Hello! This is episode seven of The Short Story Cast. This episode features three stories, the most ever! They’re short ones though, so it’ll be about the same length as usual.
Hello Shoppers!
Written by James Winterbottom
Performed by Claire Winterbottom
This is a very short story of a woman in charge of the PA system in a supermarket. She hates her job and uses the microphone as her platform to tell the world exactly what she thinks. Warning, contains some strong language.
All Growed Up
Written and performed by Kevin Phillips
Kevin Phillips is an emerging Leeds-based writer. He often writes with a minimalist, idiosyncratic, rhythmical prose that utilises damaged grammar and crumpled punctuation to mimic the way the common folk talk. But these rules are also often broken to insinuate death, loss, time passing by, or even just to give better rhythm acoustically as his work is primarily written with performance in mind. Kevin lands emotion-evoking and thought-provoking stories in and around a thousand words.
Kevin has read on local radio, had an appearance on local TV, and can be found at many of the open mic venues in and around Leeds.
Here’s a link to All Growed Up on the Fictive Dream blog.
You can also catch up with Mark on Facebook (Page of Danger), Twitter (Page of Danger) or YouTube (Page of Danger).
Cryogenically Punished
Written and performed by James Winterbottom
This story is set in the office of a private detective on her first morning on the job. She meets with a strange man with an even stranger request. She’s asked to investigate a murder from years ago because the person convicted is shortly going to be thawed out from his cryogenic prison sentence.
This story is actually a small part of a much bigger story that I had the idea for. There’s a possibility that I might come back to this story world in a future episode, or the idea might just stay tucked away in the mental equivalent of a bottom draw.
Thank yous
Thanks to Kevin Phillips for writing, performing, recording and sending in his story. He’s the first ever guest author on the podcast, but I hope he won’t be the last. I’d also like to thank him for his patience as I’ve procrastinated in putting together this episode.
Also thanks to my wife Claire Winterbottom for narrating Hello Shoppers! The story was recorded in between trying to get our son off to sleep, so I apologise if you hear any tiny cries in the background of the recording!
The future of the podcast
I’m aware that I’ve not been posting new episodes very frequently so far, and I’m looking to change that. I’ll be posting two podcasts a month for the next couple of months until we get to episode ten. That will be the end of the first season of the podcast and I’ll take a little break to work on some more stories.
The podcast will be back for a second series later in 2017 and within a much more regular schedule. Hopefully with a few more guest authors and their stories too. Please go to the contribute page if you’d like to submit a story.
Thanks for listening!
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