Editor

Tomos Owen is a PhD student at the School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University. He works on London-Welsh literary culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has published on representations of rioting in Welsh writing.

Writers

Welsh ‘lady’ Mab Jones is a "witty, relevant, modern, vibrant" (Write Angle) performance poet from Cardiff who has won numerous awards and accolades, despite suffering from Selective Mutism and once not speaking for 8 years. She has performed in the USA and Japan, headlined events all around the UK, and is a regular at festivals, spoken word nights, comedy clubs and burleque revues. Her "delightful comic verse, articulate and imaginative" (Three Weeks) will have you enthralled.

Joâo Owain Morais was born in Cardiff, despite the Portuguese name, which he owes to his paternal family. He has a BA and an MA from Aberystwyth University and is about to embark on a PHD at Cardiff. He was a runner-up in the 2009 Rhys Davies Competition.

Dylan Moore grew up near Brecon but has lived in Cardiff, where he studied English Literature and Cultural Criticism, since 1998. He teaches English at Caerleon Comprehensive School and creative writing at Newport Writers’ Academi. From 2005-7 he ran Cardiff litzine CFUK and in 2009 co-founded The Raconteur. He is a New Critic for National Theatre Wales and also writes for WalesHome.org. He enjoys travelling to new places (favourites so far include Barcelona, Venice and California), meeting new people and spending time with his son; he follows Cardiff City FC and sometimes enjoys that too.

Darja Ernst was born in 1988, in Kazakhstan, to a Russian mother and a father with German ancestry. When she was 4 years old, her parents moved to Germany, where she spent all of her childhood and youth. In 2007 she started studying English linguistics, literature and cultural studies as well as the Russian language at the University of Heidelberg. Two years later, she went to Aberystwyth University in Wales with the ERASMUS university exchange programme, where she studied English and Creative Writing. She is currently completing her B.A. degree in Germany.

Richard Owain Roberts is a native of Sir Fon.  Having lived in Manchester, England, he now lives in Cardiff. He was awarded a Distinction for his Creative Writing MA, and has short stories published in print and across the internet. He will write you a short story for 1GBP/1USD per 2.5 words (up to 1500 words) and is currently writing a novel.

Alan Kellermann, born in Wisconsin (USA), is working towards a PhD at Swansea University in Swansea, Wales, where he is also poetry editor for the Swansea Review. His work has most recently appeared in Planet, The Seventh Quarry and Poetry Ireland Review.

Gareth Hill studied for a BA in American Studies at Liverpool Hope University, becoming a disciple of Hemmingway, Carver and Cheever. He then spent a year in the USA, studying at the University of Rhode Island and undertaking a Kerouac inspired journey across thirty of the fifty states during the summer of ‘95. Another eight months travelling through Australia fuelled his ambition to write even further, tempered only by the need to make a living. He has worked variously as a cleaner, sausage batterer, sales rep, account manager, sandwich maker and chauffeur. In 2003 Gareth won the Speakeasy Short Fiction Prize and in 2009 graduated with distinction from the MA Creative & Media Writing Course at Swansea University. Five Past Twelve is his first published short story. 

Gary Ramond is on the verge of starting his PhD studies later in 2011 on the works and influence of Saul Bellow. He have written prose, poetry, for page and for performance; his last play, The Requiem Average, was produced in May 2010. As an undergraduate he studied history, and co-founded the literary magazine The Raconteur. He is currently working on his second novel.

Mao Jones (A.K.A Michael A Oliver) is an ex-banker come poet. After his first publication in Parthian's Nu:Fiction and Stuff he has published in a plethora of journals and anthologies worldwide and become the first Poet-in-Residence for the Welsh arts magazine Blown. Mao is a keen stage performer and has read live at various venues across England and Wales. He co-wrote and performed in the sell out show ‘Four Readings and a Funeral’ with his sister, John Tripp Award Winner Mab Jones. In 2010, Mao created and conducted the world’s first international poetry orchestra which performed in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Russian to celebrate the opening of his first poetry-to-painting collaboration, A Kind of Rubaiyat, with the artist Jemma Bailey. He currently commutes between Wales and Krasnoyarsk Siberia, where he lives part of the year with his wife Anastasia Semenova.

Siôn Tomos Owen earned a Foundation Degree in Art Design Technology, specializing in Illustration, at GCADT at Glamorgan University as well as a joint Creative Writing and Media Studies degree from Trinity College Carmarthen. He currently works as an estimator for an aluminum louver company and meets with a bunch of boys every other week for a writing workshop to keep the creative juices flowing. He is also the lead singer and guitarist in a band, The Pine Barons. Last year he was runner-up in the Welsh young writer’s competition 2008.

Emily Blewitt was born in Carmarthen in 1986.  She read English Language and  Literature at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and has an MA in Film and Literature  from the University of York. She has participated in poetry workshops run by Saskia Hamilton, and has published work in Brittle Star, Pomegranate, Cadaverine and The Guardian, among others. Currently she works for the University of Wales, and is also studying part-time for a PhD at Cardiff University.  Her research interest is the literary representations of pregnancy by women writers, from the 19th century to the present day.

Susie Wild is Associate Editor of literary journal The Raconteur and one of Parthian's Bright Young Things. Her first book The Art of Contraception won Fiction Book of the Year in the Welsh Icons Awards 2010 and was long-listed for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2011. Her Kindle ebook novella Arrivals came out globally in May 2011. Literature Wales recently awarded Susie a Writer's Bursary to continue work on her second book, a novel. She likes Old Man Pubs, patterned tights, and avocados.