The Aber connection: Wales Book of the Year

Aberystwyth University’s Professor of Engagement with the Public Imagination, Professor Richard Marggraf Turley, is one of three English panel judges at this year’s Wales Book of the Year Award.
On Thursday 18 July at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, the 2013 Wales Book of the Year Award will be presented to the best works in three categories: Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction.
Richard is a professor of Romanticism and poet who won the 2007 "Keats-Shelley Prize" for poetry, and the 2010 Wales Book of the Year "People's Choice" for his third collection, Wan Hu's Flying Chair (Salt, 2009).
He said, “It’s been a privilege to be involved in judging Wales’s most prestigious literary prize. The writing has been sensational – provocative, confident and happy to take risks. The Welsh literary scene has never felt more exciting.”
One of the authors on the English language fiction short list includes Dr Matthew Francis from the Department of English and Creative Writing, also of Aberystwyth University, with his collection of short stories called Singing a Man to Death.
Meic Stephens, who studied at Aberystwyth University, is uniquely placed having been shortlisted in the Welsh category with his autobiography Cofnodion (records) and the English category with his latest book Welsh Lives.
Another writer on the English language poetry sort list is Rhian Edwards who was Aberystwyth Arts Centre’s first Writer in Residence this year.
Elin ap Hywel, one of the Welsh language panel judges, was educated at Aberystwyth also and was one of the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellows at the University in 2012/2013.
As well as Elin, the Welsh-language panel of judges this year include the writer and regular Golwg magazine columnist Alun Gibbard, and the popular Radio Wales DJ, Bethan Elfyn.
The other English-language Wales Book of the Year Award judges are writer and business consultant Ffion Hague and the popular fantasy novelist Jasper Fforde.
Each category winner will receive a prize of £2,000, and the two main winners in each language will receive an additional £6,000 and will be announced this Thursday 18 July 2013 http://www.literaturewales.org/book-of-the-year/
Be a part of the action by using the Twitter hashtag #WBOTY13.

You can also follow Richard Marggraf Turley via twitter on @RmarggrafTurley