Jon Gower grew up in Llanelli, Wales and studied English at Cambridge University.

A former BBC Wales' Arts and Media correspondent, Jon has been making documentary programmes for television and radio for over 30 years. He has several books to his name, in both Welsh and English. They include An Island Called Smith (2001), about a disappearing island in Chesapeake Bay, which gained him the John Morgan Travel Award, and Uncharted (2010), a novel set in Buenos Aires, Oakland, California and Cardiff, which was described by Jan Morris as 'unflagging and unfailingly inventive'.

In 2009, he was awarded a major Creative Wales award to explore the Welsh settlement in Patagonia and he is currently writing The Story of Wales, which will accompany a landmark BBC series to be broadcast early in 2012, and working on a volume about the Welsh coastline with photographer Jeremy Moore. Jon Gower won the Welsh Language Wales Book of the Year Prize in 2012 for his novel Y Storïwr (Gomer 2011). Jon's second volume of short stories, Too Cold For Snow, was published in 2012.

He has also written drama, including a multi-media presentation, On High/Aruchel, devised and performed with Gerald Tyler and Tomos Williams in 2010; Drws Nesa, with Glyn Elwyn in 1986; and two radio plays for BBC Radio Cymru in 1985 and 1983 respectively - Istanbwl and Lawr y Strand i Bicadili.

Jon Gower lives in Cardiff, Wales, with his wife Sarah and two daughters, Elena and Onwy. He is currently a Hay Festival International Fellow.