Gary Raymond

Background

About Gary Raymond

I’m a playwright, novelist, critic, editor and broadcaster. I present the BBC Radio Wales Arts Show, and am co-founder and Executive Editor of Wales Arts Review. I’ve written three novels, Angels of Cairo (2021), The Golden Orphans (2018) and For Those Who Come After (2015). And I’ve written a nonfiction title, How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (2020). Angles of Cairo was made Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month for July 2021. My second novel, The Golden Orphans, was picked as best new crime novel in The Spectator and was previewer’s pick of the month for June 2018 in The Bookseller. I have edited a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, from short story anthologies to political memoir. In 2018, I was one of the four judges for the British Council International bloggers prize, and was a member of the judging panel of the This Is Wales showcase for Arts Council Wales’s funding package for the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe. A prominent critic and promoter of the arts of Wales, I have collaborated with Arts Council Wales, Wales Arts International, and the British Council on international projects as far afield as Japan and India. In 2019, I edited Renegade Wales: 13 Short Stories from New Voices in Welsh Fiction for Bee Books of Kolkata, India. As a critic, I’ve been seen in the pages of The Guardian and heard on BBC Radio Four’s Front Row. I am a regular guest tutor at the Ty Newydd Writing Centre in north Wales, and have over 10 years experience as a creative writing workshop leader. I am currently researching for a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing at Cardiff University, looking that contemporary novel and climate change. My debut stage play, A Beautiful Rhythm of Life and Death, about the life and work of Welsh writer Dorothy Edwards, was produced to wide acclaim by Company of Sirens in 2023. Specialties: Literary Fiction and non-fiction, editing, theatre collaboration, academic workshops.