Balliol Honorary Fellow and former National Poet of Wales Gwyneth Lewis has returned to Balliol to be Artist in Residence for Hilary Term 2026.
‘I’m delighted to have the chance to spend time at Balliol again and with writing at the centre of it,’ says Gwyneth. ‘I’ll be holding office hours two or three times a week for anyone interested in creative writing or having trouble with academic prose, so do come along for a chat – I’d love to talk writing with you!’
Appointments to chat with Gwyneth is available for booking via the online booking form. All students, staff, alumni, and Fellows from Balliol or the wider University are welcome. Appointments are in person only.
Gwyneth will also be running workshops from time to time. This will be advertised on the events page.
Gwyneth Lewis served as the first National Poet of Wales, and her words are on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff in six-foot-high stained-glass windows. She writes poetry in both Welsh and English, as well as non-fiction (including Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression). Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling (Calon 2024) was a Guardian Book of the Year, won the Wales Book of the Year award for non-fiction, and was nominated in the Literature category of the Sky Arts Awards. Her latest publication, First Rain in Paradise was released by Bloodaxe in March 2025. She obtained her doctorate at Balliol in 1985 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the College in 2019. She teaches at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont.
Gwyneth first came to Balliol as Artist in Residence in Hilary Term 2023. During the term, people of all ages, abilities and levels of experience, and from a huge range of subjects, came to see her. ‘These intimate encounters built up into a moving testimony to a community – often invisible to itself – of those deeply engaged in writing,’ she wrote in the Annual Record 2023.