A Pembrokeshire author has won a prestigious literature award, beating off stiff competition at both the longlist and shortlist stages.

Mathry-based author Diana Powell won the Cinnamon Press Literature Award for her novella, The Sisters of Cynvael.

The judges called the novella: “An inventive rendering of a slice of Welsh mythology that demonstrates how dynamic and contemporary mythology can be. Time here is as fluid as the prose.”

They added that they were "captivated by the willingness to take risks that pay off in both the evocative language and the distinctive narrative voice".

Diana was born and brought up in Llanelli, West Wales, and studied English at Aberystwyth University.

She settled in Pembrokeshire in 2011"after years of moving around and being a mother, housewife, and various part-time assistants".

When she is not writing, she finds peace and inspiration working in her woodland garden or walking the Pembrokeshire coast.

This is the latest in a list of successes for Diana.

Her short story Whale Watching, a tale set in Fishguard around the 1954 filming of Moby Dick, was recently included in the Best (British) Short Stories anthology, regarded as the nation's top annual guide.

She also won the 2014 PenFro Prize, gained third prize in the 2020 TSS Cambridge Prize, together with several other competition placings, along with publication in a number of anthologies and journals.

Her novella, Esther Bligh, was published in 2018 by Holland House Books.

Diana shares her most recent accolade with poet Patricia Helen Wooldridge as the judges could not select just one winner from this year’s stunning shortlist.

As part of their prizes, both authors will have their work published by Cinnamon Press in 2023.