Owen Sheers

Owen Sheers is a poet, author, playwright and presenter. His books of poetry include Skirrid Hill, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, and the verse drama Pink Mist, chosen as a Guardian top ten play of the year and winner of the Hay Festival Poetry Medal and Wales Book of the Year. His first novel Resistance, has been translated into 15 languages and was adapted into a film. His most recent novel, I Saw a Man was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger.

Owen’s theatrical work includes The Two Worlds of Charlie F., winner of the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, Mametz, part of the 14-18NOW commemorations of WWI and National Theatre Wales’s 72 hour The Passion.

Owen’s arts documentaries include the BBC 4 series A Poet’s Guide to Britain and The Greatest Poem of WWI: David Jones and In Parenthesis, winner of the Celtic Media best arts documentary. His BAFTA and Grierson nominated film-poem to mark the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, The Green Hollow, won three BAFTA Cymru awards. His most recent film-poem is To Provide All People (BBC 2), written to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS.

He is currently chair of Wales PEN Cymru, Professor in Creativity at Swansea University and a co-founder and trustee of the Black Mountains College Project. He lives in the Black Mountains in Wales.