Gemma June Howell began writing dialect poetry from the Rhymney Valley, with her work featured on BBC Radio 4’s Tongue and Talk in 2021. She is the author of Rock Life: 17 Poems From the Welsh Valleys (2015) and Inside the Treacle Well (Hafan Books, 2009). Her debut novel, The Crazy Truth (Seren Books), was launched at Hay Festival in 2024, and formed the creative core of her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. An editor at Honno Press and Culture Matters, Howell edited Land of Change: Stories of Struggle and Solidarity from Wales (2022). Her work has been published in The London Magazine, Poetry Wales and by Bloodaxe Books. As Director of Women Publishing Wales – Menywod Cyhoeddi Cymru – Howell champions the voices of women in publishing. Named one of Buzz Magazine’s Most Influential Women in Wales 2024, she continues to advocate for greater representation in literature.
In our final interview with the Hay Festival Writers at Work cohort of 2025, we hear from writer, editor and all-round change-maker Gemma June Howell. She tells us how writing became so important to her as a working class woman, and the difficulty of juggling a creative practice with the realities of life, work and endless admin…
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