Owen Sheers

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Owen Sheers

FRSL
Sheers in 2014
Sheers in 2014
Born (1974-09-20) 20 September 1974 (age 49)
Suva, Fiji
OccupationPoet, author, playwright, TV presenter
LanguageEnglish
NationalityWelsh
Period1999–present
Notable works
  • The Dust Diaries (2004)
  • Skirrid Hill (2005)
  • Pink Mist (2013)
Notable awards
Website
www.owensheers.co.uk

Owen Sheers

FRSL (born 20 September 1974) is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter.[1] He was the first writer in residence to be appointed by any national rugby union
team.

Early life

Owen Sheers was born in

King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, before studying at New College, Oxford, and the University of East Anglia, at which point he completed an MA in Creative Writing.[2]
During his time at New College, Sheers captained the Oxford University Modern Pentathlon team.

Career

In 1999, Sheers received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. His first collection of poetry, The Blue Book, was published by Seren in 2000. A collection of poems about family, first love and farming life, it was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and the Forward Prize for "Best First Collection". Following this first publication, Sheers worked on the light entertainment television show The Big Breakfast as a researcher.[3] His debut prose work, The Dust Diaries, was published by Faber in 2004. A non-fiction narrative set in Zimbabwe following the travels of Sheers' great-great-uncle, Arthur Shearly Cripps, it won the Wales Book of the Year in 2005, and was also shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize.

In 2004 Sheers was Writer in Residence at

Old Vic, New Voices, and performed by Joseph Fiennes
.

Sheers' first novel,

In 2007, he collaborated with composer Rachel Portman on The Water Diviner’s Tale, an oratorio for children, which was premièred at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms. In 2007/8 Sheers was a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.

In 2009, he published the novella White Ravens, a contemporary response to the myth of

Branwen Daughter of Llyr, written as part of Seren's series of New Stories from the Mabinogion
. He published an anthology of British landscape poetry to accompany his TV series of the same title, A Poet's Guide to Britain.

Sheers has also written journalism and reportage for a variety of publications including

In January 2012, Sheers wrote The Two Worlds of Charlie F, a play based on the experiences of wounded soldiers, many of whom also made up the cast of the production, directed by Stephen Rayne and performed at the

Edinburgh Festival. In 2014 his site-specific World War I
play Mametz was produced by the National Theatre of Wales.

His verse drama Pink Mist was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and presents an elegy about camaraderie and loss in modern warfare as seen through the stories of serving soldiers in Afghanistan and their families. Pink Mist won the 2014 Welsh Book of the Year and was produced as a stage play by the Bristol Old Vic theatre in 2015, winning mentions as a top-ten pick of the year in The Guardian and The Observer. In April 2015, Sheers' libretto for Mark Bowden's oratorio A Violence of Gifts was premiered at St David's Hall, Cardiff. The oratorio was devised as a contemporary response to Haydn's Creation oratorio, and was informed by three days research at CERN.

In 2014, Sheers presented a one-hour BBC documentary about the poetry of Dylan Kyte, for which he was shortlisted for a BAFTA Cymru for Best Presenter.

His novel I Saw A Man was published in 2015 in the UK, US and several countries across Europe. The French translation was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger.

His play Pink Mist was first staged at the Bristol Old Vic in 2015. It tells the story of three young Bristolians deployed to Afghanistan. It is their return home to the women in their lives that presents them with their bigger challenges as they all learn to cope with the physical and psychological after effects of war.[5]

Owen is currently Professor of Creativity at Swansea University.

Rugby union

In December 2011, Sheers became the first writer-in-residence at the Welsh Rugby Union.[6] Sheers played rugby union, representing Gwent County at scrum half.[6]

Actor and television presenter

Sheers has played

BBC Wales
.

In 2009, he wrote and presented the

BBC 4 series about poetry and the British landscape, A Poet's Guide to Britain. He has also presented The Art of the Sea for BBC 4 and documentaries on the poets Keith Douglas and Dylan Kyte. Sheers has presented several programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4. In 2008 he presented two episodes of BBC Radio 4's Open Book
programme.

In October 2016, his "film-poem", The Green Hollow, was broadcast by the BBC to commemorate 50 years since the Aberfan disaster of 1966.[7]

Awards and honours

  • 1999: Vogue Young Writer's Award
  • 1999: Eric Gregory Award
  • 2000: short-listed for the Wales Book of the Year (for The Blue Book)
  • 2001: short-listed for
    Forward Poetry Prize
    Best 1st Collection
  • 2005: Wales Book of the Year (for The Dust Diaries)
  • 2006: Somerset Maugham Award (for Skirrid Hill)
  • 2008: Hospital Club Creative Award (for
    Resistance
    )
  • 2008: short-listed for Writers' Guild Best Book Award for Resistance
  • 2012: Winner Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award (for The Two Worlds of Charlie F)
  • 2013: Hay Medal for Poetry
  • 2014: Wales Book of the Year (for Pink Mist)
  • 2015: Nominated for a BAFTA Cymru for Best Presenter (for A Poet's Guide to Dylan Kyte, BBC 4)
  • 2015: short-listed for Prix Femina Etranger for French translation of I Saw A Man
  • 2018: Wilfred Owen Poetry Award[8]
  • 2023: elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature[9]

References

  1. ^ "Owen Sheers b. 1974". Poetry Archive. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  2. ^ "Owen Sheers". BBC Wales Arts. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Jones, Alice (24 November 2011). "A writer who's hard to resist". The Independent. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  4. ^ "Sixty-Six writers". Bush Theatre. Archived from the original on 4 July 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  5. ^ "Pink Mist – Bristol Old Vic". The Reviews Hub. 18 February 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  6. ^
    Wales Online
    . 12 December 2011. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  7. ^ Sheers, Owen (9 October 2016). "The Green Hollow by Owen Sheers – extract". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
  8. ^ "Wilfred Owen Poetry Award". Wilfred Owen Association. 1 September 2018.
  9. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 13 July 2023.

External links