Awards and Prizes

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Katrina Naomi awarded Arthur Welton Award

Photo of Katrina Naomi wearing a blue floral top. Her hair is styled in a 1950s updo with pink flowers pinned above her left ear.

Seren poet Katrina Naomi has been awarded an Arthur Welton Award to support her forthcoming collection Battery Rocks. Awarded through the Society of Authors, the award is one of several grants available to writers through the Society of Authors Author’s Foundation for works in progress, and is awarded in memory of 20th Century poet and philanthropist Arthur Welton.

Battery Rock’s is Katrina Naomi’s fourth full collection of poetry and is due for publication on 8th July 2024. In the meantime, why not read Katrina’s previous collection Wild Persistence?

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Paul Henry wins the English Language Poetry Category at Wales Book of the Year 2023

Left: Paul Henry. Right: Image of the cover of As If To Sing

Congratulations to Paul Henry who won the English Language Poetry Category at Wales Book of the Year 2023 for his collection As If To Sing.

As If To Sing is Paul Henry’s eleventh collection. The power of song to sustain the human spirit resonates through the collection, which is rich in the musical lyricism admired by Paul’s readers and fellow poets. An essential addition to his compelling body of work, it is a deserved winner of this year’s Poetry Category award.

Wales Book of the Year is run by Literature Wales, and celebrates outstanding literary talent from Wales across many genres and in both English and Welsh. There are four categories in each language – Poetry, Fiction, Creative Non-fiction and Children & Young People, with one of the four category winners announced as the Overall Winner, and claiming the title Wales Book of the Year. This year the overall award went to Caryl Lewis for her novel Drift.

You can view the full list of winners from all categories in both language on the Literature Wales website.

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Friday Poem – ‘Cei Newydd’ by Paul Henry

Photo of a small wooden rowing boat drifting along in blue-grey waters.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Cei Newydd’ by Paul Henry from his Wales Book of the Year shortlisted collection As If To Sing.

Cei Newydd We drifted out one afternoon on a dinghy’s water-bed, woke to no sight of the shore. We had not been born. A panic of oars scratched the wilderness and the harbour came back to us, our mothers on the pier. The salt on the fishing nets tasted the same. Soon, Brown Helen, we shall drift out again.

Voting is now open for the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. Vote for your favourite book on this year’s shortlist via the Wales Arts Review website.

Vote now

Click below or scan the QR code to preview the first 15 pages of As If To Sing

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Tony Curtis shortlisted for the Paul Torday Memorial Prize

Photo of Tony Curtis alongside an image of the cover for Darkness in the City of Light

Tony Curtis has been shortlisted for The Society of Authors Paul Torday Memorial Prize with his debut novel Darkness in the City of Light.

The Paul Torday Memorial Prize is awarded annually to the best debut novel by an author over the age of 60. This year’s stellar shortlist includes five debut novels including Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and Murder at Evensong by Reverend Richard Coles. Judge Kathy O’Shaughnessy commented, “…the novels on this shortlist were wonderfully varied. It was a pleasure to see such excellent writing… Each book showed a true writer’s commitment to making the subject come alive, and compellingly pulled this reader forward.”

Darkness in the City of Light is one of two novels on the shortlist published by an independent publisher and the only published by a publisher in Wales. The full shortlist is:

  • Tony Curtis for Darkness in the City of Light (Seren)
  • Jonathan Franklin for Red Road Green (Sparsile Books Ltd)
  • Bonnie Garmus for Lessons in Chemistry (Doubleday, Penguin Random House)
  • Julie Owen Moylan for That Green Eyed Girl (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House)
  • Reverend Richard Coles for Murder Before Evensong (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)

The winner will be announced on the 29th June at Southwark Cathedral in a ceremony celebrating all of the Society of Authors Awards. The ceremony can be watched online for free, or you can purchase tickets to attend in person.

You can view the full shortlists for all of The Society of Authors Awards on their website.