The Working Class Poet

12th July 2018.Reading time 20 minutes.

This piece first appeared on Wales Arts Review in May 2018 as part of their series on working class voices in the arts in Wales. Sophie McKeand’s two-year-tenure as Young People’s Laureate for Wales comes to an end shortly. Here in the latest instalment of the Wales Arts Review series looking at working class voices […]

I Am Taliesin

9th July 2018.Reading time 22 minutes.

I’m going to post some pieces written for other publications here over the next few weeks, so that they’re all in one place. I’m going to start with I Am Taliesin, which first appeared on the Dark Mountain blog as part of their ‘The Mythos We Live By’ series. This week we continue ‘The Mythos We […]

Focus Wales Festival Review

18th May 2017.Reading time 3 minutes.

You hustle Wrexham’s streets. Wrist encircled in colour you murmurate into the guitar strings of Heal The Last Stand as keyboards waltz with harmonies and your wine is the nectar of the gods. Folding into festival time you become moments twisting-then-unravelling across bars – into Spitbucket-sick-beats. The memory is a set-list creased in your back […]

Project Hush

6th May 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

Recently I’ve been working on Project Hush, a new site specific theatre piece by Papertrail Theatre Company. Sited at the Rhydymwyn Valley Works (an old WWII chemical weapons factory), it tells the story of the war through the eyes of a (fictional) young woman who worked at the factory. This is the Research & Development […]

Newspaper loyalty

21st April 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

Just a quick #postnewspolitics today. Taken from The Guardian. I’ve been thinking a lot about the oscillating love/hate I’ve had for The Guardian over the past few years. A decade ago I’d buy it religiously especially on Saturdays (and the Observer on Sundays). I felt a real affinity with the columnists and political writers. What […]

Getting around Cymru

31st March 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

We’re still between vans at the moment so I’ve been relying on public transport when workshopping. The train is always the best option for getting to Cardiff or Swansea from Wrexham and the direct line is pretty efficient but along the coast the service is a bit threadbare (literally some of the seats are falling […]

On living and working in Y Gogs

22nd May 2016.Reading time 5 minutes.

I’ve had a number of interesting discussions recently about Welsh art in the context of how it’s perceived by, and in relation to, England. One of the points made was that there are so many artists (across all disciplines) who are well respected in Wales yet nobody has heard of, or is interested in, […]

Empty

8th May 2016.Reading time 2 minutes.

I’ve been wary of hurtling down mountains on the bike (an Orange5 Diva Pro) since getting a bit too feisty and badly wrenching my shoulder on the uplift at Cwmdown a couple of years ago. Since then I’ve found the sprint triathlon’s swim, bike, run more appealing – until this month.

National Theatre Wales TEAM performance party

10th October 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

One of the primary reasons for applying to be on National Theatre Wales’ TEAM Panel was that I wanted to champion more NTW events happening in my hometown of Wrecsam, and across Y Gogs as a whole. Being on the Panel gives me the opportunity to voice these opinions and I’m loving being involved with […]

Hanes

19th May 2015.Reading time 1 minute.

Thanks to BlackSheep Journal for publishing my poem Hanes here.