Posted in: Interviews Season 3

The Book of Beginnings: interview with Sally Page

The Story Radio team interview Sally Page, best-selling author of The Keeper of Stories, whose new novel The Book of Beginnings has just been published by HarperCollins. We talk to her about stationery, fountain pens, romance and ghosts.

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The Book of Beginnings tells the story of Jo, who is hiding from her past when she agrees to run her uncle’s beloved stationery shop.

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Glimpsing the lives of her customers between the warm wooden shelves, as they scribble little notes and browse colourful notebooks, distracts her from her bruised heart.

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When she meets Ruth, a vicar running from a secret, and Malcolm, a septuagenarian still finding himself, she suddenly realizes she isn’t alone.

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They each have a story that can transform Jo’s life… if only she can let them in.

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This episode was produced by Martin Nathan. Martin Nathan’s short fiction and poetry has appeared in a range of journals and his novel – A Place of Safety is published by Salt Publishing. His dramatic writing has been shortlisted for the Nick Darke award and the Woodward International Prize.

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After studying history at university, Sally Page moved to London to work in advertising. In her spare time she studied floristry at night school and eventually opened her own flower shop. Sally came to appreciate that flower shops offer a unique window into people’s stories and she began to photograph and write about this floral life in a series of non-fiction books. Later, she continued her interest in writing when she founded her fountain pen company, Plooms.co.uk.

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In her debut novel, The Keeper of Stories, Sally combined her love of history and writing with her abiding interest in the stories people have to tell. In her second novel, The Book of Beginnings Sally draws on her love of stationery.

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Sally now lives in Dorset. Her eldest daughter, Alex, is studying to be a doctor and her younger daughter is the author, Libby Page. Both are keen wild swimmers.

Posted in: Season 3
Gravestone in foggy churchyard showing angel clinging to cross

Waking the Dead: Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park

This month we are featuring short stories and flash fiction written at a creative writing workshop in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. The stories are loosely inspired by the gravestones of people who were buried in the cemetery.

They include Charlie Brown, boxer and publican, Alec Hurley, boxer, singer and husband of Marie Lloyd, the Woods family, who all died from influenza leaving only one surviving child and Maurice O’Connor, a workhouse doctor who committed suicide in mysterious circumstances.

Thank you to all the writers who participated in the workshop for lending us your imagination for the day, and to Claire Slack the Heritage Officer for telling us the compelling real-life stories of some of the people buried in the cemetery park.

This episode contains swearwords so has been marked as explicit.

Posted in: Season 3

Pure at Heart by Patricia Furstenberg

A young girl is fascinated by the story of a magical being hidden in the forest outside her home, and goes out at night to look for her.

Written by Patrica Furstenberg and read by Lysandra Furstenberg.

With a medical degree behind her, writer and poet Patricia Furstenberg authored 18 books imbued with history, folklore, legends. The recurrent motives in her writing are unconditional love and war. Her essays and poetry appeared in various online literary magazines. Romanian born, she resides with her family in South Africa.

Follow her on Twitter @patfurstenberg

Find her on Facebook patriciafurstenbergauthor

The story was produced by Tabitha Potts.

Photo credit swatcop on Morguefile.com.

Posted in: Season 3
Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton

Interview with Tracey Rose Peyton author of Night Wherever We Go

Martin Nathan and Tabitha Potts interview Tracey Rose Peyton about her beautiful and heart-breaking debut novel, Night Wherever We Go, published by The Borough Press.

Night Wherever We Go is an intimate look at the domestic lives of enslaved women in 1800s America, and an evocative meditation on resistance and autonomy, on love and transcendence and the bonds of female friendship in the darkest of circumstances. It tells the tale of six women who are forced to become impregnated by their owners but decide to take matters into their own hands to prevent this from happening.

Review by Sarah Waters – ‘a haunting evocation of the routine brutalities of slavery that is also a powerful celebration of friendship, community, resilience and rebellion. A hugely impressive debut.’ 

Tracey Rose Peyton also reads from her novel for us.

This episode was produced by Martin Nathan. Martin Nathan has worked as a labourer, showman, pancake chef, fire technician, and railway engineer. His short fiction has been published by Tangent Press, HCE and Grist and his poetry has appeared in Finished Creatures, Erbacce and Aesthetica.

His novel – A Place of Safety – is published by Salt Publishing. In 2020 he was shortlisted for the Woodward International Playwriting Prize and the Nick Darke Award.

Posted in: Season 3
Dogs

Dogs by S P Murphy

A woman at home with her baby during lockdown hears the unsettling sound of dogs fighting in the street. It isn’t long before she is in danger herself – and she has to decide how to fight back.

Dogs by S P Murphy was first published in Litro Magazine.

S. P. Murphy is an American writer and arts consultant living in London. He has served on the board of PEN America and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He writes short stories and contributes articles on culture and politics to various publications. He is working on his first novel, a love story set in the US in 1970, when the nation was, like today, tragically divided.

This episode was produced by Tabitha Potts.

Posted in: Season 3
Ava Glass on Story Radio

Interview with author Ava Glass and reading from The Chase

Martin Natha interviews spy insider turned author Ava Glass about her debut novel, The Chase, published by Penguin.

Listen to this podcast to find out more about how Glass found her inspiration, and hear her talking about how she structured her novel which has been highly praised by various critics for its gripping plot and breathless pace. She also reads from The Chase for Story Radio.

‘A thrilling read … I could not have loved it more!’ Lisa Jewell

‘A high-octane, warp-speed thriller’ Guardian

This episode was produced by Martin Nathan. Martin Nathan has worked as a labourer, showman, pancake chef, fire technician, and railway engineer. His short fiction has been published by Tangent Press, HCE and Grist and his poetry has appeared in Finished Creatures, Erbacce and Aesthetica.

His novel – A Place of Safety – is published by Salt Publishing. In 2020 he was shortlisted for the Woodward International Playwriting Prize and the Nick Darke Award.

Posted in: Season 3
The Institution book cover

Interview with Helen Fields author of The Institution

In this episode Martin Nathan and Tabitha Potts speak to best-selling crime novelist Helen Fields, criminal law barrister turned writer, about her new book The Institution.

The Institution is a nail-biting psychological thriller about a criminal profiler, Dr Connie Woolwine, who goes undercover in a high security prison hospital while she tries to solve the brutal murder of one of the nurses, and find her missing child.

Helen also reads the opening chapter of The Institution. Content warning: some listeners might find this distressing.

This episode was produced by Martin Nathan.

Posted in: Season 3

A terrible thing has happened by Elinora Westfall

It is March 1941 during the Second World War, and a young evacuee, Tabitha, is fascinated by the stories about a famous author who lives nearby.

Content warning: contains references to suicide.

The story is written and read by Elinora Westfall. Influenced by David Bowie, Virginia Woolf and Sally Wainwright, Elinora Westfall is a lesbian writer of stage, screen, fiction, poetry and radio from the UK.

Her novel, Everland, was selected for the Penguin and Random House WriteNow Editorial Programme, and her short films have been selected by Pinewood Studios & Lift-Off Sessions, Cannes Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, Camden Fringe Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, while her theatre and audio shows have been selected by The British Library and performed in London’s West End and on Broadway, where she won the award for Best Monologue.

The story was produced by Tabitha Potts.

Music used courtesy of Timbre of Freesound.org

Photo of Virginia Woolf By George Charles Beresford – Filippo Venturi Photography Blog, Public Domain.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50293324

Posted in: Season 3
Woman dressed as man sitting in wooden chair smoking cigar and laughing

Life in the dressing room of the theatre

This short story is about a young woman whose heart is stolen by a mysterious magician.

The story is written and read by Elinora Westfall. Influenced by David Bowie, Virginia Woolf and Sally Wainwright, Elinora Westfall is an Australian/British lesbian actress and writer of stage, screen, fiction, poetry and radio from the UK.

Her novel, Everland has been selected for the Penguin and Random House WriteNow 2021 Editorial Programme, and her short films have been selected by Pinewood Studios & Lift-Off Sessions, Cannes Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, Camden Fringe Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, while her theatre shows have been performed in London’s West End and on Broadway, where she won the award for Best Monologue.

Elinora is also working on The Art of Almost, a lesbian comedy-drama radio series as well as writing a television draoma series and the sequel to her novel, Everland.

The story was produced by Tabitha Potts.

Posted in: Season 3
Greg Mosse and Kate Mosse photographed in their library

Interview with Greg Mosse and Kate Mosse

Tabitha Potts and Martin Nathan interview best-selling novelist and short story writer Kate Mosse and playwright and debut novelist Greg Mosse, whose novel The Coming Darkness (Moonflower Books) is publishing on the 10th November.

Early praise for Greg Mosse’s dystopian thriller have included Lee Child’s review:

“Greg Mosse writes like John le Carre’s hip grandson”

We interviewed both writers about their writing techniques in a wide-ranging discussion of their work.

Kate Mosse is the best-selling author of ten novels and short story collections including the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy – Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel – and Gothic fiction including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter, which she has adapted for the stage for 2022.

Greg Mosse is currently the founder and leader of the Criterion New Writing script development programme at the Criterion Theatre, London,

Since 2015, he has written and produced 25 plays and musicals, often in collaboration.

During the coronavirus lockdowns, he wrote two-and-a-half novels, of which The Coming Darkness will be the first to be published.

The producer was Tabitha Potts. She is a writer living in East London. She has had several short stories published in print and online and short-listed for various awards, most recently the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. In a previous life, she was a BBC Radio Drama producer.

Read more at http://www.tabithapotts.com.