What's the story with the Radio 4 Short Story? (update)

I've just written a piece for the Society of Authors' blog on the story so far regarding the BBC Radio 4 story cuts campaign. It's a whittling down, a summary, and also a pulling-together of facts and links, a short-hand description of two months of intensive work. Work not just by me, I must add, nor by the intrepid Ian Skillicorn, but by the Society of Authors staff, who've taken up this cause with admirable speed, considerable skill and above all with tenacity.

There wasn't room for everything in the blog, so here's one of the links I left out - an essay by Kate Taylor in the Toronto Globe & Mail (a paper for which, I'm honoured to say, I have in the past written book reviews) on the fascinating work of psychologist Keith Oatley (Professor Emeritus of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto) on why fiction is good for you - yes, we knew that, but now we can PROVE it.

Finally: the feedback I've had from friends, listeners, strangers, writers, non-writers, twitter-chatterers etc to my recent BBC Radio 4 story trilogy - Portrait -A Triptych - has been really quite moving, and encouraging, at a time when encouragement was much needed. If you listened and liked them, and even more so if you told me about it, thank you. I'm hoping to use all three of the narrators again, probably in a longer format...aka a novel.