Lucy writes,
Best-selling author Nick Hornby has a cameo role in a new soap opera, written by young people at the creative writing centre he co-founded in Hackney. Created through after-school workshops with input from EastEnders writers, 8 young writers devised and scripted 4 episodes of a new soap opera inspired by Hoxton: 'Dead Ends'.
The project is a new venture from UK charity the Ministry of Stories, co-founded by Hornby and celebrating its second anniversary this month. The Ministry chose to work with soap as a genre that young people engage with and understand. Writing about their own local area and in a style they enjoyed, young people turned themselves from audience members into confident, motivated writers.
Dead Ends follows the stories of Andrew, a young man trying to put his troubled past behind him; his mother, Lou, who has a dark family secret to guard and the hapless Chloe, a local girl who has fallen in love with a man that she can't have. These individual stories combine towards a dramatic and shocking climax!
Ministry of Stories is my local literacy charity (my office is a block away in Hoxton), and they do awesome work. And they've got a secret door. And they sell screams in jars, as well as candied ear-wax.
Dead Ends | Ministry of Stories (Thanks, Lucy!)
