All Talk (Paperback)

These powerful, contemporary monologues share the courage, conflicts and joys of characters facing difficult decisions. Developed through consultation with young people, they offer a range of authentic, memorable voices to stimulate discussion and participatory drama work.

Anne-Marie O'Connor writes for TV and Radio as well as having written two Irish best-selling novels; Everyone's Got a Bono Story and My Made Up Life. Her radio play, Out of Season was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2006 and she has written for the second series of BBC1's Waterloo Road.
She has co-written a film for BBC America and UK Broadcast entitled Hash Granny and is working on a variety of projects both within the comedy and drama genres including a pilot comedy in conjunction with screen-writer Paul Abbott entitled Stage Fright.
First Date was written as a monologue and commissioned by M6 Theatre Company through a competition looking for new writers in the North West in 2001. It was her first writing commission and was based on the Machiavellian ways of the main girl bully at her school in Bradford.

Peter Spafford's first commissions were large-scale community plays, two of them for the Shaw Theatre, London. Since then he has written plays for touring companies, including an adaptation of Silas Marner for Theatre Company Blah, Blah, Blah and Change Of Mind, a play about Alzheimer's Disease which was toured internationally by Mind The Gap. He has written plays for radio, including the verse play Soft Stones, and the trilogy The Wrong Side Of The River with Mary Cooper.
Peter has also written for musical theatre and opera including, most recently, two operas for Ryedale Festival, Maggio's Magic and A Pig's Tale.
Much of his work takes place in community settings, such as schools, hospitals and prisons. The monologue Getting It Right grew out of a two year residency with 'Father Figures' in Sheffield, an agency supporting lone fathers. He is currently writer-in-residence at The Royal Armouries in Leeds.

Aelish Michael has been a playwright since completing her postgraduate diploma in writing for performance at Arden School of Theatre three years ago.
As well as plays for young people, including Gemima Diamond for M6 Youth Theatre, she has written a number of plays for adults. Flying Solo won a one-act play competition run by the Ashton group in Barrow-In-Furness last year and her full length play, Children of the Moors, will be touring in the North West in Autumn 2007.
Results Day was written to highlight the huge responsibilities that some young people have to bear, and also as a result of talking to a group of young carers.
Aelish is currently working on a stage play that explores the issues of stolen identity and has a number of radio plays in development, including one based on the boyhood of the late poet laureate, Ted Hughes.

Mary Cooper has written extensively for stage, radio and television.
Her work for the stage has been performed and/or commissioned by companies throughout England and Wales including Eastern Angles, Red Ladder, Theatr Powys, Theatr Clwyd, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Sheffield Crucible, Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, Action Transport, Watford Palace, Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke and Remould Theatre, Hull.
Her stage play for M6 Theatre Company Breathing Space, was performed at the Toronto Young People's Theatre Festival in May 2003 where it was nominated for a DORA award.
Wobbly Eggs, her first radio play, was short-listed for the Richard Imison Award and the Mental Health in the Media awards. Since 1997 she has written six single plays for BBC Radio 4 and a ten-part series Such Sweet Possession.
For television, Alarmed, written with Peter Spafford was a winner in the Granada/Yorkshire Television New Voices Scheme.
She is currently working with Tutti Frutti productions and Clean Break Theatre as well as continuing to work with M6 Theatre Company.

Carla Monvid-Jenkinson is 17 years old and taking her A Levels at the moment: Art, English Literature and Religious Education. She has always enjoyed writing and Weighed Down marks her debut as a professional writer. Carla is very pleased to have this piece performed and published, especially if other young people can find it interesting or useful. Carla hopes to continue writing in the future.

Michael Harvey first became interested in theatre when taken to rehearsals as a baby by his father who was a theatre musician. He started writing in earnest when he gave up teaching full-time. His first play Andy In Dire Straits about one man's response to having AIDS was produced by RealLife Theatre Company, who also produced his plays Skin, Threads and Billy Do. Paines Plough produced his Where The Sun Was. His commissioned play Black Love was produced by Black Arts Development Project in London and on tour. His last play was a dramatisation of Longfellow's poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish. He has been Writer-In-Residence at Arden Theatre School. He remembers what it was like to be a teenager and gay, and Giggsy's Legs was written with that in mind. He is currently working on a children's play based on Russian folk-tales.