This week we are delighted to showcase the 2nd and 3rd place entries of our most recent competition, The Richard Booth Prize for Non Fiction 2026. To see this year’s results in full, please click HERE.

2nd Prize went to Neil Stone for his excellent piece, “Sumud“.

“Neil lives in the  Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.  After leaving school at 16 with no qualifications Neil joined the Royal Navy. and then between spells of unemployment, studying for degrees at Nottingham and Cambridge Universities Neil worked in the USA, the NHS, local authorities and in HM Prisons & Probation Service.
Although he has always written fiction and is the author of two non-fiction books Neil began seriously writing  again after returning from a three month spell as a volunteer  monitoring violations of human rights and international law in Palestine.  Sumud is directly drawn from this experience. 
Neil short story ’Trecco Beach Baby,” was shortlisted for the 2025 Rheidol Prize  and will be published later this year in the New Welsh Review.
Neil has just completed his first novel – a crime thriller set against the backdrop of the Brecon Jazz Festival and is actively looking to place the book with an agent or publisher. “

Second Prize –  Sumud, by Neil Stone

Looking around and from all angles it was hard to believe that this once was someone’s home. Piles of rubble and corrugated iron heaped into haphazard monuments to the destructive power of a single bulldozer. I’d witnessed this kind of devastation many times before, that was one of the reasons why I was here, documenting human rights abuses and breaches of international law, including the destruction of Palestinian homesteads, but this one was different.

   It was different for two reasons. All the cases I’d dealt with up until then followed an official process. The DCL (District Coordination and Liaison Officer) would issue a demolition order on behalf of the Civil Administration, the Israeli governing body that oversees the occupied territories of the West Bank. These orders supposedly gave  sufficient time for families to move out or appeal, the latter of which was rarely successful. Then the heavy equipment would arrive, usually early in the morning, accompanied by the Israeli police and soldiers from the IDF (Israeli Defence Force). Then  the evicted family watched in heartbreaking agony as their home was raised to the ground. The reason? The house was constructed without a permit. Most Palestinians built without permits   because even according to  Israeli sources the chances of a Palestinian acquiring a permit to build in the occupied territories was ‘slim.’

   Except this demolition had not been carried out by the DCL. A neighbour had done this and as I stood surveying the wreckage I glanced up to see the culprit looking right back at me and his handiwork. He stood astride his quad bike, about half a mile away, outlined on the top of a dusty ridge overlooking the valley; occasional flashes of metallic light catching something  held in his hand, maybe the sun’s reflection on a pair of binoculars or an automatic weapon; like most mustawtin (Israeli settler), he favoured an American manufactured M-11 carbine.

   Whereas I had attended previous home demolitions with limited knowledge of the occupants this time I was standing in the middle of a house I was very familiar with. Up until a few days ago I had spent many hours here; there under where the corrugated tin which once formed the roof of the porch now angled towards the sky like the barrel of an anti-aircraft gun. We would sit in the shade, sheltering from the midday heat, whilst Ahmed, for this was his home, expertly sliced out watermelon for us chew on whilst his father chainsmoked,  conversing with me in faltering Arabic. Mine not theirs.

   Ahmed had asked us for help through a cousin in Hebron. He farmed on rented land in a valley called Wadadadee close to the West Bank border with Israel. Over the last few months the number of Israeli settlers moving into the area around Wadadadee had increased, encouraged by government grants, tax breaks and the jingoistic rhetoric of the newly appointed Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, himself a settler living in nearby Kiryat Arba.  One particular settler, emboldened by the new arrivals, began harassing Ahmed, stampeding his flock of sheep, driving his quad bike through the ripening corn and most recently breaking into his home in the middle of the night. Ahmed had reported all these incidents to the Israeli Police with no response. Which I found from other cases was not uncommon. When we did get a reaction it was invariably to invite the Palestinian complainant to come down to  the station to report it. This was never going to happen because as was said to me so many times any Palestinian who walks into a police station of the occupying power was risking his liberty at the very least. So Ahmed turned to our programme for help. We are a volunteer group, Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), which among our monitoring duties provided a protective presence for vulnerable communities under attack from either the IDF, settlers, – there was a particular violent gang called ‘Hilltop Youth,’  – or as so often was the case both of these groups operating in tandem.

   So, there I was, on an almost daily basis. Two of us would make ourselves very visible to watchers, of which there were always plenty, and accompany Ahmed out into the fields where he was most vulnerable. Wadadadee was hard to get to. It entailed getting a ride down Highway 317, not always easy,  any vehicle with Palestinian licence plates could be subject to ambush from stone throwing settlers hiding by the roadside. We would then travel on foot through desert scrubland and rocky outcrops before dropping into the valley. Ideal places for settlers to launch stones or intimidate us with low flying drones. One night when we were not there the settler came into Ahmed’s home. Khalil, his brother, was staying at the time and got up to confront the intruder. A fight took place. The settler retreated but got his revenge the next day when he rang a relative in the Border Police. Khalil was arrested crossing the checkpoint into Hebron and his work permit suspended. He was held in detention for many days before being released unable to earn a living and monitored by Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Police.

   It all came to an end when after a few days absent from Wadadadee on another job  I received a call from Ahmed. He and his family were leaving and heading to a-Samu, a nearby Palestinian town. He had had enough. The day before he had been physically attacked and injured by the settler and one other. They had launched low flying drones emitting loud noises to startle and scatter the sheep and stolen his newly harvested crop. Ahmed asked if someone could meet him the next day at Wadadadee as he had left one of his dogs behind which had refused to come with them when they packed up and fled. Two of us made the trip on what had to be one of the hottest days of the year but when we got there Ahmed had already gone; unable to bear what met his eyes. In less than 24 hours a bulldozer had come down off the hill from the direction of the settlement, we followed the tracks until warned off, and demolished his house and surrounding outbuildings. They even burnt Ahmed’s beehives at the back of the compound as a final act of malign cruelty. The settler coveted Ahmed’s land and from where I stood I could see why. What had been a few grape vines planted along the ridge when  he first arrived had now become a proliferation thirsty for  water from Ahmed’s well and land for expansion.

   We reported all this of course. The authorities did nothing of course.  Under occupation the occupied have no rights. Start from there I told the newbies taking over from us and everything else will fall into place. It was hard not to agree with a colleague as we took our farewells that for somewhere called the Holy Land it was the most Godless place he’d ever been to. Only Sumud, really existed. A Palestinian word which loosely  translates to steadfastness or resilience, an act of unyielding resistance to oppression. Ahmed messaged me at the airport. He had taken out a loan and was going to rent some land away from Wadadadee and have another go at farming. That’s Sumud. Because when God and governments are looking the other way and hope is just a word what else is there?

3rd Prize went to Vivienne Sayer, for her wonderful piece, “The Road to Emmaus“.

“Vivienne Sayer currently lives in Banbury, Oxfordshire, although Wales was home for most of her life. She studied English at Cardiff University. Years later, when lecturing at Trinity College, Carmarthen, she did an MA in Creative Writing. After working in education for many years, she went on to be an editor of children’s books at Gomer Press before training for ministry in the Church in Wales.
Carmarthen was her home for nearly 30 years. It is where she became fluent in Welsh and where she came to understand the depth of her roots.
To soften the impact of her health-exile, she recently completed an online course in cynghanedd. She finds it spiritually inspiring to write an englyn (a strict-metre four-line poem), especially when she goes on to produce an English translation.“

Third Prize – The Road to Emmaus – via Western Avenue, by Vivienne Sayer.

It was a cold January day, and I was feeling very low. My fellow ordinands from St David’s diocese had all received letters from the Bishop confirming where they were going to be placed as curates. There had been no letter for me.

I was in my final year at St Michael’s College in Llandaff. At that time, although it was the main theological institution of the Church in Wales, students followed academic courses at Cardiff University, which was approximately three miles away.

During the previous term, I’d had a traumatic loss of consciousness, and so I probably shouldn’t still have been using my bike, but Cardiff has some wonderful cycle routes: through Llandaff Fields, along the river Taff and through Bute Park, so cycling to lectures was usually a hugely pleasurable experience. And quick.

I reached the civic centre without incident and tethered my bicycle to one of the stands near the main university building in Park Place. Once the first lecture of the morning was over, I retrieved my bike to wheel it round to the university bookshop. It didn’t take me long to decide that riding it would be more sensible, but, as soon as I set off, the inner tube of the back tyre burst. My college bike had a history of punctures, and both tyres had been pumped with some white plastic foam that was supposed to create a seal. Suddenly, all the horrible gunge was hanging out of the back tyre and had wrapped itself around the spokes of the wheel.

At first, the bike wouldn’t move, but then the packing stretched a little and I was, with some difficulty, able to wheel it again. Suffering from chronic back pain, I didn’t want the stress of walking all the way back to St Michael’s at the end of the morning, so I rang the college and asked if someone could possibly come and pick me up after my final lecture, together with

the bike. Under normal circumstances, this would have been perfectly reasonable, but there had been some crisis at St Mike’s, and no one was available. So, rather than risk leaving a damaged bicycle outside the university, I resigned myself to a long, slow, painful trudge home.

The early morning had been sunny, though bitterly cold, but now the clouds had gathered and the rain started, together with some fierce bursts of hail. In my mind’s eye, I split up the journey into stages: stage one to the Taff Trail, stage two to Llandaff Fields, stage three to the avenue of trees leading up to Western Avenue, one of the busiest roads in the capital. From that point onwards, stage four wouldn’t take too long. I would simply need to get to the traffic lights in order to cross the road safely, and then it would be only a short distance to St Michael’s.

My painful back was manageable until I was halfway across the playing fields, and then the heavens opened. Completely exposed to driving rain and hail, every step became a challenge. By the time I’d reached the avenue of trees, I was totally debilitated. There was nobody in sight. No sensible soul would be out for a walk in such bitter weather, not even the hardiest dog-walker. I was feeling very sorry for myself when suddenly, the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus flashed into my head.

I often feel anxious, but I rarely get angry. It certainly wouldn’t cross my mind to get angry with God – about anything. But tantalisingly, I issued Jesus a challenge; I don’t know where it came from. I don’t even know whether it happened inside my head or whether I spoke the words out loud: ‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘You appeared alongside the disciples, come and walk alongside me.’ I had never had such a thought before, let alone articulated it.

Nothing happened. Of course it didn’t. How stupid! What did I expect? Some angelic visitor to suddenly appear at my side? I slogged up the avenue of trees, counting them off as I went. Halfway up the track, I could see that the allotment hedge had suffered some brutal tree surgery. The exposed wood looked like raw flesh, and the nearby garden plots were deserted. The violence and the bleakness suited my mood.

Then all at once I noticed some snowdrops and wondered idly when the crocuses might start to appear. Then I saw that a few early ones had already begun to bloom. Then I caught sight of a whole host of daffodil spikes, and I thought of the carpet of gold which would come alive during the following month, ready for Easter.

At last, I reached the top of the track and turned left onto Western Avenue. The next section was straightforward, but I was glad of the extended stop at the pedestrian lights to ease my back whilst the cars and lorries thundered past.

It had stopped raining, but I was still wearing my hood, and I wasn’t going to risk taking it down. I crossed the road and pressed on past the Cathedral School. Between the school railings and me, there was a stretch of scrub and a narrow strip of pavement.

Then suddenly, right beside me, I was aware that there was another cyclist. I didn’t hear him coming up behind me: he was just there, at my side, having dismounted from his own bike, a very plain white folding device.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Do you need help? I’m sure I could sort your wheel out for you.’ He was, I suppose, in his mid-thirties, slight in build, nondescript in appearance, and with a strong Cardiff accent.

I pointed to the tyre. ‘It’s shot,’ I said, thanking him for his concern. ‘I’m all right. I’m just wheeling my bike home.’

He agreed that the tyre looked damaged beyond repair. ‘Have you got far to go?’

I explained that I was nearly home and that St Michael’s College was only just around the corner.

‘Well, if you’re quite sure you can manage,’ he said, clearly reluctant to take my word for it. I assured him that I was fine but thanked him once again. He nodded, got back on his bike, and cycled off towards the main intersection between Western Avenue and Llandaff Road.

I half expected him to vanish into thin air but was reassured to see him waiting for the lights to change, a man of flesh and blood.

It wasn’t until I got back to college that I really started to think about what had happened. There was something about the meeting that was so real and yet so unreal at the same time. The words I’d spoken at my darkest moment suddenly came back to me: ‘Go on, then. You appeared alongside the disciples, come and walk alongside me.’

I’m not a person who routinely feels the presence of God, but I was certain then, as I’m certain now, that I’d had an encounter with the living Christ.

Something from the Hay Writers’ Circle Archives

A poem by Wilhelmina Lockwood – The Hay Writer, Issue No. 5, 2004.

KING HENRY VII
by Wilhelmina Lockwood

He stands high on the wall
of the Buttermarket,
gazing towards England.
The first Tudor King,
proud in his crown
conquered on Bosworth field
from Richard III in 1485.
Born in Pembroke in 1457
and married to Elizabeth of York.
Another Pretender to the Crown.

A turbulent time
Kings and Princes slain in battle
or in the tower,
he is a man of peace.
War is wasteful
and ravages the land.
Henry the despot
is diplomat, too
promotes trade, stability
the Welsh gift of music.

On the end of the old Butter Market, looking across Castle Square, is this sculpture of King Henry VII. It was created by Edward Folkard (1911-2005) in fibreglass and aluminous cement, and has been in its current position since March 1995, and has become a well loved fixture within the town.

Trading for over 700 years, Hay Market is a colourful local market held on every Thursday, in and around the central areas of Hay-on-Wye. In addition, on the first Saturday of the month from April to October there is also a market. Do come along and join the social gathering of buyers and sellers as they throng our streets with their vibrant displays, or grab a coffee from any of the local cafes and simply watch the world go by…

To keep up to date with all our competitions, workshops, events and news, why not subscribe with your email address in the box below.