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…

Tell us about your writing life. When did it start? What does it look like now?  

I was raised by my nan, a formidable valleys matriarch who was eager to encourage my ambitions to become a writer. At A-level, I wrote a documentary exploring unemployment on Graig-Y-Rhacca, the council estate I’d grown up on since the age of twelve. Before that, I’d lived in Folkestone,then Newcastle, where I penned my first little book, ‘I Want to Go Home.’

For the documentary, I interviewed everyone who I could convince that I was not connected to the police or dole office. One line stuck with me. When asked about the value of books and education, one of my interviewees joked: ‘Books?’ they said. ‘Roach material.’ I laughed at the time. How could I not? The phrasing was sharp, absurd, poetic in its own way. But beneath the humour was something deeply tragic. That books – gateways to liberation – could be seen as nothing more than something to roll a joint with. It spoke volumes about what had been lost – not intelligence, not potential, but trust in a system that had decimated and peripherised a community. I was raised to believe that books and education were a passport to a better life. But if we don’t see ourselves reflected in literature, we are strangers to it. Like it belongs to someone else. Like it was never meant for us at all.

That said, Wales was changing when I was a teenager and there was a sense of hope in the Cool Cymru wave with bands like the Phonics and Catatonia and novelists like Niall Griffiths, who were platforming ex-mining communities in the valleys. I hung around the streets a lot, as there wasn’t much else to do, and I wrote song lyrics and raps with my friends. I was inspired by Welsh poets, authors and bands, as well as American artists like Lauryn Hill and Tupac Shakur. Then, my nan’s friend, who she worked with at Women’s Aid, introduced me to her husband, who was a Private Eye journalist, Bedwas Miners’ lawyer and member of the Red Poets. There I encountered voices like Jazz, Mike Jenkins, Tim Richards, and Penny Windsor – poets who wrote politically about Welsh working class people. I didn’t know poetry could do that. I started writing in valleys dialect, which eventually became my collection Rock Life: 17 Poems from the Welsh Valleys.

Now, my writing life is a balancing act between editing jobs, teaching, motherhood, notebooks and deadlines. Sometimes I feel like trying to write and exist in the practical world is like trying to tap your head and rub your belly at the same time. I usually write in bursts – on buses, in bed, between meetings, in the garden when I get a tea break and always, always in my head.

“But if we don’t see ourselves reflected in literature, we are strangers to it. Like it belongs to someone else. Like it was never meant for us at all.”

What kind of writing excites you most?  

Brave writing. Bold writing. Writing with soul.
I’m drawn to prose with purpose and punchy poems – anything that makes me stop and think, that lodges and grows in the body. I love writing that challenges convention, pushes boundaries and unsettles the status quo.

What are you working on right now?

I’m writing The Crazy Dream, sequel to The Crazy Truth, and a new poetry collection.

Where do you write?  

Whenever I can lay my hands on a notebook.
As a solo parent, editor, network director and teacher, peace and quiet is a luxury. I catch it where I can: early mornings, buses, benches, or between Zoom calls. Most of my writing simmers in my head long before it hits the page. I like to think of it as slow percolation followed by flashes of inspiration. Once that flash arrives, I immerse myself entirely in the work until it’s ready to rest, be edited, polished or submitted.

When do you write?  

When deadlines loom, I can write for 8–10 hours straight, completely consumed – obsessed, even. Otherwise, I write in bursts: when inspiration strikes or when an idea or line lands fully formed.

And… why do you write?  

If I don’t write, I’ll get ill. It’s medicine. My mind never stops – it churns and bursts with ideas, like sea anemones. Writing anchors me in a world that never stops. It keeps me human. It keeps me real. It’s my lifeblood – the thing that keeps the gremlins at bay.

Is there a book or author that has influenced you?  

1984 by George Orwell. I studied politics at university and floundered in my first year – lost in a sea of textbooks and Oxford politics dictionaries. Then I discovered Orwell, and the way he distilled complex political ideas into accessible, compelling narratives was inspiring. He made politics make sense in a way no textbook ever could.

“Sometimes I feel like trying to write and exist in the practical world is like trying to tap your head and rub your belly at the same time.”

Tell us about something you are really proud of.  

Writing my PhD while editing Land of Change: Stories of Struggle & Solidarity from Wales (Culture Matters, 2021), which showcases 54 under-represented voices from Wales. A record of resistance, it showcases those who are too often left out of the literary landscape. And my debut novel, The Crazy Truth, which launched at Hay Festival last year – proof that Welsh working-class stories belong in the canon.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given as a writer developing your practice?  

My lecturer and the legendary poet, Nigel Jenkins, once told me to: ‘use a surgeon’s blade, not a sledgehammer.’ I’m still learning to wield that blade.

There are so many ways to have a creative career. What would life as a ‘working’ writer look like for you?  

Realistically? 90% admin, social media and networking; 10% writing – unless I’m working on a commission, and then it’s 100% writing to hit the deadline. There’s pitching, applications, event prep, rejections… And then there’s always the fear of the blank page.

Writers at Work is a creative development programme for Welsh writers at Hay Festival, with the support of Literature Wales and Folding Rock, funded by Arts Council of Wales.

Offering a fully-programmed ten days of creative development opportunities, Hay Festival Writers at Work allows the selected writers to engage in Festival events, attend workshops with publishers, agents and, crucially, with established international artists.

Check out some of our recommended events for this year’s Hay Festival here, including showcase readings from the 2025 Writers at Work cohort.