Story Radio Podcast

We speak to Sally Page, best-selling author, about her new novel Six Little Words. Six Little Words follows two strangers embarking together on a Shakespeare-inspired scavenger hunt only to learn that you’re never too old to find love or pursue your dreams.
We discuss mid-life romance, friendship, exploring your creativity, writing the male voice, lies, synaesthesia, painting and more.
Blackstone Publishing is the US publisher and the publication is 24 Feb 2026.
HarperCollins is the UK publisher and the publication day is 12 March 2026.
About Sally Page:
Sally Page is the internationally bestselling author of The Keeper of Stories, The Book of Beginnings, and The Secret of Flowers. After studying history at university, Sally moved to London to work in advertising. In her spare time, she studied floristry, eventually opening up her own flower shop, an experience that offered a unique window into people’s lives that has inspired her writing. She has two daughters, bestselling author Libby Page and Alex, a doctor. She lives in Dorset.
This episode was produced by Martin Nathan.
Martin Nathan has worked as a labourer, showman, pancake chef, fire technician, and a railway engineer. His short fiction has been published by Tangent Press, HCE and Grist and his poetry has appeared in Finished Creatures, Erbacce and Aesthetica. His novel – A Place of Safety is published by Salt Publishing.

Long hidden in an attic, vivid and revelatory poems shine a new light on the life and loves of Iris Murdoch.
In the dusty attic of Iris Murdoch’s Oxford home lay a battered, black chest. In 2016, when the chest was finally opened, Murdoch’s life in poems was revealed.
Renowned for her fiercely intelligent novels and groundbreaking philosophy, Murdoch was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Yet she is also known for her equally radical life – intense friendships, relationships with both men and women, and an open marriage – about which much has, often controversially, been written. Now, her tightly wrought and vivid poems reveal a new, deeply personal account in Murdoch’s own voice. They range over the preoccupations closest to her heart, from the state of Ireland to memories of a first love lost in the Second World War.
We speak to Dr Miles Leeson, one of the editors of Poems from an Attic by Iris Murdoch, to learn more about this exciting discovery and how it adds to our understanding of the work of the famous philosopher and novelist.
Dr Leeson also reads three poems from the book, 'Reverie in Winchester Cathedral', 'I find that honesty is a hard thing', and 'Macaw in the Snow'.
Dr Miles Leeson is Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester and Visiting Research Fellow at Kingston University. He is Lead Editor of the Iris Murdoch Review, Series Editor of Iris Murdoch Today with Palgrave Macmillan, host of the Iris Murdoch Podcast, and has published widely on Murdoch’s work.
He published Iris Murdoch: Philosophical Novelist in 2010, the edited collection Incest in Contemporary Literature (2018), the festschrift Iris Murdoch: A Centenary Celebration (2019), the co-edited collections Iris Murdoch and the Literary Imagination (2022) and Iris Murdoch and the Western Theological Imagination (2025), co-edited her selected poetry Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936-1995 (2025), and is currently writing Visiting Mrs Bayley and Other Essays (2026) Iris Murdoch and Feminism and editing The Oxford Handbook of Iris Murdoch (2028).
You can find out more about him and his work here:
https://www.chi.ac.uk/people/miles-leeson/
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. After working in the Treasury and in the UN, she discovered philosophy, eventually becoming Fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford. Her philosophical concerns are at the heart of the 25 novels for which she became famous, gaining the Whitbread Prize for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine and the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She wrote poetry all her life.
The Iris Murdoch Society
Buy the book: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/470920/poems-from-an-attic-by-murdoch-iris/9781784746124
Music: “The Silver Swan” (O. Gibbons), performed by Denis Carpenter, Clara IMSLP (CC BY 3.0): https://clara.imslp.org/work/51148 —

A man who is the main carer for his stubborn and independent elderly mother experiences increasingly eerie encounters with mysterious creatures in the marshy landscape surrounding her home.
Written by Daniel Jeffreys
Dr Daniel Jeffreys works as a university lecturer with a special interest in the weird tale. His fiction has appeared in Esquire, LITRO, AMBIT and The London Magazine.
Read by Nigel Fyfe
Nigel Fyfe is a British actor and voice artist based in North Yorkshire. He has built a diverse career across stage, screen, and voiceover work.
Produced by Tabitha Potts
Tabitha Potts is a short story writer and novelist, recognised with an Honourable Mention in the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. Her debut novel will be published by Rowan Prose Publishing in 2026.
Effects
Bowers Marsh SoundScape by naturenotesuk | License: Attribution 4.0 Sounds

August 6, 2025 marked eighty years since the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
"The Misappropriation of Clouds" is a fictional short story based on a member of the writer's own family. This individual unwittingly played a part in one of the most devastating tragedies in human history — Hiroshima.
Following the 80 year commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima, "The Misappropriation of Clouds" is an elegy to those who lost their lives in the bombing and a poem for all those who carry on the hope that we can do better.
About Amy Waddell
Amy Waddell is a writer and film director living between Paris, France and Sedona, Arizona. She has just completed Mask Maker, a novel about American artist Anna Coleman Ladd who found an innovative way to help WW1 soldiers disfigured in trench warfare reintegrate into society after having been ostracized by the French government. Amy has also written several original scripts for Pan Européenne in Paris, adapted David Lodge's novel "Thinks", and created documentaries for the Annenberg Foundation on subjects ranging from genocide in Darfur to Native American struggles. Her work spans narrative fiction, screenwriting, and documentary storytelling.
CREDITS:
Writer: Amy Waddell
Producers: Amy Waddell & Helen Fitzgerald
FX & Sound Editor: Daniel Lawrence
Voice Actor: Gerard Maguire
Music Composer: Yuval Ron
Music:
Arden-ohmanOrchestraVfrankLuther-CanThisBeLove1930.mp3 (archive.org)
Sad War Music 01 by Magmi.Soundtracks License: Creative Commons 0
Photo: Courtesy of Seemann at Morguefile.com