Thank you as always, BBC Writersroom, for drawing my attention to this:
The BBC Radio Drama Readings Unit welcomes unsolicited submissions from writers new to radio for their annual series, Opening Lines which is broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
As well as broadcasting the three strongest stories in the summer of 2012 they will be publishing transcripts of the shortlisted stories on a new Opening Lines webpage.
The next window for sending in material is October 17th – December 2nd, 2011. Stories submitted outside this time-frame will be returned unread. Your story will be read and responded to within three months of the submission deadline.
Content and format: They are looking for original short stories which work being read out loud i.e. with a strong emphasis on narrative and avoiding too much dialogue, character description and digression. Pay particular attention to how the story opens and closes. They’ll be looking to see whether the beginning of a story successfully links to how it ends. The Readings Unit are interested in seeing stories which cover a broad range of subject-matter but material which explores particularly dark, harrowing themes is not best suited to Opening Lines. The BBC has a rigorous taste and decency policy and cannot accept stories of a sexist or racist nature, or those which use the stronger swear words. The time allotted for each story is around 14 minutes, which means stories must be between 1,900 and 2,000 words in length. Submissions must be typed and double-spaced on A4 paper and it is important to put your name and address on the script itself. Please do not send a recording of the text.
Submission details at the WritersRoom site.
