Elinor Davies is an associate agent at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency where she represents authors who write commercial and upmarket adult fiction. She began her agenting career with the company in 2021 following a degree in Publishing Media at Oxford Brookes University. She has also undertaken various editing and mentoring roles with author-focussed organisations including Asian Women Writers, Jericho Writers and Faber Academy.

"I’m honoured to be working closely with Literature Wales and this year’s panel to choose the recipients of the 5th year of the Representing Wales programme. Launching underrepresented writers across multiple genres and writing disciplines, the programme plays a vital role in cultivating and highlighting the broad and diverse range of Welsh talent out there. I’m excited to be swept off my feet by this year’s applicants."

Andrew Ogun is a musician and poet from Newport. He is the main organiser for BLM Gwent and the Agent for Change at the Arts Council Wales. His debut poetry collection, Slingshot will be published by Lucent Dreaming in October 2024.

Lisa Blower is an award-winning writer and academic hailed by Kit De Waal as the “natural heir to Arnold Bennett”. She is a champion of working-class literature and regional voices, often paying homage to The Potteries where she grew up. She's the author of two novels, Sitting Ducks (Fair Acre Press, 2016) - shortlisted for The Rubery Award, the Arnold Bennett Prize and The Guardian's Not the Booker - and Pondweed (Myriad Editions, 2020). Her collection of short stories It's Gone Dark over Bill's Mother's (Myriad Editions, 2019) won the Arnold Bennett Prize. She contributed to Common People (ed. Kit De Waal, Unbound, 2019), and was a columnist for The New Issue during 2020. Her play 'The Miner Birds' commemorating 40years of the North Staffs Miners' Wives Action Group debuted at The New Vic, July 2024. She holds a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing from Bangor University and lectures in Creative Writing at Keele University where she continues to champion regional voices.

Born in London and raised in Taff’s Well, Malachy Owain Edwards now lives on Anglesey. His creative nonfiction biography, Y Delyn Aur, was published by Gwasg y Bwthyn in November 2023 and it was subsequently shortlisted for the 2024 Wales Book of the Year Award. In it, Malachy faces his mixed-race, multicultural, and religious identity while tracing his family’s history in Ireland and Barbados. Currently, he is researching the sequel in his creative nonfiction series, Paradwys Goll, which is set to be published in 2025. In addition to writing books, Malachy is a columnist for the magazine Golwg.