Writers At Work
7 June 2023
Three creative writing talents from who have studied with the School of English, Communication and Philosophy are among the ten writers selected for this year’s Writers At Work project at Hay Festival.
Cardiff alumni Sophie Buchaillard, Taz Rahman and Louise Mumford join fellow writers in the 2023 creative development programme for emerging Welsh talent, supported by Literature Wales and funded by Arts Council of Wales.
Writers at Work allows the selected writers to engage in the main events of the celebrated literary festival, attending masterclasses and workshops with publishers, agents and established international artists across the week.
Participants to date have achieved a spread of award wins and shortlistings, including the International Dylan Thomas Prize, Wales Book of the Year, The New Welsh Writing Award, the Wasafiri New Writing Prize, Wales Media Award, Welsh Rising Star Award, and Creative Wales Award.
Sophie Buchaillard (Creative Writing, PhD current, MA 2021)
A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Sophie is passionate about empowering others to write and writes about identity, movement and migration. Her debut novel This Is Not Who We Are (Seren Books, 2022) has been shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award and the Wales Book of the Year 2023.
Louise Mumford (English Literature, BA 2001)
Co-chair of Crime Cymru, a co-operative of crime fiction writers with a connection to Wales, Louise is part of the team behind the first ever international crime fiction festival in Wales, Gŵyl Crime Cymru Festival. Her 2020 debut Sleepless, inspired by her own experience of insomnia, reached the UK Kindle Chart Top 50. The Safe House followed in 2022, with The Hotel dueout this summer.
Taz Rahman (Philosophy, BA 1996; Ethics & Social Philosophy, MA 2009)
Taz founded Wales’ first Youtube poetry channel Just Another Poet to increase visibility of Welsh poets in 2019. He is part of the editorial team for the climate emergency literary magazine Modron and serves as the committee chair of Poetry Wales. His first poetry collection is out with Seren Books this year.
Hay Festival 2023 runs from 25 May – 4 June.