Judge
Dave Lewis
Author, Entrepreneur | Pontypridd, Wales
Dave Lewis judged our 2020 awards and our 2023 awards.
He is a Welsh writer, poet and photographer based in Pontypridd. He has written content for BBC Wales, local newspapers and many online publications. He has been published in a number of literary magazines and websites all over the world.
Entrepreneurial History
In 2007, Dave set up the first-ever Welsh Poetry Competition, an international poetry competition, now the biggest in Wales. In 2019, he created the Writers of Wales A to Z database, which seeks to highlight the abundance of literary talent either from Wales or with a deep connection to Wales, both past and present. He also runs Poetry Publisher, a book publishing company that is seeking good poets who have been overlooked by the mainstream publishing industry.
In 2020, he launched this competition - the Maya Poetry Book Awards.
Literary History
His poetry collection Going Off Grid was a previous finalist in The Wishing Shelf Awards with a score of 39/40 from 17 judges. His poetry collection, Scratching The Surface, his twentieth book, has been praised by great British poets Brian Patten, David J Costello and Sally Spedding.
His publication, Africa Poems, is a "selected works" of his African-themed poetry, which also includes a handful of his own photographs.
His novel, The Welsh Man, is a Cymru noir, gritty, urban tale set in Wales and the UK, highly praised by Welsh novelist Catrin Collier.
In May 2023, Libraries.Wales choose Dave to be their Author of the Month.
In April 2025, he released Wooden Spoon, a satirical dig at the failure of the WRU as four likely lads journey through the ill-fated 2025 Six Nations rugby campaign.
Dave says, "I wandered lonely at the beginning of my writing journey, unsure who would read my work or where it might lead. Yet even the most personal writing can expand outward, reaching others as a cloud moves across an open sky."
