I’ve written stories for many anthologies and magazines and my journalism has appeared in The Independent, The New Statesman, The Times of India, Time Out and The Guardian. Several of my short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

A Few Stories – 2021 

Here are a selection of recent stories which have been published or broadcast on the radio.

CLARENCE DOCK is a short story about a meeting between two old female friends, which unearths a disturbing memory. It is about men, women, freedom and power and was published in Summer 2020 in the Freedom issue of Popshot Magazine.  You will need to subscribe to read it here. 

DAYS OF THE DEAD is a dark story about a weekend to Whitby that goes horribly wrong for a group of middle-aged, middle-class, sexually-frustrated old friends.  It is published in  The Manchester Review and you can read it here.

DESIRE is an anthology of ‘100 of Literature’s Sexiest Stories’, as chosen by the book’s editor, Mariella Frostrup.  My story,  PULL, is  about the very mucky goings-on at a coastal village fete. You can buy a copy here.

 

AN OPEN LETTER TO BEES is a futuristic tale about the impact of climate change –  in which the female alpha-eaters of the kingdom appeal to the bees to return, queen to queen. It was commissioned by,  and broadcast on,  BBC Radio 4.

WHO WANTS TORTOISE?, is the story of a crisis of confidence that sends a highly successful, middle-aged career woman home to her parents in Hull . It  was published in The Manchester Review.  You can read the full story here.

EGGS, is set in the 1980s and is the story of what happens when a group of London students are mysteriously pelted with eggs in the street,  by an unknown and unseen assailant.  It  was published by Nine Arches Press in  their literary magazine, Under the Radar

 

FUR,  my first werewolf story, is the story of how a dissatisfied woman’s life changes in very unexpected and hairy ways. It was published in an  anthology of female werewolf fiction , Wolf Girls: Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogyny, by Hic-Dragones, as both a paperback and a kindle ebook.

You can read my article about menopausal monsters, written as part of the Wolf-Girls Blog Tour,  at  Playing God with Monsters.

BACK TO WORK, is the story of a strange meeting between a modern day single mother and not so modern maid, who might be suffragette. It was written as a commission for the wonderful Women for Women Readers’ Group in Hereford and published in an anthology by West Midlands Readers Network

THAT’S HER, THERE! is a dark story exploring a new mother’s fears about her daughter’s nursery. You can read it here.  It was first published on the  new fiction website, pulp.net.

SEVEN SWANS A SWIMMING, is a story about monogamy and all the trouble it brings. It appears in 12 Days, an anthology of stories celebrating the 12 days of Christmas, edited by Shelley Silas and published by Virago.

THE UNIFORM, is a story about the darker side of the school uniform. It appears in Her Majesty, an anthology of 21 stories by women, edited by Jackie Gay and Emma Hargrave and published by the wonderful Tindal Street Press.

TEN-YEARS-OLD is an ancient story with a distinctly modern twist set in a flooded marshlands of Much Wenlock. It was a BBC Radio 4 and West Midlands Readers Network commission,  and was written after consultation with the readers group at the wonderful Wenlock Books. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

You can read a blog post written by the bookshop about the writing process here.