Skip to main content

New Welsh Writing Awards: The Shortlists!


Delighted to reveal the shortlists for both categories in the New Welsh Writing Awards! Congratulations to all the shortlisted writers!

We are delighted to reveal both shortlists in the 10th edition of the New Welsh Writing Awards, championing new and unpublished writing from Wales and beyond with thanks to the generous support of philanthropic sponsors RS Powell and Bob Borzello, and prize sponsors Literature Wales and Gladstone’s Library.

Now in collaboration, with Parthian Books, this year’s awards include The Rheidol Prize for Prose with a Welsh Theme or Setting with previous winers including Jasmine Donahye, Susan Karen Burton and Eluned Gramich and new poetry writing competition The Borzello Trust Poetry Prize.

We’d like to congratulate all the shortlisted writers in this years awards!

The Rheidol Prize: for Prose with a Welsh Theme or Setting

2024 Shortlist

(In alphabetical order)

Sam Christie – The Widowmaker

Louise Denham – Hon Oedd Fy Ninas

Kevin Dyer– Elorgarreg

Sybilla Harvey – The Flattening

Natalie Ann Holborow – The Man Who Knew Things

Neil Stone – Trecco Beach Baby

Read more about the shortlisted writers.

The Borzello Trust Poetry Prize  2024 Shortlist

(In alphabetical order)

Emma Baines

Natasha Gauthier

Cerys Hughes

Lesley James

Sarah Persson

Rhian Thomas

Read more about the shortlisted poets.

Highly commended – Karen Goodwin, Kathryn Gonzales and Shelby Salerno.

Winners for both awards will be announced on the 3rd of July at Waterstones Abergavenny for a special evening celebrating the awards and the launch of the new edition of atmospheric novella The Plankton Collector by 2017 Rheidol Prize winner Cath Barton.

Judges: Gwen Davies and David Lloyd-Owen (Rheidol Prize: For Prose with a Welsh Theme or Setting)
Susie Wild and Niall Griffiths (The Borzello Trust Prize for Poetry)

Since 2015, the New Welsh Writing Awards have sought the best writing in short form (5,000 – 30,000 words) over a variety of categories. Previous winners include:

  • Tim Cooke for River, 2022
  • Jasmine Donahaye for Reading the Signs, 2021
  • Susan Karen Burton for The Transplantable Roots of Catharine Huws Nagashima, 2020
  • Peter Goulding for Slatehead:The Ascent of Britain’s Slate-climbing scene, 2019
  • JL George for The Word, 2019
  • Ed Garland for Earwitness: A Search for Sonic Understanding in Stories, 2018
  • Catherine Haines for My Oxford, 2017
  • Cath Barton for The Plankton Collector,  2017
  • Mandy Sutter for Bush Meat, 2016
  • Eluned Gramich for Woman Who Brings the Rain, 2015

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Open newslist

Guardian open up their newslist. Helpful and insightful or another step towards the takeover of less-informed citizen journalism and media cost-cutting/ job cuts? Discuss... More:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/series/open-newslist?fb=native In other media news... The Times and Sunday Times cut 150 editorial posts More:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/20/times-job-cuts?fb=native

GIG ALERT: Natalie Ann Holborow at Uplands Poetry Night, Swansea

 

BOOK REVIEW: 'It deserves to be read far more widely.'

In her engaging review essay 'Fantastical Doubles and Split Selves' in the latest issue of New Welsh Review , author of The Word, JL George, looks at responses to trauma in three recent novels including Fox Bites by Lloyd Markham . Here are three of our favourite snippets: ‘Lloyd Markham’s first full-length novel Fox Bites , set in early-2000s Zimbabwe, takes a similar tack, colliding social upheaval – as viewed through the sometimes-uncomprehending eyes of a young, neurodivergent boy – with smaller, more personal disruptions. The young protagonist, Taban, suffers bullying and isolation among his peers after his family splits apart: his aunt, uncle, and beloved cousin Caleb moving away to a farm which will later be seized during land reforms.’ ‘Taban must resist the temptation to become part of a cycle of abuse, thereby becoming a conduit for the destruction of his world. Although the stakes of the book eventually become world-threatening in the expected way of science fiction...