Representing Wales 2025-2026: Mentors

Photo: Steve Bliss

Alys Conran writes novels, short stories, poetry, creative essays and literary translations. Her first novel Pigeon (Parthian Books, 2016) was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and won Wales Book of the Year – for which her second novel, Dignity (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2019) was also shortlisted. She was Hay Festival International Fellow for 2019-20, appearing at festivals worldwide, and was on the National Centre for Writing & British Council's International Literature Showcase 2020, named as one of 'ten writers who shape our future’. Her fiction has been dramatized on radio (BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio Cymru) has been animated, been made into a nationally touring stage production, and is currently in development as a film. Pigeon is also now on the GCSE English Syllabus (WJEC). She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bangor.

Website: https://www.alysconran.com/
Instagram: @alysconran

Bethan Gwanas is the author of more than 50 popular books. Her first novel Amdani! was adapted as a television series and a stage play; she won the Tir na n-Og Award in 2001 (Llinyn Trôns) and 2003 (Sgôr) and the T Llew Jones Memorial Award for Gwylliaid. Her novel Hi yw Fy Ffrind was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award. Her books for Welsh language learners, the Bywyd Blodwen Jones trilogy and Yn ei Gwsg continue to sell well.

She was an editor with Gwasg Gwynedd for many years; one of the books published by the press was Awst yn Anogia by the late Gareth F. Williams won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2015.

In 2024 Bethan received the Mary Vaughan Jones Award, the highest accolade in children’s literature in Wales, to celebrate her outstanding contribution to literature for children and young people.

She lives near Dolgellau and enjoys cycling.

Instagram: @bethangwanas

Duke Al is an award-winning spoken word artist, author, and creative practitioner. Writing rhymes is his therapy. From a young age, he would scribble raps and poems in his old lyric book. It was his way of expressing himself; an escapism to challenge his OCD. A passion of words, flow and rhyme flared. After being diagnosed with type1 diabetes at 23, the pen became even more vital, helping him process and articulate his emotions.

Now, Duke Al uses his craft to create impactful change, one rhyme at a time. His latest collection Imagine We Trade Bodies with Sheep is out now. His work has been featured in Go.Compare Six Nations 2025, FAW, Cardiff Rugby, Creative Cardiff, TNT Sports, BBC Wales, FujiFilm UK, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Arts For Health and Wellbeing and BBC Scrum V for The Six Nations 2022.

'Sensational' John Cooper Clarke on Duke Al.

Website: https://www.dukeal.com/
Instagram: @dukealdurham

Photo: Celf Calon

Fflur Dafydd is a scriptwriter and author who has published 10 volumes of prose. She has won two of the National Eisteddfod’s major prizes - the Literature Medal in 2006 for her novel Atyniad, and the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize in 2009 for her novel Y Llyfrgell. She has also been nominated for several BAFTA Cymru awards for her television work. She works in both Welsh and English, across several genres. Her latest books are Lloerganiadau (Y Lolfa, 2020) The Library Suicides and The House of Water (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023 & 2025). Her scriptwriting work includes the feature film Y Llyfrgell for BBC Films, several television series including Parch, Yr Amgueddfa, 35 Awr and 35 Diwrnod for S4C, Trigger Point for ITV and the drama series Mothercover for BBC Radio 4.

Website: https://www.fflurdafydd.com/
Instagram: @fflur_dafydd

Photo: Jonathan Ryder

Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024 and Scribner (US) in July 2024. Her writing has been aired on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 and RTE. She is the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast 2025 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit was produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between is forthcoming in early 2026.

Website: https://www.jancarson.co.uk/
Instagram: @jancarsonstories

Photo: Creative Cardiff

Jannat Ahmed is co-founder and editor of Lucent Dreaming press and magazine, based in Cardiff. She is an occasional writer and illustrator, and has been published by Poetry Wales, Poetry Birmingham, Poetry London and Poetry Review. She is a Cardiff University MA English Literature graduate. 

Website: https://jannatahmed.com/

Jonathan Edwards’s first collection of poems, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2019. He received the Troubadour Prize in 2022. He has been a judge for the National Poetry Competition and the Wales Book of the Year Award, and writer-in-residence at Gladstone's Library and at the Dylan Thomas Boathouse, Laugharne. Jonathan lives in Crosskeys, south Wales, and is a Royal Literary Fund Advisory Fellow.

Kirsty Logan’s latest books are the story collection No & Other Love Stories and the memoir The Unfamiliar: A Queer Motherhood Memoir. She is also the author of three novels, three story collections, two chapbooks, a 10-hour audio play for Audible, several collaborative projects with musicians and visual artists, and around 300 short stories. Her books have won the Lambda, Polari, Saboteur, Scott and Gavin Wallace awards. Her work has been optioned for TV, developed for film, adapted for stage, recorded for radio and podcasts, exhibited in galleries and distributed from a vintage Wurlitzer cigarette machine. She is currently collaborating on several projects across film, TV, collaborative chapbooks, and performance.

Website: https://www.kirstylogan.com/
Instagram: @kirstylogan

Without a doubt, Llwyd Owen is the best author who lives in his family home (subject to change). A long time ago, he was the enfant terrible of Welsh literature. His first novel, Ffawd Cywilydd a Chelwyddau, came close to winning the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize at the 2005 National Eisteddfod, failing to take the top spot because the work went “beyond normal publishing limits”; something that fills him with pride to this day. Since then, Llwyd has published fifteen novels, including eight in the Gerddi Hwyan crime series, that tell the tall tales of police officers and villains in the imaginary town in the south Wales valleys, which was described by one reviewer as “Cwmderi on crack”. His second novel, Ffydd Gobaith Cariad, won the Wales Book of the Year award in 2007, while Iaith y Nefoedd, a co-production with the band, Yr Ods, reached the shortlist in 2019. Y Lolfa has published all of his novels, including the latest, Bechgyn Drwg am Byth.

Instagram: @llwyd_owen

Photo: Robin Edwards

Manon Steffan Ros is an author, scriptwriter and columnist who has published more than forty books. Her work has won the Wales Book of the Year Award, the Tir na n-Og Award, the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing and the Literature Medal at the National Eisteddfod.

Instagram: @manonsteffanros

Photo: Kristina Bursać

Rachel Trezise is a novelist and playwright from the Rhondda Valley. Her debut novel In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl (Parthian, 2000) won a place on the Orange Futures List in 2002. In 2006 her first short fiction collection Fresh Apples (Parthian, 2005) won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second short fiction collection Cosmic Latte (Parthian, 2013) won the Edge Hill Prize Readers Award in 2014. Her most recent play ‘Cotton Fingers’ toured Ireland and Wales and won the Summerhall Lustrum Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. Her most recent work is a novel; Easy Meat (Parthian, 2021).

Instagram: @racheltrezise

Taz Rahman was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024, and his Laurel Prize 2024 longlisted first poetry collection East of the Sun, West of the Moon was published by Seren. He was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award in 2022 and has been widely published in UK poetry magazines and anthologies.

He is the committee chair of the poetry magazine Poetry Wales, an editor of the climate emergency-themed literary journal Modron, a director of Seren Books as well as serving as a critical friend on diversity and inclusion for the Books Council of Wales. He founded the multi award-winning Youtube poetry channel ‘Just Another Poet’ in 2019 to widen digital access to contemporary poetry and poets.

He was selected for the inaugural Representing Wales annual writer development programme in 2021 by Literature Wales and for the Hay Festival Writers at Work programme in 2023.

Website: www.tazrahmanpoet.com

Instagram: @tazphotopoetry
X: @amonochromdream

Photo: Katherine Barnes

Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and facilitator based in Bristol. She has won over ten poetry slam titles and performed nationally and internationally. She has worked with the BBC, the British Library, the Tate, Royal Academy of Arts, Bristol Old Vic, CILIP and Glastonbury Festival. She was the Bristol City Poet for 2018 - 2020 and her poem on the toppling of Edward Colston's statue ‘Hollow' garnered over 700,000 views and is frequently used as a resource in schools and universities. She wrote and presented ‘The Poetry Detective’ for BBC Radio 4 and has two collections with Burning Eye Books. Her poetry has been anthologised widely, including in the Forward Poetry Prize Anthology 2019. She is the co-tutor for the Southbank New Poets Collective alongside Will Harris and was a judge for the Forward Prizes and the Foyle Young Poets in 2024. Neverland is her debut non-fiction book.

Website: https://www.vanessakisuule.com/
Instagram: @vanessa_kisuules_evil_twin

Photo: Kate Sweeney

Dr. Zoë Brigley is a Welsh American poet, essayist, editor, and curator whose work spans poetry, translation, nonfiction, and interdisciplinary art. Her three full-length poetry collections - Hand & Skull, Conquest, and The Secret published by Bloodaxe - have all been named UK Poetry Book Society Recommendations. She received an Eric Gregory Award for outstanding British poets under 30, was longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and was commended by the Forward Prizes. In 2024, she was selected for the Hay Festival’s Writers at Work fellowship to develop her fiction, following the publication of her first short story in Waxwing. Her writing appears in publications such as Australian Book Review, Chicago Review, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Poetry Ireland Review, Orion, Poetry Review, PN Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Copper Nickel, and Waxwing. Brigley’s nonfiction book, Notes from a Swing State: Writing from Wales and America (Parthian 2019), explores her transatlantic identity and considers themes of nationalism, gender, belonging, and motherhood across differing political climates. 

Website: https://zoebrigley.com/
Instagram: @zbtusa