My Projects

Maya Poetry Book Awards

The Maya Poetry Book Awards is an annual, international competition to recognise the best poetry books produced by indie writers, self-published authors, or books published by small, truly independent presses. We are proud to be a Welsh-based, international contest open to all indie poets globally.

Even though more and more people enjoy and participate in creative writing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to become traditionally published, especially in poetry. Most of the top book prizes and competitions do not allow self-published authors to enter. If they are allowed, then many are extremely expensive, leaving truly independent publishers, self-publishers and indie authors struggling to find the recognition they deserve.

To find out more - click here.

Welsh Poetry Competition

The first international Welsh Poetry Competition was set up by Pontypridd poet & writer Dave Lewis in 2007. Officially launched on St David’s Day @ Clwb-Y-Bont, Pontypridd, the aim was to encourage and foster the wealth of creative writing talent that exists in Wales but often languishes in the doldrums. The goal was to inspire people to capture life in the present day and to give a voice to a new generation of poets and writers.

The contest ran for 20 years (between 2007 and 2026) and became the biggest in Wales. We got entries from over forty-five countries around the world (Abu Dhabi, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, Colombia, Corfu, Denmark, England, Finland, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, USA and Vietnam, as well as Wales, of course).

We had several winners from Wales, with the remaining awards going to poets from elsewhere in the UK, Australia and Canada.

The website remains as an archive of winners, links and monthly blog posts.

To visit the website - click here.

Poetry Publisher

I set up Poetry Publisher for poets who want to self-publish a poetry book.

I offer an affordable, self-publishing poetry book service that uses Print On Demand (POD) technologies to produce quality paperbacks and Kindle e-books. I've been helping authors worldwide since 2014.

I have many years of self-publishing and book cover design experience and offer poets a wide range of high-quality services using Amazon KDP.

Publish & Print

Founded in Wales, Publish & Print was a professional, self-publishing book company that used Print On Demand (POD) technologies to produce quality paperbacks and Kindle e-books. I started the company after being made redundant by Gartholwg LLC, and between 2014 and 2026, I helped over 100 authors from all over the world publish numerous books.

Click the typewriter to see some of the authors I worked with.

Web Design Wales

In 1998, I started Web Design Wales – a new media company based in Pontypridd, south Wales, that specialised in producing quality websites for local businesses. For the first few years, I developed bespoke html/css websites before moving to WordPress later on.

To see some of the websites I designed/developed - click here.

Ponty Town Online

In 1998, I set up the first real ‘Pontypridd‘ website. This was in the early days of the Internet. There were a few other websites already doing stuff on ‘Ponty’, e.g. Ponty.net, the rugby site for one, but these were the real early days, before social media existed, and most people were still on dial-up, after unplugging their phone!

As well as adding regular content, the site aimed to give the people of Pontypridd a chance to voice their opinions on the town and the surrounding area. As well as the website, which has had various redesigns over the years, I also started a message board. This became hugely popular, and politicians everywhere hated it as I allowed true free speech - imagine that today! Certain locals (you know who you are) wholeheartedly supported this idea and enthusiastically got involved. On several occasions, the rumour mill, political vitriol, dark humour and sarcasm resulted in the threat of legal action, but luckily, I had attended Internet Law courses with the BBC in London, which helped enormously, especially when people posted the truth! The website made the front page of the SW Echo, and had various Lords, Ladies and MPs after me, but it was all good fun exposing their corruption and disdain for the people they are supposed to represent.

As well as the politics and dirty tricks, the website also gave a platform to the Ponty Curry Club, filmed by BBC Wales, where we met Iolo Williams in the old Everest Tandoori. I also started a cycling group on Sundays and invited pub and band reviews for the site. With the best rugby team in the world (during the 90s), our sister site, the equally infamous www.pontyrugby.com got investment from millionaire Chris Wright (Wasps RFC) and the Rivals brand.

As a result of this collaboration, I managed to land the BBC Scrum V web producer’s role after the late, great Sean Davies moved on. As well as being an ‘online thing’, the members of the forum also met up in real time, in various pubs. This was true for the Ponty Town Online site, the Rivals rugby one and even Scrum V. The Ponty site was now in its heyday, but like all good things, I knew it wouldn’t last.

As time went by, the old message board culture was replaced with something I had thought about in 2000. I didn’t know a database guy to help me build it, so it never took off. Oh yeah, it did about five years later. You might have heard of it… Facebook. Anyway, who cares? It’s only worth $1.5 trillion nowadays. It would be nice to have that sort of cash of course, I could give a few quid to Cilfynydd RFC, save the elephants and maybe buy an old Porsche 911. Never mind, maybe in another lifetime.

When Facebook took over from all of us amateur web designers/bloggers, I felt it was time to step down. I moved our town board to Facebook in 2018, but it took me until 2024 to finally let go. With help from ‘too many to mention’ local Ponty people, I’d built the community up from nothing to almost 50,000 members over 26-27 years. I announced I was giving up and got about 5 likes – now do you see why I thought social media was the end of civilisation as we know it?!!!

In the meantime, you can still moan about ‘all things Ponty’ here. Yes, it was fun while it lasted. Before the time when people thought opinions were more important than facts.

Welsh Writers

In February 2019, I set up the Writers of Wales, A to Z database. There used to be one on the Literature Wales website, but they got rid of it. Lots of writers, poets and artists complained about this, so I thought I’d just start my own.

The website aimed to highlight many of the great Welsh writers in the country, both past and present. I created A-Z listings of as many Welsh (or Welsh-connected) writers as I could find from throughout history, and also added all the new, modern authors out there as well. I included Brythonic historians, best-selling TV celebrities, sports stars, celebrated crime writers, politicians, priests and poets. Lots of the new breed of ‘indie’ writers also got in touch over the six years that I ran the site. At last count, I think I had listed over 250 writers with over 100 more to add.

Eventually, probably shamed into it by my own effort, Literature Wales finally did their own version. With two versions of a directory, albeit quite different ones, I decided there was no point continuing, especially as mine cost me money, time and effort while Literature Wales gets about £5 million a year of taxpayers’ money to promote Welsh writers and Welsh literature.

Welsh T-Shirt Shop

The original Welsh T-shirt shop. Founded in 2005 in Pontypridd. I designed the famous Route A470 tee, Made in Wales (barcode), Cymru (coordinates), hashtag Map, Seren (star), 3 Peaks, Roadsigns (dragon), Pen-y-Fan (triangle) and many more...

The site is still live and we hope to add new designs in 2027.

To browse products just click the image opposite.

Welsh Book Shop

When Bookshop.org began rolling out their ‘online shops’ in the UK, I thought this would be a great way to bypass Amazon and other masters of the universe, and perhaps push some business towards small, indie bookshops instead.

And so, with this in mind, I set up my own Welsh Book Shop, where I hoped to offer a variety of books with a Welsh flavour. Like many projects I start or get involved in, I found the constant web admin too time-consuming and so have reluctantly decided to stop. It was fun while it lasted, and in the few years I ran the website, I did manage to promote a fair number of Welsh writers.