Draft:Ben Gwalchmai

Ben Gwalchmai is a 'maker, worker, writer' and Welsh political activist; he was a founding member of Labour for an Independent Wales campaign group. He spoke at the first All Under One Banner Cymru and Yes Cymru march in Cardiff, 2019.

His first novel, Purefinder [Cosmic Egg, 2013], was described as 'Breathtakingly intimate and obscure' by Christoff Fischer of the Historical Novel Society.

Writing Career A writer since 2008, Ben has had works performed and published with Anexxe Publishing, Arcola Theatre, The George Wood Theatre, Catford Theatre, Make Something Magazine, Minus9squared Magazine, The Master Shipwright's Palace, Greenwich Dances Festival, Epicentre Magazine, Kumquat Poetry, Bad Robot Poetry, and Welsh National Opera.

Also a producer since 2008, he has made works and events with The Guardian, Greenwich Dance, London School of Economics, Imperial College London, Arcola Theatre, Hay Festival, and many more under the umbrella of work for the charity Poet in the City.

In 2012, he was Welsh National Opera's writer-in-residence and was then asked to work with them again in 2014 with Yello Brick on the world's first Operatic Street Game 'Silent State'. In 2013, his first novel Purefinder was released and won 2 awards.

After winning the Indigo Dreams First collection competition in 2018, his first poetry collection swimming in locks // kites over marches was released on October 31st, 2019.

Activism Labour for an Independent Wales was founded in January, 2017 by Ben Gwalchmai and Huw Lloyd Williams. As founder of that campaign group, Ben Gwalchmai has organized events with Neville Southall, Carwyn Jones, and Professor Calvin Jones of Cardiff University. He was one of the speakers at the first All Under One Banner Cymru [AUOB] & Yes Cymru marches in Cardiff on May 11th, 2019.

After the Labour for an Independent Wales and Welsh Fabians event with Carwyn Jones, Tonia Antoniazzi, Carole Green, and Natasha Davies of Chwarae Teg on April 13th 2019, Ben appeared on the Vaughan Roderick Sunday Supplement programme of April 14th 2019.

A couple of weeks after the AUOB march, Carwyn Jones began entering the conversation around '#indyWales' and on October 12th 2019 tweeted,

'Today's idea.

End Westminster sovereignty and give it to the four nations. The four nations to agree to pool that sovereignty in certain areas such as defence and border control.

Make it clear that the UK is a voluntary union of nations'

This confirmed a shift in Carwyn Jones' position from Federalism to, at the least, Confederalism.

Polls from 2017 to 2019 showed support for indyWales within Welsh Labour supporters rising from 22% to 44%, showing that Labour for an Independent Wales have been successful in shifting the Overton Window in Wales and within Welsh Labour toward independence.

PUBLICATIONS:

ARTICLES & NON-FICTION

Aneurin Bevan killed my sheep, New Socialist, 2019

‘The Lessons of Scottish Labour…’, IWA, 2019

Articles in Nation.Cymru, 2017 – 2021

Articles in Welsh Fabians, 2017 – 2019

Review of Kierkegaard’s Cupboard in the welsh agenda, IWA, Autumn 2018

‘From the Archive…’, Poetry Wales, Summer 2018

‘Where there’s shit, there’s gold’ in Know Your Place, Dead Ink Books, 2017

‘Wales’ in Tactical Reading, Eyewear Books, 2017

‘A Marathon Controlled by an Algorithmic God…’, Ambient Literature, 2016

Building something new // being renewed, REACT [newspaper], 2015

Articles in The Huffington Post, 2013-2015

‘The difference engine’, Imperica, 2013

‘How the legacy of Victorian times still looms over single mothers’, New Statesman, 2013

The IIAL – Vol. 2: [several pieces] – 2010

The IIAL – Vol. 1: [several pieces] – 2010

Beckett’s Musculature – Masters Dissertation, Birkbeck, 2010

FICTION

Purefinder [London: Cosmic Egg Books, 2013]

[Various short stories] – Fabler, 2013

Epicentre Magazine – issue 1, ‘Purefoy Lives’ – April 10th, 2012

The IIAL – Vol. 2: [several pieces] – 2010

The IIAL – Vol. 1: [several pieces] – 2010

LIBRETTI FOR OPERA & FILM OPERA

Remembering Mahan – 2012

‘Bowled Over’ – 9 Stories High, WNO, 2012

‘TESCO’s Finest’ – 9 Stories High, WNO, 2012

‘A very merry Meadow’ – 9 Stories High, WNO, 2011

The Manifesto – 2011

PLAYS, PERVASIVE MEDIA, & SCREENPLAYS

Bedazzled – Ffotogallery, 2014 & 2015

Silent State – WNO & Yello Brick, 2014

A Knight’s Peril – Splash & Ripple, 2013 – 2014

King’s Row, 2010.

Nothing Happens, 2009;

Goodbye Grace, My Grace, 2008

POETRY

Poetry Wales, ‘Do they call it a serenade?’ – Winter, 2021

Centre for New Writing, ‘Does this Spring count…’, #micropoem20, 2020

swimming in locks // kites over marches [Indigo Dreams Press, 2019]

LossLit, ‘Kites‘ – Issue 8, 2018

Poetry Wales, [three poems] – Winter, 2017

Zymbol, [two poems from ‘M’] – Issue 6, 2016

Visual Verse, ‘If there is a boy there’, – Vol. 3, Chapter 3, 2016

Visual Verse, ‘The Line of The Horizon’, – Vol. 2, Chapter 9, 2015

Corpus Cuts, Before I Die Festival – Chapter Arts Centre – May, 2013

XZ #1, Annexe Publishing – April, 2013

Kumquat Poetry – ‘And Love took note’ – January, 2013

Bad Robot Poetry – ‘User selects..’ & ‘He accepted it all…’ – September, 2012

The Archive of Sleep – ‘What (w)hen will (t)his company keep?’ – April, 2011

Make Something – issue 3 – 2010

Minus9squared – issue 1: ‘This number does not exist’ – 2010