On Being a Writer in Wales: Lottie Williams

Lottie Williams

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m sitting under the cherry tree near the top of our garden, looking across Carmarthen. My laptop is balanced across my knees and half a cup of tea is wedged into the woodchip by my feet. Our children are sliding around in the paddling pool on the level part of grass closer to the house, shrieking with a mixture of warm and chilly delight. Ben, my partner, is pottering about the garden which has become a summer whoosh of green.

He comes over to me with his hand outstretched. The Leptospermum, more commonly known as a tea tree and native to Eastern Australia, some South Pacific islands, and New Zealand, has already survived two winters in our garden. It’s planted under a sycamore by the bank where Ben laid the hazel into a thickening hedge. I look at his palm. He harvested some seed pods from the Leptospermum about a month ago and left them on the shelf in our kitchen. When picked they were plump and round as Bao buns, each with a tightly closed five point star as decoration on top. Ben was looking forward to scorching them with a small flame, a required natural process in their opening and releasing of seeds. But in the warmth of our July kitchen, the pods have already dried and withered to a smaller ball and the stars have gaped open, flecks of golden-bronze now littering the shelf.

‘’Drych ar hwn. Look at these seeds.’ Ben is half amazed / half disappointed that he won’t be playing with fire today. ‘I’m not sure how viable they are, but I’ll sow them and see.’

Non-native

Like the Leptospermum, I’m also non-native to Wales though I have lived more than half my life here now. Born in West Yorkshire, I moved to the Cambridgeshire Fens as a child until I set my sights west for Aberystywyth University, chosen not just for the course it offered but for the fact it was warm and sunshiny bright when I visited for the open day, the sea glinting below as dad and I stood on the concourse outside the Union and library. The prospectus was like a holiday brochure, bright yellow and filled with opportunities to windsurf and sea kayak, bbq with mates on the beach, and climb Constitution Hill for ice cream. Aberystwyth also boasted the largest number of pubs in the country in comparison to its relatively small size. I was hooked, Wales beckoned, and that’s the way it’s remained ever since.

Onto writing. This is, after all, about being a writer. I’ve written for pleasure from a very young age, but it was never something I thought I could do as a sort-of career. I still have a short illustrated story called ‘Thomas and Biscuit go camping’ which I wrote when I was six, and mum keeps a book of poems my brothers and I co-created (the content is mainly toilet humour, but the rhyme and rhythm are spot on). I also feel it’s time to admit how, when I was seven, I sat next to the spare blank exercise books in school, and how I often secretly squirrelled them into my bag for the walk home, and then hid them under my bed to be filled with jottings and doodles. My childhood dream was to write. Even the squared math books found a purpose, patterned with plans of cross stitches that never made their way from page to thread.

It wasn’t until I left my career as an English and Drama teacher in Pembrokeshire and moved to the neighbouring county of Carmarthenshire that I began to write more seriously. It began in sessions run by Mel Perry, a poet and writing for wellbeing practitioner who lives in the nearby village of Llansteffan. Then Lockdown hit and I started logging in to the fortnightly spoken word Poems&Pints@TheQueens hosted by Mel and Dominic Williams from the CIC write4word, now moved to Zoom rather than ‘in the room’ of the pub.

Through the small windows on my screen I began sharing my work in a safe and inclusive space, enjoying the company and writing of others through that strange time. In 2021, I began a part time Masters in Creative Writing at Swansea University, and that feeling of togetherness which I had experienced with Mel and Dom continued to strengthen. I know I wouldn’t have developed as I have were it not for the welcoming and open writing communities I have come into contact with time and time again here in Wales. I struggle to see how it could be the same over the border with more humans, more miles.

Learning the craft

I have met like-minded people, been privileged to engage with opportunities from Literature Wales, and attended festivals as both an audience member and guest reader. I have twice been to Ynys Enlli with fellow writers, and to the Black Mountains College. I have learnt about craft from highly respected writers. I remain a founding member of Mel’s writing group, The Llansteffan Writers. The spoken word events, renamed ‘Cerddi yn Cwrw’, still remain on Zoom AND in the room at the fabulous Cwrw Bar in Carmarthen, and feature an inclusive and diverse gathering of voices from Wales and beyond, and by ‘beyond’ I include USA, Sweden, Greece and India, among others. I’m collaborating with fellow students I have met through Swansea University, and exciting projects are in the pipeline. Dwi’n dysgu Cymraeg gyda’r Welsh Work scheme. I’m branching out as a writing for wellbeing practitioner thanks to the training and mentoring from the Sgwennu Well / Writing Well programme with Literature Wales. I have made dear lifelong friends.

And as for my debut book, this is also a product of community. Of completing my MA and winning the Nigel Jenkins Literary Award. Of meeting Ali Anwar and Jon Gower, and being published by these wonderful people at the H’mm Foundation. Of having the privilege to share joy and grief in some of my family’s stories, write about place and nature in Wales, and highlight the future of the climate and ecological emergency. Wales has gifted me space, and a place that I can call home. It has invited me to notice, connect and write in depth about the sea, the land and the sky. From Pendine Sands to Ynys Enlli, Bannau Brycheiniog to Eryri, I love this land and the people.

Swimsuits damp, our children watch as Ben mixes sieved homemade compost with sand and grit. He holds it out for them to smell and they push their fingers in before it’s tipped into a seedling tray. Then he carefully shakes the tiny Leptospurmum seeds onto the growing medium.

‘Man a man. We can but try,’ he says. ‘The other tree is growing happily here, no reason why these can’t either.’

Absolutely, I think. Let’s give it a go. No reason at all why a non-native can’t thrive here.

Ben softly sprays the tray with water, smiles, and asks me if I’d like a refill of tea.