Thank you for listening to Write On! Audio, the podcast for writers everywhere brought to you by Pen to Print

This month’s showcase is selected by Charlotte Maddox. Charlotte is the Prize Manager at The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation, a literature and literacy charity, championing “adventure” as a genre. The foundation runs the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and supports new writers as well as offering opportunities for children and young people.

For this showcase Charlotte has curated a selection of stories and poems that explore reality and perceptions, and the blurred lines in between. The first piece is a short story from Matthew Di Paoli, the author of Killstanbul and Holliday, winner of the Foundation’s 2017 New Voices Award. The reader is Chris Gregory

Charlotte’s next selection is a poem by Latha Rajasekar which highlights the contrast between the external and internal. Sally Walker-Taylor is the reader of this piece.

Charlotte’s final selection is by Joe Totten, who was one of the winners of the 2022 New Voices Award, which supports emerging writers, offering a year of mentorship and editorial guidance from an industry expert. This extract is the opening to the novel Joe has been working on this last year, called ‘Utopia, Texas’. Chris Gregory is the reader.

Thank you to Charlotte Maddox for selecting our October showcase. Find out more about the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation including the Adventure Writing Prize for which Charlotte is responsible by visiting their website here https://www.wilbur-niso-smithfoundation.org/

You can also follow the foundation on X (formerly twitter) here https://twitter.com/Wilbur_Niso_Fdn

Just us next week for an interview with Iranian writer and rights activist Rouhi Shafii

We’re always delighted to read your contributions so if you’d like to see your words in Write on! or hear them on this podcast please get in touch. Please submit to:

https://pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

Thank you for listening to Write On! Audio. This edition has been presented by Tiffany Clare and produced by Chris Gregory. Write On! Audio is an Alternative Stories production for Pen to Print.

This podcast is produced using public funding from Arts Council England