve been lucky to see a lot of the world. As exciting and beautiful as those adventures were, it’s the people who stay memorable.
What are you currently reading?
Poetry: Naming the Trees by Ness Owen (Arachne) & Bradley Taylor’s You Missed The Best Part (Verve). And just finished Hollie McNish’s brilliant Lobster.
Prose: Gwenno Gwilym’s V + Fo & Tom Bullough’s Sarn Helen.
What inspired the idea for your book?
What encouraged me to bring together these particular poems was the kind of conversations that opened up each time I shared or performed poems with stronger themes – how being brave as a poet and giving voice to what was messy and bodily in my own life can help others find their voice.
Will you read a piece from it please?!
Who should read your book and why?
Poetry lovers, poetry sceptics, feminists, everyone!
Poetry – like art – can be thought-provoking beyond the author’s original intention. Words get under our skin, and that’s exactly what I love about language.
How does it feel to have reached the WBOTY 2025 Shortlist?
Utterly astonishing! I am delighted my writing and themes resonated with the judges. It’s an absolute thrill to have my little debut pamphlet rubbing shoulders with contemporary poets I’ve admired and collections I adore like Kandace Siobhan Walker’s Cowboy. This is a writing dream come true!
Do you have any other work/events in the works?
My Hedgehog Press prizewinning pamphlet The Art of Silence is out this year. I am delighted to also announce a third pamphlet forthcoming with Atomic Bohemian.
I’ll be reading from my shortlisted collection and newer work at Aberystwyth Poetry Festival in June, Gwyl Ysgrifennu Môn in October, and Versify regular open mic at Blue Sky Café, Bangor.
In the words of the judges…
Praise for Portrait of a Young Girl Falling
