BBC Wales has seen confirmation that Wood entered the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize, which is for unpublished novels of at least 50,000 words.
All entrants in the main literature prizes in the National Eisteddfod compete under pseudonyms, as a part of the festival’s strict confidentiality rule.
During the ceremony on Tuesday, judge Meinir Wyn Edwards said there was “no plan or narrative arc in this novel” and that the “clumsy, flawed expression makes the whole thing almost impossible to read”.
“So much so, that we suspect an artificial intelligence machine created the novel and that the author didn’t even bother to read through the work,” she added.
According to the adjudicators, the novel was placed “at the bottom of the pile”.
In response, the published author told BBC Wales that her novel was a “personal story” about her family history, so she was “devastated” after hearing the adjudication broadcast live on S4C.
“I was devastated when I watched it because there was a whole minute of insults and sarcasm and laughing and this feeling that perhaps it had been written by AI,” she said.
She added she felt “personally affronted and upset because, like all writers, I’m very nervous about my work.
“It’s very personal. I’ve written for a long time. I’ve never written in Welsh before.”
