19th July, 2013

Clueless Dogs by Rhian Edwards named Wales Book of the Year 2013

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Rhian Edwards’ Clueless Dogs is named Wales book of the year 2013. Rhian claimed the Roland Mathias Prize for Poetry ahead of fellow Seren author, Deryn Rees-Jones, (Burying the Wren) and Picador’s Samantha Wynn-Rhydderch (Banjo), before going on to be named as Winner of Wales Book of the Year 2013. Rhian also scooped the Peoples Choice Award at the awards ceremony held at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
The Wales Book of the Year is awarded annually to the best Welsh and English-language works of literary criticism across three categories: Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction. The winner of each category receives £2000 and goes forward to be considered for the Wales Book of the Year Award, with the overall winner receiving a further £6000.
The poems chronicle a fraught childhood in Bridgend, teenage lusts, student rivalries, damaged peers and tense situations. Although Clueless Dogs is Edwards’ first collection, it has been highly praised and was the Winner of the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry 2011/12. It was also on the 2012 shortlist for the Forward Felix Dennis Prize for best first collection.
Those dogs aren’t so clueless after all!