Eleven-and-a-half months ago, Mary didn’t know she had sisters. Now, at her home in Hove on England’s South Coast, they meet to scatter their mother Anne’s ashes.

This episode was written, directed, and produced by Kristin Burniston.

Kristin is a graduate of the MA Screenwriting program at the University of Arts London. In 2023, her short film scripts TREE and HAIRY MARY were selected by the City of Angels Film Festival, WOFFF (where HAIRY MARY placed 2nd), and Best-Script, London.

Recently, Kristin‘s script EGGS was made into a short film and will soon be released on to the festival circuit. Currently, Kristin is working on a London-based children’s animation, a crime fiction TV series, and a feature film script based on her menopausal rite-of-passage novel.

ANNE was published in 2022 in Brighton and Beyond: A West Hill Writers Anthology under the pseudonym “Maggie Winters”.

Mary read by Elly Tipping

María read by Iniki Mariano

Marguerite read by Florentia Antoniou

Lucas and Joe read by Theo Greenwood

Photo by Richard Burniston

Written, read and produced by Kristin Burniston

Sound recording by Holywell Studio

Sound design by Christopher Nathan

Post-production and mixing by Duncan Illing

Executive Producer – H Howard

As there are swearwords in this episode, we have rated it as Explicit.

Martin Nathan and Tabitha Potts interview writer Miki Lentin about his new novel Winter Sun, published by Afsana Press in 2024.

A nine-day winter break in Tenerife. Nothing is quite good enough. A son tries in vain to ask his ailing, elderly Irish Jewish father questions about their past before it is too late. The absurdity and hilarity of family holidays in the sun are brought to life in this sharp and fiercely honest novel that crosses borders, carrying the reader on a ride of childhood pain, a search for identity, and growth.

Miki talks about auto-fiction, package holidays, memory and meals in this fascinating interview.

Miki Lentin took up writing while travelling the world with his family a few years ago.

Miki completed an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck in 2020, and was a finalist in the 2020 Irish Novel Fair for his first book, Winter Sun.

Miki has been placed highly in competitions including Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize, Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Award, and Leicester Writes, and has been published in Litro, Storgy, Story Radio, MIR amongst others.

In 2022 he brought out a collection of short stories with Afsana Press, Inner Core, that cover death, anxiety, masculinity, family and children and social good. The book was called 'consistently enthralling... funny, moving and disturbing in equal measure' by Francis Gilbert, author of I’m a Teacher Get Me Out of Here.

Miki volunteers with refugee charity Breaking Barriers and with foodKIND in Greece, and dreams of one day running a café again.

Martin Nathan produced this episode.

Martin Nathan’s short fiction and poetry has appeared in a range of journals and his novel – A Place of Safety is published by Salt Publishing. His dramatic writing has been shortlisted for the Nick Darke award and the Woodward International Prize.

A student goes on a day trip to the seaside with his mum, and ends up learning a great deal more about himself - and her.

This story was written and read by Simon Roberts. Simon Roberts is currently based in West London and writes short stories and flash fiction. He was longlisted for the 2022 Fish Short Story Prize. He has read his work on Riverside Radio, London’s largest community radio station. Simon also writes for the theatre; his adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s 1947 novel The Slaves of Solitude will be produced by the Questors Theatre in 2024.

This episode was produced by Tabitha Potts, writer and podcaster. She recently received an Honourable Mention in the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University and a First in English Language and Literature from Oxford University. Read her short story collection here or visit her website.

Photo by Tabitha Potts.

Seaside sounds used in the recording were courtesy of Yarmonics on Freesound.org.

This episode contains some sexual swearwords so has been marked as explicit.