I’m thrilled to announce that A Shoebox Of Snow has been nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award.

The play is up against two other productions in the Best Audio Drama category.

Jonathan Cash’s The First Domino, and Lost Property – The Year My Mother Went Missing by Katie Hims are the other contenders.

You can find a list of the other categories and nominees here.

David Tennant will be handing out the awards at a ceremony at Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House on January 29^th.

And I’ll be there, in a new frock, with Shoebox producer Justine Potter and sound designer Eloise Whitmore. Keep everything crossed for us…

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I’d love you to come and talk audio drama with me when I host a workshop at Get Writing 2012.

The annual conference, organised by the Verulam Writers Circle is always an essential date in my diary with its stellar cast of publishing professionals, so I’m really excited about being part of the line-up.

VWC were my lifeline while I was writing my novel Red Ink and have helped me hone many a short story. They are a writers’ group with real bite ­– with plenty of published/broadcast writers among their ranks.

To find out more about what I’ll be covering in my radio workshop go here.

And then if it sounds like your sort of thing you can find all the dates and booking info here.

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I’m dead proud that my short story Kayleigh was on the same bill as a new short story by Stephen King.

The two tales were be read alongside four other new shorts at the Liars’ League event entitled Fear & Loathing on Tuesday 11th October.

I voraciously worked my way through Stephen King’s books as a teenager, and can remember certain summer holidays that were defined by which of his novels I was reading at the time. He’s a big hero of mine.

Read my story here, where there’s also a video of actress Charlotte Worthing doing her slow, spooky reading.

On the subject of lit events, I was also really chuffed to be invited onto the judging panel for Literary Death Match Ep 18.

Hardeep Singh Kholi and Miranda Sawyer joined me on the judges’ sofa to hear Sean Mahoney, Femi Martin, Tiffany Anne Tondut andNeil Forsyth do battle with words.

Sean was the ultimate and totally deserving winner. Definitely one to watch.

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On its day of broadcast there were yet more lovely previews of A Shoebox Of Snow.

It was a pick of the day in the Telegraph, Times, Express, Mail and Independent, with Gillian Reynolds in the Telegraph calling the play “wise and tender.” Click on the cutting below for a larger version.

The play aslo made Sheila McClennon’s Pick Of the Week on BBC Radio 4.

Then the week after the brodcast, this lovely letter from a listener made its way onto the Feedback page of the Radio Times.

For all the other press previews of Showbox, see the previous entry on this blog.

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There have been smashing advance previews in the national press for my BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play A Shoebox Of Snow.

In her Radio Times preview, Jane Anderson described the play as, “beautiful, poignant and a privilege to listen to.”

Ruth Cowen selected the play as a highlight of her Radio Week in Daily Mail Weekend and gave the play four stars, while Paul Donovan in The Sunday Times made Shoebox his Pick Of The Day, calling it a “touching and well-crafted drama.”

Stephanie Billen of The Observer, Gillian Reynolds of the Daily Telegraph and John Bungey of The Times all chose the drama as their Pick Of The Day, and Shoebox was highlighted as a Radio Choice in The Independent and the Yorkshire Post.

Below are some of the articles. Click on the images for larger versions. And tune in at 2.15pm on Friday 16^th September to make up your own mind…

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The Independent On Sunday has dedicated a whole page feature to the audio stories inspired by my radio play A Shoebox Of Snow.

Read about the little things that matter in the full article here.

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The Stage newspaper has been talking about A Shoebox Of Snow – and the interactive website where people are sharing stories about the objects they save.

Read the article online here.

In the radio play, elderly couple Albert and Renie talk about the memories attached to the things they hoard as they prepare to leave the council flat they’ve lived in for 55 years.

In the run up to the broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on September 16^th you can record your story about an object you cannot bear to part with, and listen to stories from people who cling to gnomes, lucky socks and even a bat in a jar. Record/listen here.

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There was plenty of shouting through letterboxes and dashing along gangways in South London for the recording or A Shoebox Of Snow.

The tight confines of a laundry room/downstairs toilet provided the perfect muffled soundscape for Albert and Renie’s overstuffed flat and because the play was recorded on location we worked around the resident dog who was keen to get involved.

Here are some pictures from the record…

Justine leads us through the recording of some rollercoaster screams

Thank you to @markrock and @radiokate from Audioboo, and Justine for some of these snaps.

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This week we record my second Afternoon Play for BBC Radio 4 and I’ll be acting in this one too.

A Shoebox Of Snow started out as an entry for the Nick Darke Award, a award scheme that asked writers to produce a play or documentary concerned with the environment.

I am fascinated by the human desire to hoard objects as memories but also how this pulls against a conflicting desire to do away with clutter and travel light. We all seem to have so many things and no idea what we’re saving them all for.

My early script – then called God Save – was shortlisted for the Nick Darke Award and later picked up by Justine Potter at Red Production Company who helped me develop it into the full-length script it is now.

I worked visually when putting together the first draft, finding images for many of the significant memories, locations and objects in the play (below).

The play follows Christopher Schmidt, a council housing officer, who is moving people off a failing South London estate ahead of its demolition.  In their top-floor flat, he meets elderly couple Albert and Renie Grace who haven’t thrown anything away since 1941. Christopher must help the Graces decide what to keep and what to discard – and must also decide what he needs to let go of in his own past.

We have a fabulous main cast in place. Acting royalty Richard Briers and Edna Doré will play Mr and Mrs Grace, while Joe Armstrong (who I saw steal the show in Dennis Kelly’s fabulous Orphans at the Edinburgh Festival 2010 and who is currently in Trevor Nunn’s Flare Path in the West End) will play Christopher.

I am wearing two hats for this production and will play the part of Janine, Christopher’s partner.  This is the first time I’ve acted in one of my own radio scripts so am nervous/excited to see how this pans out. As the script contains an eclectic selection of music from the 1930s up to the present day, I will not be putting myself forward to write and sing the theme tune as well. Breathe easy.

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My short story One, Two, Three – Go! kicked off the ‘fun and games’ themed Liars’ League event this month. It was also the League’s fourth birthday – a perfect excuse for hats and party poppers.

It was a joy (read: relief) to be able to hand the performance side of things to someone much more qualified for a change, while I concentrated on the tricky business of sipping wine.

The Liars’ League motto is, after all, “Writers write. Actors read. Audience listens. Everybody wins.”

The fabulous Lizzie Roper read my story about sibling one-upmanship, not growing up and choking on French beans, making it 100% more funny. I am in her debt. Watch the video, listen to the audio or read the story for yourself  here – you choose.

Earlier in the year, I did brave the stage to read a scene from my novel Red Ink for the love-themed Literary Death Match at Shoreditch House. My competition: Guy Folligrey, G.S. Mattu and big-hitter Esther Freud.

Judges Simon Hickson, Rowland Rivron and Sam Leith named me winner of my round (get in!) but I was thwarted in the final round when faced with Guy Folligrey’s superior skills at catching marshmallows in his mouth and firing a lipstick dart at Barbara Cartland’s face. Gutted.

Full report and pictures on the Literary Death Match site.

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