Author: Peter Thabit Jones
Alternate names: PETER THABIT JONES
Title: The Lizard Catchers, published by Cross-Cultural Communications, New York, 2006: in hardback and paperbook.
Bio: Peter Thabit Jones was born in Wales and raised by his maternal grandparents. He is the author of thirteen books, several of which have been reprinted and three published in Romania. His work has been translated into over twenty languages.

In March 2008 Peter’s American publisher, Stanley H. Barkan,
organised a six week poetry reading tour for Peter and Dylan Thomas’s daughter, Aeronwy. The pair gave readings and workshops from New York to California, at many universities and prestigious art venues.

Peter is also the co-author, with Aeronwy, of the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village. He was invited to Serbia in 2006 by the Serbian Writers’ Association to participate in the 43rd International Meeting of Writers in Belgrade. He was visiting poet in Romania in 2008 and 2009, where he carried out readings and poetry workshops at colleges and universities.

He is the recipient of the Eric Gregory Award for Poetry (The Society of Authors, London), The Society of Authors Award, The Royal Literary Fund Award (London) and an Arts Council of Wales Award. He has been a prize-winner in several UK and international poetry competitions.

He resided at Big Sur, California, in 2010 as writer-in-residence, returning again for a second and third residency in 2011 and 2012. Whilst in California in 2012, Peter wrote the drama, The Fire in the Wood, about Big Sur sculptor Edmund Kara (famous for his sculpture of Elizabeth Taylor in the film The Sandpiper). 

Peter is the Founder and Editor of The Seventh Quarry Swansea Poetry Magazine, which publishes poetry, translations and articles from around the world, and the accompanying The Seventh Quarry Publishing Press, which publishes international books of poetry, prose, and art.

His poem “Kilvey Hill” has been incorporated into a permanent stained-glass window at the new Saint Thomas Community School in Swansea,Wales.

Peter has participated in many festivals and conferences in America and Europe, including World Affairs Conference, Colorado, 2009; NEMLA Conferences, Boston, 2013, and Pennsylvania, 2014. He has also organized A Visiting American Students/Dylan Thomas in Wales Project with Knox College, America, 2010, and an International Poetry Festival, 2011, and a Drama Festival, 2012, at the DylanThomas Theatre, Swansea, Wales. The latter two events were a collaboration with Cross-Cultural Communications, New York.

In December 2012, Peter was one of just eight people invited to meet His Royal Highness Prince Charles at the Dylan Thomas Birthplace in Swansea.

He returned to California, as a writer-in-residence, in the summer of 2013,2014, 2015, and 2016. In 2014, he was a part of a number of DT100 events in the UK and in America celebrating the Centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas. The Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village, New York book and smartphone app were launched by the Right Honorable Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales, accompanied by Peter and Hannah Ellis, Dylan’s granddaughter, in New York. Peter was also the co-organiser of a Dylan Thomas Multilingual/International Creative Writing Competition and the organiser of a Dylan Thomas Centenary Quotations Trail at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea.

His short drama, The Poet, the Hunchback, and The Boy, based on ‘The hunchback in the park’ by Dylan Thomas, is available as a DVD, as part of the Centenary celebrations of the Dylan Thomas Theatre, Swansea. The drama was performed by Theatre actors at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, and The Welsh Centre, London, in May 2013.

In April, 2014, he was inducted into the Phi Sigma Iota Society at Salem State University, Massachusetts, for his contribution to literature and literary translations.

He is the 2016 recipient of the Ted Slade Award for Poetry (The Poetry Kit, UK).