大象传媒

With John Wilson,

Front Row announces the shortlist for the 大象传媒 National Short Story Awards 2013. Chair of the judges Mariella Frostrup talks about the five authors nominated for the prize, the process of judging the competition and how the exceptional stories stood out. John Wilson also speaks to the first of the nominated authors about their magical and uncanny short story. Front Row will be hearing from the rest of the shortlisted authors and the five stories are broadcast next week on Radio 4.

Punk poet John Cooper Clarke tells John what he thinks of the Arctic Monkeys' version of his poem I Wanna Be Yours, which features on their number one album AM, and why he was partly responsible for the band's name.

Jack Vettriano is one of the UK's most popular artists, his paintings are well known and widely reproduced as greeting cards and posters. But, despite his commercial success, Vettriano's work has often met with a less than enthusiastic response from critics. Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow is holding a major retrospective of his work, which includes some of his best loved works which are normally in private collections. Art Critic Moira Jeffrey reviews.

American artist Richard Serra is renowned for his monumental steel sculptures, harking back to his childhood (his father worked in a shipyard) and to the steel mills he worked in as a young man. Drawing is also important to him: he sees it as a way of exploring new ideas and materials. He's now approaching his seventy-fifth birthday and as a new exhibition of his work opens Richard Serra discusses his career, and how art has affected his personal life, as he gives John a personal tour of the twelve drawings which were specially created for this display.

Producer Claire Bartleet.