The first ever BBC Audio Drama Awards, along with the long-standing Imison and Tinniswood Awards, were held at London’s Broadcasting House on Sunday, hosted by David Tennant.

I was thrilled to win the Imison Award (Best Original Drama Script by a Writer New to Radio) for my Radio 4 series Amazing Grace.

Huge thanks to the Society of Authors, the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and the BBC for both the prize and the event.

The full results were:

Best Audio Drama:
Lost Property – The Year My Mother Went Missing by Katie Hims
Producer: Jessica Dromgoole, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 4

Best Actor in an Audio Drama: 
David Tennant, Kafka: The Musical by Murray Gold
Producer: Jeremy Mortimer, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 3

Best Actress in an Audio Drama:
Rosie Cavaliero, Lost Property: A Telegram From The Queen by Katie Hims
Producer: Jessica Dromgoole, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 4

Best Supporting Actor/Actress in an Audio Drama:
Andrew Scott, Referee by Nick Perry
Producer: Sasha Yevtushenko, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 4

Best Scripted Comedy Drama:
Floating by Hugh Hughes
Producer: James Robinson, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 4

Best Online Only Audio Drama:
Rock by Tim Fountain
Producer: Iain Mackness, Made in Manchester for The Independent Online

Best Adaptation:
The History of Titus Groan dramatised by Brian Sibley
Producers: David Hunter, Gemma Jenkins and Jeremy Mortimer, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 4

Best Use of Sound in an Audio Drama:
Bad Memories by Julian Simpson
Producer: Karen Rose, Sweet Talk Productions for Radio 4

Innovation Award:
The Unfortunates adapted by Graham White
Producer: Mary Peate, BBC Radio Drama for Radio 3

The winner of the Imison Award for Best Radio Drama Script broadcast in 2010 by a new writer is:
Amazing Grace by Michelle Lipton

The winner of the Tinniswood Award for Best Radio Drama Script broadcast in 2010 is:
Gerontius by Stephen Wyatt

3hundredand65 is a writing project challenging 365 storytellers to crowdauthor a graphic novel over the 366 days of 2012.

The story is being written day by day via twitter and each story tweet is accompanied by a daily illustration from artist David Kirkwood. Once complete, the story and illustrations will be auctioned for the Teenage Cancer Trust. You can go here to read the story so far, follow @3hundredand65 on twitter or check out #3hand65. The fundraising target is £36,500. If you’d like to donate you can do so via the fundraising page.

I’ll be tweeting my contribution on 9th May 2012. If you’d like to get involved check out the 3hundredand65 website to see who else is taking part and which dates are still available.

“Stories are great. They can inspire lives. We want to use ours to save them.”

There was an interesting article by David Edgar in The Guardian this week about the new BBC Audio Drama Awards, the visibility of radio writers and the future of radio drama in general. If you missed it you can read it here.

For the last five months I’ve been writing for Channel 4′s teen soap Hollyoaks. The show’s going through a pretty major overhaul at the moment so it’s been a really exciting time to be involved. I’ve also met some of the nicest people I know and I feel very lucky to work with such a clever, talented bunch. Making big changes to a show that goes out five nights a week is a long slow process but I’m really proud to be part of it. If you haven’t watched Hollyoaks for a while (or ever) you should give it a go and see what you think.

I’ve written six eps so far and my first is finally due to TX tomorrow at 6.30pm on Channel 4. It’s also on First Look at 7pm on E4 tonight and on 4OD for the next thirty days.

TX dates for the others go like this:

Monday 13th February 2012

Monday 27th February 2012

Tuesday 13th March 2012

Wednesday 9th May 2012

Tuesday 5th June 2012

Together you raised £150 for the British Red Cross. The money will be donated to their General Fund and then distributed to the appeals most in need of support at this moment in time.

I hope you had a good time at the festival, x

Portal Entertainment today announced that it has launched a £6k global writing competition to create a storyworld: a story told using different types of media across multiple platforms. The winner of the competition will receive £6k to develop their storyworld with Portal Entertainment. The Top 5 entries will be given professional feedback from BBC Multiplatform Executive Producer Sarah Clay (Becoming Human, Waterloo Reunited, E20).

The competition was launched at the Immersive Writing Lab – a global creative event to help writers learn the tools to tell multiplatform stories. To find out more about the launch event and the to watch videos from the event go to www.immersivewritinglab.com.

‘Coming up with a storyworld is not easy and we know that,’ said Julian McCrea, Founder of Portal Entertainment. ‘We have designed the competition, to help develop the writer’s storyworld over three months, across five different stages: world, characters, story, audience, and medium. We will be giving feedback at each stage of the competition.’

The competition is hosted at Circalit, a platform that enables writers to showcase their work to industry professionals online. To enter the competition or for more information please visit www.circalit.com/projects/competitions/immersive.

Raoul Tawadey, CEO and Founder of Circalit commented, ‘It’s clear after attending the Immersive Writing conference that digital convergence hasn’t simply affected the business end of media, it’s affected our notion of narrative storytelling itself. We’re extremely happy to be hosting a competition to explore what the stories of the future will look, feel and sound like, and on what devices we will experience them.’

The Immersive Writing Lab event is being supported by Stellar Network, Circalit, Imaginox and Varytale.

This year’s London Screenwriters Festival has been announcing its line up of speakers and events over on the main website and it’s all looking very exciting.

(Christopher Vogler is the keynote speaker – for me that’s worth going all on its own!)

The festival runs across the 28th, 29th and 30th October and takes place at Regent’s College, Regent’s Park, London.

I’m doing the ticket affiliate thing again and this time all proceeds are going to the British Red Cross. To use the discount code enter the word “LIPTON” when you book for £30 off the price of your three day ticket (making it £270).

I will also receive a £30 commission for every ticket bought using my code, all of which will be donated to charity.

The Red Cross are awesome and do hugely important work both in the UK and abroad.  The cash will be donated to their “General Fund” which allocates the money to the areas most in need at that time – but if you’d like your contribution to go to a specific appeal you can drop me a line and I’ll make sure it goes to the right place.  Their current appeals include the East Africa Food Crisis Appeal, the Japan Tsunami Appeal and the New Zealand Earthquake Appeal among many others.

To everyone who used my discount code for the London Comedy Writers Festival a few months back – together you raised £225 for Comic Relief, not too shabby!  I have asked the festival organisers for your names several times so I could get in touch with you directly to give you the final figure but I haven’t had much of a response so if you’re reading this – thank you!  Hopefully we can raise just as much this time around.

My first radio play Amazing Grace, which was broadcast on Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour last year, has been shortlisted for the Imison Award!

The award was established in 1994 to perpetuate the memory of radio drama script editor Richard Imison, and each year a prize is awarded for the “best original radio drama script by a writer new to radio”.

The four shortlisted scripts for 2011 are:

Atching Tan – A Tober of Loki Nogo by Dan Allum

The Pursuit by Matt Hartley

The Barber and the Ark by Marcia Layne

Amazing Grace by Michelle Lipton

The winner will be announced later this autumn. [UPDATE: This announcement has been postponed until the end of January, 2012]

I wrote today’s episode of Doctors! It was script edited by Caroline Brittain, produced by Ella Kelly and directed by Niall Fraser.

“When his patient tells him about his blind date in a teashop, Heston has a tinge of jealousy – should he arrange a date for himself? Freya is desperate to find out what Kevin knows about her recent patient, while Mrs Tembe finds a surprising ally when she cleans the remaining graffiti from her wall.”

It’ll be on BBC1 at 13:45, BBC HD at 16:00 and iPlayer for the next seven days.

Click the screenshot below to visit the site and watch the video: