New Welsh Writing Awards 2019 winner Peter Goulding writes, with humour and warmth, in his essay 'On Slate', about a group of north-western English punks who escaped the 80s recession to claim dole in Llanberis and climb the rock faces of former slate quarries. Richard John Parfitt's third-placed essay, 'Tales from the Riverbank', captures the cultural zeitgeist centred on Newport's Town Bridge and the legendary music venue TJs, which played host in the 90s to Kurt Cobain. A Carmarthenshire family business is the focus of Elizabeth Griffiths' (highly commended) memoir, 'Abel Thomas and Sons Butter Merchants Ltd', in which affection for her grandfather is balanced with notions of belonging and community gleaned from DJ Williams' Hen Dy Ffarm/The Old Farmhouse. Second-placed Sarah Tanburn's novella extract, 'Hawks of Dust and Wine', evokes a future independent Wales with cosmopolitan links to North Africa and its own sensuous, powerful world of female hawk-trainers. Plus preview novel by the prizewinning Robert Minhinnick, and collaborative team DK Fields explores democracy and power in writing their political fantasy trilogy, Tales of Fenest.
Peter Goulding lives in Norfolk. Richard J Parfitt is a former member of the band, 60 ft Dolls, grew up in Newport and now teaches at Hereford Colege of Arts. Sarah Tanburn lives in Penarth. Elizabeth Griffiths lives in Lincolnshire but has family links to St David's, Pembrokeshire. Mark Blayney lives in Cardiff, as does DK Fields.
Gwen Davies' third novel translation from Welsh, The Jeweller by Caryl Lewis, will be published in September 2019 by Honno. She has edited New Welsh Review since 2011, is a former Arts Council of Wales Literature Officer, founded Alcemi press at Y Lolfa and was Chair and a member of Literature Wales' writers' bursaries panel for seven years as well as representing literature for the Arts Council of Wales cross-artform Creative Wales Awards for four years. She continues to mentor writers for Literature Wales and work in a freelance capacity as creative editor and copy-editor for a range of publishers and authors. Her latest short translation is 'Tan Tro Nesaf', a prose piece set in Patagonia by Gareth Alban Davies, https://vimeo.com/319790172. Gwen lives in Aberystwyth.