If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you might recall a series of three posts in April 2017 by Louise Cole, writing about her recent visit to Tŷ Newydd on the Spring Masterclass. Louise returned for the Autumn Masterclass in October that same year. Spring forward to April 2018, she has just won the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry, along with a cash prize of €1,500 and the renaming of a Dublin pub in her honour. Enormous congratulations, Louise. You can read more about the competition, as well as her winning poems, here.

If you’d like to know more about Louise, read her answers to our five minute questionnaire below, or visit her blog:

1. How did you come across Tŷ Newydd? Was this your first visit?

I found Tŷ Newydd on the internet, and the Poetry Masterclass in April 2017 was my first visit (and I loved it, so I tried for another one!)

2. As a Poet, do you have a specific place that you go to for inspiration or to write?

I like to walk for inspiration (in the countryside if I can, otherwise anywhere); I can be inspired at any time and so I always carry a pen and paper with me.

3. Do you have a writing routine? Do you set a target to write a specific amount of poems a day; have a special pen; a specific desk?

I have a favourite pen and notebook, but I don’t have a specific target number of poems, or routine, or a place to write (though I’d love a me-only writing shed to retreat to!)

4. What’s your favourite book / collection?

My favourites change almost daily, but I’m still very taken with Jane Clarke’s collection ‘The River’. She writes beautifully about a time and a place I’m familiar with.

5. If you could be the author of any book / collection, which would you chose?

Well, I’d love to have my own poetry collection…

6. If you could choose any three writers, dead or alive, to invite for supper, which three would you chose?

Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney and Maya Angelou. That would be some dinner party!

7. Who or what inspired you to write?

I’ve written since I was a child, but only recently discovered I could write poetry that other people might enjoy. The encouragement of the Masterclass tutors, Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy and Maura Dooley has been hugely influential.

8. If you could be any character from the literary world, who would you be and why?

I’m not sure it is very literary, but I’d really like to be Superman’s girlfriend, Lois Lane – a journalist with a superhero as a partner!