Gareth Evans-Jones comes from Traeth Bychan near Marian-glas, Anglesey. He graduated in Welsh and Religious Studies from Bangor University in 2012 before following an MA course in Welsh and Creative Writing. He completed a PhD, funded by the AHRC in 2017, and the work focused on the religious responses of the Welsh in America to 19th century slavery. He is now a lecturer in Philosophy and Religion at Bangor University. He published his first novel, Eira Llwyd (Gwasg y Bwthyn), in 2018, and has published short stories, flash fiction and poetry in various volumes and journals. He published his second novel, Y Cylch (Gwasg y Bwthyn) in 2023, and a volume of flash fiction and photographs, Cylchu Cymru (Y Lolfa) in 2022 which was fortunate to win the Creative Nonfiction category Book of the Year 2023. He edited the first LGBTQ+ anthology of Welsh literature, Curiadau, which was published by Barddas in 2023. In 2024, his first volume of short stories for children, Llanddafad (Y Lolfa) will be published.
He has won a few awards for his creative work including the Anglesey Eisteddfod Crown 2016 and Anglesey Eisteddfod Prose Medal 2019, the Intercollegiate Eisteddfod Drama Medals 2012, the Welsh Drama Society Medals (2010 and 2012), and the Conwy County National Eisteddfod 2019 and AmGen National Eisteddfod 2021 Playwright Medals. The Eisteddfod 2019 winning play, Adar Papur, was produced by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru in 2020. In addition, he received the Welsh Literature New Writer’s Scholarship in 2017 for a fantasy novel.
He scripted the Ynys Alys which toured Wales in 2022 with Frân Wen and has collaborated with theatre companies in India and England. In addition, he was part of a collaborative project in 2023 with Literature Across Frontiers where he and two other poets wrote about migration and translated each other’s works into Czech, Armenian, Polish, Welsh and English.
And in 2022, he published his first academic volume, which was an adaptation of his doctoral thesis, ‘Mae’r Beibl on tu’: ymatebion crefyddol y Cymry yn America i gaethwasiaeth (1838-1868) (University of Wales Press), which was very fortunate to be given the Sir Ellis Griffiths Memorial Award in autumn 2023.
