Owen Sheers | |
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 Sheers in 2014 | |
| Born | 20 September 1974 Suva, Fiji |
| Occupation | Poet, author, playwright, TV presenter |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Alma mater | New College, Oxford; University of East Anglia |
| Period | 1999–present |
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| Notable awards |
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| Website | |
| www | |
Owen Sheers FRSL (born 20 September 1974) is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter. [1] He was the first writer-in-residence to be appointed by any national rugby union team.
Owen Sheers was born in Suva, Fiji, and was brought up in Abergavenny, south Wales. He went to school at King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, before studying at New College, Oxford, and the University of East Anglia, at which point he completed an MA in Creative Writing. [2] During his time at New College, Sheers captained the Oxford University Modern Pentathlon team.
In 1999, Sheers received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. His first collection of poetry, The Blue Book, was published by Seren in 2000. A collection of poems about family, first love and farming life, it was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and the Forward Prize for "Best First Collection". Following this first publication, Sheers worked on the light entertainment television show The Big Breakfast as a researcher. [3] His debut prose work, The Dust Diaries, was published by Faber in 2004. A non-fiction narrative set in Zimbabwe following the travels of Sheers' great-great-uncle, Arthur Shearly Cripps, it won the Wales Book of the Year in 2005, and was also shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize.
In 2004, Sheers was Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and was selected as one of the Poetry Book Society's 20 Next Generation Poets. His second collection of poetry, Skirrid Hill (Seren, 2005), won a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award. Unicorns, almost, his one-man play based on the life and poetry of the WWII poet Keith Douglas, was developed by the Old Vic, New Voices, and performed by Joseph Fiennes.
Sheers' first novel, Resistance , has been translated into ten languages and was short listed for the Writer's Guild of Great Britain Best Book Award 2008 and won a 2008 Hospital Club Creative Award. The novel imagines that the D-day landings have failed and Wales has been occupied by the Nazis. While working as a tiler in the South Wales valleys one summer, Sheers had heard about the Auxiliary Units-secret civilian networks that, in the event of an invasion, would have formed a British resistance, but the novel focuses not on fighting "but on the uneasy means of survival open to the women who are left behind". The film of the novel, which Sheers co-wrote, was released in autumn 2011 and starred Andrea Riseborough. Sheers insisted that the film be shot in and around the Black Mountains. [3]
In 2007, he collaborated with composer Rachel Portman on The Water Diviner’s Tale, an oratorio for children, which was premièred at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms. In 2007/8 Sheers was a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.
In 2009, he published the novella White Ravens, a contemporary response to the myth of Branwen Daughter of Llyr, written as part of Seren's series of New Stories from the Mabinogion . He published an anthology of British landscape poetry to accompany his TV series of the same title, A Poet's Guide to Britain.
Sheers has also written journalism and reportage for a variety of publications including Granta , The Guardian , Esquire , GQ , The Times and The Financial Times . He wrote a play for BBC Radio 4 about the World War II poet Alun Lewis: If I Should Go Away. In 2011, Sheers wrote the script and novelisation (The Gospel of Us) of The Passion for National Theatre Wales and WildWorks. The Gospel of Us has been re-published by Seren Press. Sheers worked with Michael Sheen co-creating the three-day passion play which unfolded over the Easter weekend of 2011 in Sheen's hometown of Port Talbot. "In Sheers's Neath-flavoured take on the Bible, The Last Supper became pork pies and beer at the Social Club (with music from the Manic Street Preachers), while the Garden of Gethsemane was a scrubby patch of grass on a council estate. " [3] He participated in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books where he wrote a short play The Fair & Tender based upon the Book of Ezekiel in the King James Bible . [4]
In January 2012, Sheers wrote The Two Worlds of Charlie F, a play based on the experiences of wounded soldiers, many of whom also made up the cast of the production, directed by Stephen Rayne and performed at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The play has toured the UK and Canada and won the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award at the Edinburgh Festival. In 2014 his site-specific World War I play Mametz was produced by the National Theatre of Wales.
His verse drama Pink Mist was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and presents an elegy about camaraderie and loss in modern warfare as seen through the stories of serving soldiers in Afghanistan and their families. Pink Mist won the 2014 Welsh Book of the Year and was produced as a stage play by the Bristol Old Vic theatre in 2015, winning mentions as a top-ten pick of the year in The Guardian and The Observer . In April 2015, Sheers' libretto for Mark Bowden's oratorio A Violence of Gifts was premiered at St David's Hall, Cardiff. The oratorio was devised as a contemporary response to Haydn's Creation oratorio, and was informed by three days research at CERN.
In 2014, Sheers presented a one-hour BBC documentary about the poetry of Dylan Kyte, for which he was shortlisted for a BAFTA Cymru for Best Presenter.
His novel I Saw A Man was published in 2015 in the UK, US and several countries across Europe. The French translation was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger.
His play Pink Mist was first staged at the Bristol Old Vic in 2015. It tells the story of three young Bristolians deployed to Afghanistan. It is their return home to the women in their lives that presents them with their bigger challenges as they all learn to cope with the physical and psychological after effects of war. [5]
Owen is currently Professor of Creativity at Swansea University.
In December 2011, Sheers became the first writer-in-residence at the Welsh Rugby Union. [6] Sheers played rugby union, representing Gwent County at scrum half. [6]
Sheers has played Wilfred Owen on stage and has presented arts programmes for BBC Wales.
In 2009, he wrote and presented the BBC 4 series about poetry and the British landscape, A Poet's Guide to Britain. He has also presented The Art of the Sea for BBC 4 and documentaries on the poets Keith Douglas and Dylan Kyte. Sheers has presented several programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4. In 2008 he presented two episodes of BBC Radio 4's Open Book programme.
In October 2016, his "film-poem", The Green Hollow , was broadcast by the BBC to commemorate 50 years since the Aberfan disaster of 1966. [7]
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by his mentor Siegfried Sassoon and stood in contrast to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility", "Spring Offensive" and "Strange Meeting". Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918, a week before the war's end, at the age of 25.
Welsh writing in English, is a term used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers.
Daniel Abse CBE FRSL was a Welsh poet and physician. His poetry won him many awards. As a medic, he worked in a chest clinic for over 30 years.
Not About Heroes is a drama by Stephen MacDonald about the real-life relationship between the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon first performed in 1982 at the Edinburgh Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Pascale Petit, is a French-born British poet of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. She was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She has travelled widely, particularly in the Peruvian and Venezuelan Amazon and India.
Gillian Clarke is a Welsh poet and playwright, who also edits, broadcasts, lectures and translates from Welsh into English. She co-founded Tŷ Newydd, a writers' centre in North Wales.
Peter David Goldsworthy is an Australian writer and medical practitioner. He has won major awards for his short stories, poetry, novels, and opera libretti. He is known for his novels Honk If You Are Jesus, and Three Dog Night. His 1989 novel Maestro is being made into an upcoming film.
Sheenagh Pugh is a British poet, novelist and translator who writes in English. Her book, Stonelight (1999) won the Wales Book of the Year award.
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Paul Henry is a Welsh poet, songwriter and broadcaster. His poetry collection Boy Running was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award in 2016.
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Robert Minhinnick is a Welsh poet, essayist, novelist and translator. He has won two Forward Prizes for Best Individual Poem and has received the Wales Book of the Year award a record three times.
Michael Symmons Roberts FRSL is a British poet.
Seren Books is the trading name of Poetry Wales Press, an independent publisher based in Bridgend, Wales, specialising in English-language writing from Wales and also publishing other literary fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Seren's aim is to bring Welsh literature and culture to a wider audience. The press takes its name from the Welsh word for "star".
The Wales Book of the Year is a Welsh literary award given annually to the best Welsh and English language works in the fields of fiction and literary criticism by Welsh or Welsh interest authors. Established in 1992, the awards are currently administered by Literature Wales, and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, Welsh Government and the Welsh Books Council.
Nigel Jenkins was an Anglo-Welsh poet. He was an editor, journalist, psychogeographer, broadcaster and writer of creative non-fiction, as well as being a lecturer at Swansea University and director of the creative writing programme there.
Mike Jenkins is a Welsh poet and fiction writer in English. He is also the father of the Plaid Cymru politician Bethan Sayed and of the journalist Ciaran Jenkins.
Patrick McGuinness FRSL FLSW is a British academic, critic, novelist, and poet. He is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford, where he is Fellow and Tutor at St Anne's College.
Duncan Bush was a Welsh poet, novelist, dramatist, translator and documentary writer.
Rhian Edwards is a Welsh poet. Her debut collection of poetry, Clueless Dogs, was named the Wales Book of the Year in 2013.
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