Wales Book of the Year Judges 2024

Photo: Kamila Jarczak

Dylan Moore is a writer and journalist. He grew up in the Bannau Brycheiniog and now lives in Cardiff. His collection of essays from four continents, Driving Home Both Ways, was published in 2018, the same year he was named Creative Wales Hay Festival International Fellow. His first novel, Many Rivers to Cross, followed in 2021, winning a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship. He is the current Chair of Wales PEN Cymru. Dylan has previously edited a number of Wales' leading cultural periodicals, and is most recently co-founder of 'Cwlwm'.

Photo: Billie Charity / Hay Festival

Patrice Lawrence is an award-winning writer for children and young people with a background in social justice and equality. She writes across genres and age groups. Her debut book for young adults, Orangeboy, was shortlisted for the Costa Children's Award and won the Bookseller YA Prize and Waterstones Prize for Older Children's Fiction. She has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal seven times  - and shortlisted once. Her awards include the Little Rebels Book Award, the inaugural Jhalak Prize for Children and Young People, the Woman and Home Teen Drama Award,  and the CrimeFest YA Prize twice. In 2023, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Patrice works extensively in schools inspiring young people to become storytellers and mentors adult writers from backgrounds under-represented in traditional British publishing.

Photo: Derrick Kakembo

Pascale Petit was born in Paris and lives in Cornwall. She is of French, Welsh, and Indian heritage. Her eighth collection of poetry, Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe, 2020), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for Wales Book of the Year. Her seventh, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017), won the inaugural Laurel Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Four previous collections were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Pascale was a co-founder of The Poetry School, and has been Chair of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Laurel Prize for ecopoetry. Her debut novel, My Hummingbird Father, is published by Salt in 2024 and her ninth collection, Beast, from Bloodaxe in 2025.

Photo: Jon Pountney

Rachel Trezise is a novelist and playwright from the Rhondda Valley. Her debut novel In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl (Parthian, 2000) won a place on the Orange Futures List in 2002. In 2006 her first short fiction collection Fresh Apples (Parthian, 2005) won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second short fiction collection Cosmic Latte (Parthian, 2013) won the Edge Hill Prize Readers Award in 2014. Her most recent play ‘Cotton Fingers’ toured Ireland and Wales and won the Summerhall Lustrum Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. Her most recent work is a novel; ‘Easy Meat’ (Parthian, 2021).

Tudur Dylan Jones lives in Carmarthen and has been working as a freelancer for the past four years. He has taught Welsh in Carmarthen, Cardigan and Llanelli, and is the Senior Examiner for Welsh Literature at WJEC. At the National Eisteddfod he has won both the Chair and the Crown. His publications include volumes on Wales’ mythology and heroes, and the novel Y Bancsi Bach. He has also published several volumes of poetry, including Adenydd and, most recently, Am yn Ail, which is a volume of poems co-written with his father.

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Hanna Jarman is an actor, director, and writer who works across radio, film, theatre and television. Her writing credits include Merched Parchus, Y Gyfrinach and Y Coridor for S4C, Branwen: Dadeni for the theatre company Fran Wen/WMC and Buchedd Greta: Gwinllan Wyllt for Radio Cymru. She voices the cartoon Rhyfeddodau Chwilengoch a Cath Ddu and has directed programmes for children and young people, such as Rownd a Rownd, Chwarter Call and Newffion. She has a one-year-old child, named Emrys.

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Rhiannon Marks is originally from Carmarthenshire but now lives in Cardiff. She is a senior lecturer in the Cardiff University School of Welsh and specialises in contemporary literature and literary theory. She won the Crown in the 2007 Urdd Eisteddfod for creative prose and in her academic work she enjoys towing the line between fact and fiction in creating creative literary criticism. She won the Syr Ellis Griffith award for her first volume, Pe Gallwn, Mi Luniwn Lythyr: Golwg ar waith Menna Elfyn (University of Wales Press, 2013) and in 2020 published Y Dychymyg Ôl-Fodern: Agweddau ar ffuglen fer Mihangel Morgan (University of Wales Press).

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Nici Beech works freelance as a creative projects producer and is a part-time researcher for the Center for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies at the University of Wales. She has worked in the television industry, as a producer and director and as the content commissioner for S4C. She was the Artisitc Director at Galeri Caernarfon, is a Town Administrator and the chair of her local food festival. She also writes prose and poetry, and enjoys cooking and music in her spare time.