Nell Leyshon
Nell Leyshon is a British dramatist and novelist.
She was born in Glastonbury, England, and lives in the county of Dorset. She attended the University of Southampton, gaining a first in English Literature.
Leyshon writes regularly for Radio 4 and 3. Her plays include:
- The Farm (2002) (BBC Radio 4)
- Glass Eels (2003) (BBC Radio 4)
- The House in the Trees (2004) (BBC Radio 4)
- Soldier Boy (2005) (BBC Radio 4)
- War Bride (2008) (BBC Radio 4)
- Sons (2009) (BBC Radio 4)
- "The Iron Curtain" (2011) (BBC Radio 4, Woman's Hour)
- Her radio drama for Children in Need week will air November 2012
Leyshon and co-writer Stephen McAnena were joint winners of the Richard Imison Memorial Award 2003 for the best dramatic work broadcast by a writer new to radio, for the play Milk. She also wrote the drama documentary The Home Field (2003) (BBC Radio 3).
Leyshon's stage plays include The Farm, published by Oberon, performed at Southwark Playhouse, London (2002), and was runner up for the Meyer Whitworth Award.
Her play Comfort me with Apples won the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright award in 2005, and was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. It was performed at Hampstead Theatre and then toured.
Glass Eels was at Hampstead Theatre in 2007, and her one-act play Winter was on in Newfoundland in 2007.
Leyshon adapted the Daphne du Maurier short story "Don't Look Now" for the stage and it was performed at Lyric Hammersmith and Sheffield Lyceum.
In 2009 Paradise, a first play from Salt Factory, a collective based in Dorset, toured the South West.
Her play Bedlam was the first play by a woman to be performed at Shakespeare's Globe, in 2010.
"The Colour of Milk" was published in May 2012 by Fig Tree/Penguin, and is being published world-wide in 2013 - 2014.
Black Dirt is Leyshon's first novel, published by Picador in 2004, also set in Somerset. It was long-listed for the Orange prize, and nominated for the Commonwealth.
Devotion and The Voice[1] were published by Picador in 2008.
Her writing can also be found in the anthology New Writing 10 ISBN 0-330-48268-8 and Great Escapes.
Nell is writer in residence at Vita Nova, a charity working with people in recovery from addiction, and she runs workshops for Arvon Foundation and other charities.
