Wales Book of the Year
Latest Welsh Pulp
Literature Wales have just given £4000 of taxpayers money to Thomas Morris, who lives in Dublin, for Wales Book of the Year 2016. His debut collection of short stories is set in Caerphilly. You can read a sample of We Don’t Know What We’re Doing on Amazon. I did. It’s pretty bad. Shame really, I was hoping they’d actually found someone who could write. Maybe he’s a friend or relative of someone at Literature Wales?
Cornishman, Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University, Philip Gross (average salary approx. £76,000) is given more money from the Roland Mathias award while bursary regular and ‘Creative Wales’ milk maid Jasmine Donahaye also cashes in further.
The winner of the Welsh-language main cash award (again) is Caryl Lewis, while truly awful poet Mererid Hogwood wins some other crap award and money.
All the winners probably said “Wow, more money for nothing, so glad I stumbled onto this cash cow!” OK, that was a guess.
Shite of the Year 2016
It’s that time of the year again. When the unelected people who give your taxpayers money to their friends and family give even more of it to even more of their friends and family and even charge you for the privilege of watching them rub their greedy little hands together. This year it seems that a number of University Professors have fallen on hard times as well as the usual suspects like Owen ‘bad boy’ Sheers, ‘Gross Writer’, ‘Horrid Henry’ and ‘Gloating Gower’.
This year, in Pulp of the Year 2016 the nominees are: Philip Gross (previous parasite), Paul Henry (bursary regular – £6,425), Stephen Payne (Professor who needs the cash?), Kate Hamer (bursary score – £5,000), Thomas Morris (lives in Dublin but still got a ticket), Owen Sheers (more public cash thrown at him than any other shit writer?), Jasmine Donahaye (Cash score – £20,000+), Eluned Gramich (other public money – £1,000), Daniel G. Williams (Professor who needs more cash), Mererid Hopwood (bursary score – £6,000), Gruffudd Owen (Arts Council Trougher), Cen Williams (big jobs for the boys), Jon Gower (bursary score – £8,000), Caryl Lewis (Wales Literature Exchange), Dewi Prysor (was interesting until he made this list), Simon Brooks (bursary score – £2,003), Gruffydd Aled Williams (another hard-up Professor) and Emyr Glyn Williams.
Welcome
Literature Wales is the national organisation that is supposed to be responsible for developing and promoting literature in Wales.
It runs Wales Book of the Year, the National Poet of Wales, writing courses at Tŷ Newydd and numerous other events, most of which they charge an entry fee for.
They also get rather a large wad of taxpayers money to help them do this.
Literature Wales is supposed to represent the interests of Welsh writers in all genres and languages. It is also supposed to offer advice, support and bursaries to writers.
Literature Wales works with the support of the Arts Council of Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government. It is one of the resident organisations of the Wales Millennium Centre.
Scandal
In early 2013, the UK national press including the Daily Mail and The Telegraph revealed some astonishing facts and figures about how literature is run in Wales.
‘In the past five years the Welsh Books Council and Literature Wales have received more than £42m from the Welsh Assembly and Arts Council Wales, which in turn receive their funding from Westminster.
Welsh authors can apply for grants of up to £10,000 to work on any kind of book, and they keep the money even if their work is never published.’
– By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, Telegraph, 01 Jan 2013
The reports were critical of the cost to British taxpayers, with the Daily Mail stating that the money went to pay for Welsh books that only sold ‘a handful of copies’.
Makes you wonder where all those millions go doesn’t it? Some would even say that this level of funding is in dire need of some serious scrutiny.
We have done a bit of digging around and found that the same names seem to crop up time and time again. It seems taxpayers money is being given to a small, select group of people, in the form of bursaries, prizes, judging and appearance fees, year after year after year.
So please read on and be disgusted. Oh yes, and maybe tell your friends about us too. Just send them this link:
LiteratureWales 