On Thursday 26 January, the Shakespeare Society, Univ’s literary society, held an unstructured evening with Robert Shearman.

Robert Shearman has written six short story collections, and between them, they have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize, and four British Fantasy Awards. He began his career in the theatre and was the resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, and a regular writer for Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough; his plays have won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the World Drama Trust Award, and the Guinness Award for Ingenuity in association with the Royal National Theatre. A regular writer for BBC Radio, his own interactive drama series The Chain Gang won two Sony Awards.

But Robert is probably best known for his work on Doctor Who, bringing back the Daleks for the BAFTA-winning first series in an episode that was nominated for a Hugo Award. His latest book, We All Hear Stories in the Dark, is a strange mix of modern-day Arabian Nights and a ‘choose your own adventure’ game, in which the reader has to find their way through a maze of 101 stories in order to save the hero’s wife from the dead; it is available from PS Publishing.

Published: 3 February 2023

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