Bookshelf Focus: An Interview with Lloyd Jones

Bookshelf Focus: An Interview with Lloyd Jones

22 February 2021

Lloyd Jones newydd

Wales Literature Exchange interviewed our Bookshelf author Lloyd Jones about his writing and his influences.

1. What first inspired you to be an author and where do your ideas come from?

I have always loved words, and since I was born into a pre-TV, pre-Wifi society, I read a lot as a child. I was a journalist for most of my life; after an alcohol-fuelled breakdown when I was 50 I set about walking around Wales and writing books. My poor old brain, now skiing very rapidly downhill, is constantly threatened by an avalanche of ideas.

2. How would you describe your writing?

Welsh, eccentric, idiosyncratic, literary, sincere, non-mainstream.

3. Which authors have influenced you the most?

A huge number of influences, from all over the world.

4. In your opinion what are the biggest challenges that writers face today – and do you think these challenges have changed since you started writing?

In a highly commercial age, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be a “wild” writer (as in wild flower or animal) as opposed to domestic and house-trained. To use a cliché, I have always tried to be myself.

5. What are the hardest and easiest parts of being a writer?

It’s just a retirement hobby for me so there’s not much pain involved. I get a bit fed up with all the attention paid to American authors, all the blather surrounding populist books, and various insincere marketing ploys, and of course the inevitable sense of failure has to be handled with fortitude, but otherwise it’s a joy.

6. Which writer from Wales would you recommend to readers and why?

I’d try books by husband and wife Patrick McGuinness and Angharad Price. But please, sample as many as you can.

Fflur was selected to the Wales Literature Exchange 2020 Bookcase, our annual selection of recent Welsh literary works which we recommend for translation.