Gemma June Howell

Gemma June Howell is a multi-faceted writer, poet, activist, academic and editor at Honno, Welsh Women’s Press. She has performed at various events and festivals, notably The Merthyr Rising and the Morecambe Poetry Festival 2023. As Director of Women Publishing Wales – Menywod Cyhoeddi Cymru, Gemma is committed to providing a space to empower women in the publishing sector in Wales. As Associate Editor at Culture Matters, she edited the ground-breaking, Land of Change: Stories of Struggle & Solidarity from Wales (2022). Co-founder of the Cardiff Sisters of Solidarity, she co-organised the Sister March in Cardiff (2017) and is an advocate for representation and social equality in politics, publishing and the arts. Her work has mainly appeared in the Red Poets, with her dialect poetry featuring in ‘Yer Ower Voices’ (2023). Her work has also been published by Bloodaxe Books (2015), The London Magazine (2020) and she featured on Tongue & Talk for BBC R4 (2021). Gemma has published a volume of poetry, Rock Life (2014) and a collection of short stories Inside the Treacle Well with Hafan Books (2009). In 2023 she was awarded a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing which consisted of a hybrid novel featuring concrete poetry. An emancipatory undertaking, her research is focused on the disparities between social ontology and historical realism from a proletarian, feminist standpoint. Gemma has recently conducted university workshops delving into issues related to epistemic injustice and uncovering new creative spaces and voices in literature and art. Her work, often described as transgressional fiction, delves into the complexities of working-class identity in post-industrial Britain, leaving an indelible mark on both the literary and grass-roots activist spheres.

Photo credit: Gabriella Marie Lewis