Back in 2017, writer and former Radio 4 Producer Paul Dodgson led a workshop in radio drama at the Somewhere Else writers group. One of the exercises involved writing about the shoes we were wearing and I happened to be in some relatively interesting shoes, bought cheaply (from Burton’s for £5) as one had become slightly faded from exposure to the sun while sitting in the shop window.

I ended up writing a complete script based on the idea, in which a pair of shoes (with very different personalities, one laid back and philosophical, the other pessimistic and anxious) contemplate the threats to their existence and the possibility of an afterlife for shoes.

I submitted the completed script to Off the Rock Productions for their Soundwaves opportunity, it was recorded by them in late 2018 and now available on Youtube.

I have a small city. It doesn’t have a name, all I know is it’s somewhere in Europe and was inspired by places like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon and Jan Morris’ Hav. I once read a superb short story set in the (fictional) People’s Republic of O, created when the former Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic, Slovakia. And O.

I have set a number of stories in my (as yet) unnamed city, modern day urban fables, owing more than a little to Shaun Tan’s superb little book, Tales from Outer Suburbia, which I highly recommend.

The latest ‘Cargo’ was picked for the 17th Stroud Short Stories event back in November. It has been accepted by Fictive Dream for Flash Fiction February 2019 and will be published on the 14th February 2019.