Reinventing the Protagonist 2024-2025 Cohort

Photo: Kitchou Bry

Jane Campbell’s debut collection Slowly as Clouds won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize 2021. Jane also won the Disability Arts Cymru Creative Writing Award 2022. Poems appear in Ink Sweat and Tears, Black Bough and The Plumwood Mountain Journal. She/hi receives an Arts Council Wales award to develop her creative practice as a poetry film producer. After working as a London AIDS counsellor throughout the 1980 and 90’s, Jane Campbell joined Gillian Clarke’s Lampeter Writers group in 2010 and, more recently, Joelle Taylor’s Circle. She also attends a monthly Stanza group.. She describes herself as ‘an eco-feminist rebel-dyke poet’.

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'What a brilliant boost being one of the 10 writers selected for Llenyddiaeth Cymru / Literature Wales’ course Reinventing the Protagonist with Kaite O’Reilly. I know I will learn so much and hopefully find ways of promoting characters with diverse abilities and disabilities. I could not have found my way here without the amazing Disability Arts Cymru who are always there with great support.'

Cathy Piquemal is a French national from Marseille who has lived in Wales for 28 years. With over 30 years of experience in the cultural sector—encompassing visual arts, music events, and large-scale theatre—she works as a project coordinator, producer, and accessibility and inclusion consultant. Her experiences with neurodiversity, hearing loss (and gain), chronic medical conditions, and cultural ambivalence have often led her to support the artistic creations of others. She now aims to focus on her own creative work while continuing to explore and involve the journeys of those around her, delving into the concepts of (not) belonging, ‘hiraeth,’ and ‘home.’

'In 2014, I published a story exploring identity and belonging, forever altered by my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Through her Bouillabaisse recipe, I conveyed my aggregate decision to raise my son on the Welsh coast, attempting to bridge my Mediterranean roots with a new home. Since, experiences such as Brexit, cancer, altered hearing, ADHD medication, and my son’s transition have deepened my understanding of feeling ‘adjacent’ to life and my search for shaping a dynamic divergent future. Through my writing, I seek to articulate these themes and invite others to explore our shared narratives, finding connection and belonging in the spaces between.'

Regina Beach is a disabled poet and essayist. Originally from the American midwest, she now calls the Welsh Valleys home. She is the inaugural poet-in-residence at the Risca Industrial History Museum for 2024. Her writing has appeared in Global Poemic, Boldly Mental, The Rail, Haiku by You, Five Minutes, Visual Verse, The Horror Tree, and Disoriented among others. She is the founder of the literary magazine Lesions | Art + Words, which features the work of people living with chronic health conditions. She facilitates monthly writing workshops for the MS-UK charity and is the producer of the Living Well with MS podcast. Read more of Regina’s writing at reginagbeach.com or subscribe to her newsletter at reginagbeach.substack.com.

'Being in a cohort with other Deaf and disabled artists who really understand the challenges of being a creative and finding a seat at the table when there is not always a lot of representation or support available will be an invaluable experience. I would like to be sensitive to other’s experience while reflecting on my own disability and how I navigate the world as a disabled female immigrant and how those identities coexist. I'd like to better understand how to create three-dimensional disabled characters that do more than elicit pity or act as a memento mori for the reader.'

Tafsila Khan is a registered blind access consultant and theatre maker in Wales with a passion for real stories and giving a voice to those who are usually unheard. She is motivated to create change within society and her work has accessibility at its core to develop wider engagement within the arts. Tafsila is currently developing her skills as a dramaturg and writer. She has previously worked with Wales Millennium Centre as a Creative Associate and is currently working for Taking Flight Theatre Co. as their Access Coordinator.

'I’m really excited and happy to have been chosen as one of the participants for Reinventing the Protagonist. This opportunity has come at a pivotal moment in my development as a writer as I am currently in the process of writing my debut play which includes a blind protagonist. I look forward to sharing my writing with the group and developing my skills and knowledge of writing from Kaite O’Reilly.'

Grace O’Brien is a Welsh-Irish, working-class, bilingual, actor-musician, writer and producer from the Valleys in South Wales. Her acting credits include Mae Gen Ti Ddreigiau (Taking Flight Theatre), The Snow Queen (Sherman Theatre), Stella (Sky 1), Doctors (BBC) and Welsh-BAFTA winning crime drama 35 Diwrnod (S4C). Grace participated in Sherman’s Fresh Ink Project for writers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Grace identifies as Disabled and Neurodivergent and is very excited to be working with Literature Wales and Disability Arts Cymru. She’s also Artistic Director of Purple String Productions Ltd.

'I’m SO excited to finally have specific time allocated towards exploring new writing ideas! I have so many rapid, fleeting concepts and inspirations but I’m so grateful to be chosen for this course to hopefully get them out of my head and on paper!'

Kaja Brown is an award-winning writer, journalist and intersectional activist living in south Wales. Kaja explores themes of social justice, disability, mental health, LGBT+ life and environmentalism in her writing. She is currently working on a fantasy manuscript which encompasses these elements in a Nordic setting. She is also the current Reviews Editor for Poetry Wales. You can find out more about work on her website: www.kajabrown.com

'I want to write books that accurately represent disabled and neurodivergent people so that readers feel seen and understood. Representation matters. I didn't realise I had OCD until I was 25 because I had never seen my kind of OCD represented in literature or the media. Maybe if I had I would have gotten my own diagnosis much earlier! That's why I want to create characters like this. I am hoping this course will help me write these characters with authenticity.'

Fiona Maher has written for publications as diverse as The Fortean Times and The Spectator, she has also written factual and fictional books such as The Last Changeling, Seaside and The Cuckoo and the Mistletoe. In 2022, Fiona contributed to the GALWAD project. An energetic, self-starter, her next writing project was Sherlock Holmes and The Man Who Believed in Fairies, a play examining logic versus faith. She also wrote a horror story for the 2024 horror anthology, They Whispered, published by Comma Press. As producer/director, Fiona raised the funds to take a sizable production of Sherlock Holmes and The Man Who Believed in Fairies to The Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024, where it played to enthusiastic audiences.

'I am thrilled to be included in this group and to be working with Kaite again. The timing couldn’t be better as, after a ten-year hiatus, I will be – after many requests from readers – finally taking up the story from my first novel, The Last Changeling, where the protagonist has a complex neurological condition. I love the idea that we will be examining poetry to enrich our prose, although I am nervous about performing my work to the group!'

Amy Grandvoinet is currently a PhD researcher in literary psychogeographies at Aberystwyth and Cardiff Universities, funded by the AHRC. She was born in Bracknell, studied History at University College London, and then drifted between the UK and France working on land projects, with migrant organisations, and for local councils before moving to mid Wales in 2018. Her writings, artworks, and projects in different formats – mostly on matters relating to emotions and behaviour and environments – can be found by visiting linktr.ee/amy_k_grandvoinet.

'I am so super thrilled to be part of this year’s Literature Wales / Disability Arts Cymru Reinventing the Protagonist programme cohort, safely guided by Kaite O’Reilly. For a long time, I’ve wanted to develop my writing in the short story form, but a toxic cocktail of guilt-complex, confusion, self-sabotage, fear, and confidentiality-worry have proved inhibitive. During our sessions, I wish to explore the relationship between word-based expression and experiences of PTSD and related maladies (affecting around ten percent of Britain’s population today), toward responsibly busting destructive sensations under late-capitalism.'

Leigh Manley is a new phase writer, poet, and creative facilitator, originally from Maesteg. His writing journey began with poems revolving around his passion for Welsh sport. In 2022, his post-pandemic love letter, New Hope Back in Wales, was short-listed for Disability Arts Cymru’s Creative Word Award. Since then, his writing has focused on challenges with ill health and recovery, ableist attitudes towards invisible impairments, and the influence of his working-class upbringing. His work is published with Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Seventh Quarry, Red Poets, Nawr, Black Bough and several anthologies. Leigh was part of Literature Wales' Representing Wales writer development programme in 2023/24. His poems for young people have been published with The Dirigible Balloon and Northern Gravy.

'It is my ambition to adopt an experimental approach to this exciting opportunity. At one level, I still feel like I’m searching for the special ingredient that will allow me to adequately express the complex emotions I know I want to convey through my poetry, particularly in relation to my experiences of living with cardiomyopathy. At another, I’m possibly questioning whether poetry is the right medium for everything I want to say! Maybe another genre is the solution to my creative conundrum? Either way, I’m hoping experimentation, combined with the experience and expertise of a programme led by internationally renowned playwright and writer, Kaite O’Reilly, will unleash the origins of that fresh, distinct, and compelling something I feel I’m seeking!'

Steph Roberts is the Commissioning Editor Wales for Art UK, and a freelance curator, writer and researcher. Her work explores the intersections between the visual arts, writing, and disability equity. Previously Senior Curator of Historic Art at Amgueddfa Cymru, she now works with artists, museums, galleries and others across Wales and beyond to challenge and disrupt systems of exclusion. She is interested in writing creative non-fiction that explores health and illness narratives, Welsh art and artists, and neglected voices in art history. Steph is currently part of the 2024 Clore Leadership Inclusive Cultures cohort, a disabled-led professional development programme designed for cultural leaders seeking to take steps towards systemic change. www.stephcelf.co.uk

'Developing a chronic condition was a sea-change moment in my life. It was sudden, cruel and abrupt and set me on a long path of renewal and rebuilding, of reconnecting with my body, and of learning – again and again – how to sit with the abject messiness, the ongoing repercussions of it all. I’m curious about translating the experience of living in sick and disabled bodies into words. I’m curious about the language we use: how easily some words harm, how well others hold us together. And I’m looking forward to talking through these ideas and learning from others on this course.'