Owen Sheers (born 20 September 1974) is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter. He was the first writer in residence to be appointed by any national rugby union team. Early life Owen Sheers was born in Suva, Fiji in 1974, and brought up in Abergavenny, south Wales. He went to school at King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, before studying at New College, Oxford, and the University of East Anglia, at which point he completed an MA in Creative Writing. During his time at New College, Sheers captained the Oxford University Modern Pentathlon team. Career In 1999, Sheers received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. His first collection of poetry, The Blue Book, was published by Seren in 2000. A collection of poems about family, first love and farming life, it was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and the Forward Prize for "Best First Collection". Following this first publication, Sheers worked on the light entertainment television show The Big Breakfast as a researcher. His debut prose work, The Dust Diaries, was published by Faber in 2004. A non-fiction narrative set in Zimbabwe following the travels of Sheers' great-great-uncle, Arthur Shearly Cripps, it won the Wales Book of the Year in 2005, and was also shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. In 2004 Sheers was Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and was selected as one of the Poetry Book Society's 20 Next Generation Poets. His second collection of poetry, Skirrid Hill (Seren, 2005), won a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award. Unicorns, almost, his one-man play based on the life and poetry of the WWII poet Keith Douglas, was developed by the Old Vic, New Voices, and performed by Joseph Fiennes. Sheers' first novel, Resistance, has been translated into ten languages and was short listed for the Writer's Guild of Great Britain Best Book Award 2008 and won a 2008 Hospital Club Creative Award. The novel imagines that the D-day landings have failed and Wales has been occupied by the Nazis. While working as a tiler in the South Wales valleys one summer, Sheers had heard about the Auxiliary Units-secret civilian networks that, in the event of an invasion, would have formed a British resistance, but the novel focuses not on fighting "but on the uneasy means of survival open to the women who are left behind". The film of