I was lucky enough this month to be awarded a Literature Wales Writer's Bursary, which will allow me this summer to begin work on my next project, a novel which for the moment I am affectionately calling 'House'. I am particularly excited to start researching and drafting this novel as it's a story I've been thinking about for a long while. Its inspiration lay in a written account of my great great uncle's army service during the Great War years, which fell into my possession as a teenager, and which contains within it a narrative fluid with the voice and poise of a natural writer.

For obvious reasons, I have always felt an affinity with this man's desire to write his story, and I hope that eventually my partly fictionalised retelling will do justice to both the words and the bravery of Sergeant Francis House.

#novel #LiteratureWales #storytelling