Bio

Mab Jones is a "unique talent" (The Times) who has read her poems all over the UK, in the US, Ireland, France, and Japan; at festivals such as Green Man and Latitude; on BBC Radio 4; and more. She was the first Resident Poet in the National Botanic Garden of Wales, and has also been Resident Writer at the Dylan Thomas Boathouse. She is currently Resident Writer of Cardiff Wetlands Nature Reserve, and is the creator and host of a literary podcast about the wetlands of Wales which is funded by a recently received Royal Society of Literature ‘Literature Matters’ Award.

Mab is the winner of many other awards and accolades, including the John Tripp Spoken Poetry Audience Prize, the Neil Gaiman Word Factory Short Story Competition, the Aurora Poetry Prize, the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, the Wolverhampton Literature Poetry competition, and the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. She was, in recent years, the recipient of a Creative Wales Award, one of the country’s highest arts honours.

Her first collection, Poor Queen, was published by Burning Eye Books. Her second, take your experience and peel it, was published by Indigo Dreams. A pamphlet, Rogue 13, was published by Analog Press. In 2020, a pamphlet containing poems about Wales was published, called This Is The Land That Grew Me, with Selcouth Station Press, and also in that year she published a pamphlet of pandemic poems, 111 Haiku for Lockdown. A further collection, Yubitsume, came out with Indigo Dreams in 2023.

In 2024, Mab's first book of prose was published. Bog Witch is lyrical, semi-mystical immersion into wild wetland areas that encompasses nature writing, life writing, poetry, and magical memoir from a working-class woman’s perspective whilst drawing from history, science, mythology and folklore.

Mab has also been published in various newspapers and journals e.g. the New York Times, The Guardian, and the Spectator; has appeared on BBC television and presented several BBC Radio 3 and 4 poetry programmes, as well as podcasts for Apples & Snakes and as part of her Royal Society of Literature award; is the founder editor of Black Sheep Journal, Black Rabbit Press, and Infinity Books UK ; has blogged for Mslexia magazine and Write Out Loud; and organises events, which have included the first Welsh editions of Pecha Kucha Night (from Japan), Literary Death Match (from the US), 100,000 Poets for Change (worldwide), UK Slam! Championships (London), and the UK Team Slam Championships.

In addition, Mab ran International Dylan Thomas Day in 2016, 2017, and 2018, and the associated annual Dylan Day poetry competition, Love The Words. until 2023. She has also worked promoting the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival, and various other projects and initiatives.

Mab has mentored poets through the Poetry Society and has run many programmes and events in support of writers, e.g. her Free Write 'writing socials' and online writing courses. She was a tutor at Cardiff University for 6 years, and runs workshops and classes in the community for all ages and experience of writer.

Mab has studied meditation for almost 30 years, and been reading and researching into spiritual, self-help, and wellbeing topics nearly all her life.

She has been a member of various groups, including a Tibetan Buddhist group when she lived in Japan in her early to mid twenties; a reiki healing share group; and a Theta healing and psychic development group. She has also experienced / experimented in mantra, including Christian chanting, and studied tai chi and qi gong for four years.

Mab has always included a therapeutic element in her community offerings, and is qualified:

• in Counselling (BACP level 4)

• in Safeguarding (levels 1, 2, and 3)

• as a Reiki Master-Teacher

• in Theta Healing

• in Energy Medicine and Advanced Energy Medicine 

Additionally, Mab was a volunteer with the Samaritans for two years; with Recovery Cymru for a year; and has worked with Mind, 4Winds, Crisis, Women Seeking Sanctuary refugee centre, and many other charities and third sector organisations. 

She has run many wellbeing events, too, including Well / Being, a Wales-wide project which resulted in a poem written by the people of Wales and turned into an animation; the Happiness Project, a creative drop-in in Henleaze Library in Bristol; and projects in prisons from Bridgend to Feltham, London.

She is currently studying sound therapy, kinesiology (acupressure) and will shortly complete the Embody Lab’s Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate.

Excitingly, Mab plans to integrate these interests more overtly into her community offerings this year (2025) and going forward. She also intends to bring in her longterm interest in various deities and archetypes, that are part of her personal spiritual practice.