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A new and specially commissioned short story by Richard Smyth, who was shortlisted for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Short Story Award 2021. In postwar Orkney, a young nature writer makes unexpected discoveries on the moors. Richard Goulding reads.

Richard Smyth’s short fiction has been published by The Stinging Fly, The Fiction Desk, Unthology, The Lonely Crowd, Firewords, TSS, and Haverthorn, among others. He is the author of six books of non-fiction, the most recent of which, An Indifference Of Birds, was published in 2020. He has published two novels, and in 2017, he was awarded a Northern Writers’ Award for fiction. He has been longlisted for the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Prize for nature writing and the Historical Writers’ Association Short Story Award. He was also a grand finalist on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Mastermind in 2008.

Go to www.bbc.co.uk/nssa to hear his shortlisted story for the 2021 ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Short Story Award - Maykopsky District, Adyghe Oblast read by Blake Ritson.

Produced by Elizabeth Allard.