Danny Rhodes

"Rhodes' depiction of disaster and ensuring PTSD has the ring of authenticity: he was at Hillsborough that fateful day" DAILY MAIL"A remarkable thing to read. It has immense power and is utterly compelling" SCOTT PACKIn 1989, 18-year-old John Finch spends his Saturdays following Nottingham Forest up and down the country, and the rest of the week trudging the streets of his hometown as a postal worker. Leading inexorably towards the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, the worst sporting disaster on British history, 'Fan' glides between 1989 and 2004, when the true impact of this tragic day becomes evident.Fan is a book about personal and collective tragedy. It's about growing up and not growing up, about manhood and about what makes a man, and about football's role in reflecting a society never more than a brick's throw away from shattering point.Dark, haunting and deeply personal, Danny Rhodes' heart-felt novel explodes with gut-wrenching emotion and exposes how disaster can not only affect a life, but change its course for ever.

In 1989, 18-year-old John Finch spends his Saturdays following Nottingham Forest up and down the country, and the rest of the week trudging the streets of his hometown as a postal worker. Leading inexorably towards the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, the worst sporting disaster on British history, 'Fan' glides between 1989 and 2004, when the true impact of this tragic day becomes evident.

A group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other’s changing bodies before a Friday night disco… A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev… An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose… The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces – their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son’s reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.

After a year of dead end jobs and killing time, Scottie comes to a decision that will change his life forever. It will bring him more money than he's ever known, teach him skills he's never imagined, lead him to discover things about himself he'd never have believed. It will carry him from the sink estate of his birth to a land that's foreign in every conceivable way. And it will bring him home again across thousands of miles to a confrontation with an undeniable truth.