Episodes

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01The Homecoming2010072020120602 (R4)

Written by Olga Grushin. You can find all of human life at railway stations and Platform 3 is a set of stories inspired by hanging around them. Sweet Talk commissioned three writers to explore the theme: all the places, destinations, thoughts, hopes and fears. The people - or lack of them.

Gregory is a successful New York businessman who has returned to Russia for the first time in many years to visit his mother. He takes a trip out to his mother's dacha in the country and then heads for the local station. He has an urgent plane to catch. Moscow is only two hours away - but only if the train comes. And while he waits, he has a strange encounter...

Olga Grushin was born in Moscow in 1971 and spent her childhood in Moscow and Prague. In 1989 she became the first Soviet citizen to enrol for a full-time degree in the United States while retaining Soviet citizenship. In 2006 she was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers and named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. She has published two novels: The Dream Life of Sukhanov (2006) and The Concert Ticket (published in the US as The Line) in April 2010. 'The Homecoming' is her first story for radio. Olga lives in Washington D.C.

Reader: Alan Cox

Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

By Olga Grushin. After years in New York, Gregory returns to Russia to visit his mother.

Series of stories inspired by railway stations

02A Good Impression2010072120120609 (R4)

Ali takes the Glasgow train to a small Highland village and brings his new fiancee Sophie to meet his family. Sophie worries that they won't like her. Ali worries whether his eccentric mother and sister can be trusted to behave. Neither worry is unfounded.

Written by Morven Crumlish and read by Siobhan Redmond. One of three stories inspired by railway stations, each by a different writer.

Morven Crumlish's stories have been published and broadcast widely, including The Big The Beautiful Nanda Gray, which appeared in WORK: the Scotsman/Orange Short Story Collection, and You See Patterns When You Close Your Eyes, featured in Shorts 4: the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story collection. She has has also written for the Guardian; was a finalist in the 1998 Vogue Talent Contest for young writers and in 2004 she was awarded a New Writers Bursary from the Scottish Arts Council. Her work has featured in two previous Sweet Talk productions for BBC Radio 4: Loulou and Barbie and the Seven Deadly Sins appeared in 2005 and Dilemmas of Modern Martyrs - five of her stories in 2008. Morven lives in Edinburgh.

Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

By Morven Crumlish. Ali brings his fiancee Sophie to the Highlands to meet his family.

Series of stories inspired by railway stations

03Union Station2010072220120616 (R4)

A young man visits his cousin Neil and his wife Lou before setting off to continue his tour of the American Mid-West. He remembers Union Station as 'one of the oldest and most significant stations in the country, on the historic, transcontinental railroad, the first to span the continent from coast to coast.' But when he gets as far as the bus-station, the locals find it hard to give him directions...

Written by Gerard Woodward, and read by Patrick Kennedy.

Gerard Woodward was born in London in 1961. After studying painting and anthropology, he published three prize-winning collections of poetry before turning to novel-writing. His first novel, August, was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread First Novel Award, his second, I'll Go To Bed At Noon, for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. Since then he has published another collection of poetry, We Were Pedestrians (shortlisted for the 2005 T.S Eliot Prize) and become Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. His collection of short stories, Caravan Thieves, was published in March 2008. A Birthday Cockatrice appeared in an earlier Sweet Talk series for BBC Radio 4 - The Foods of Love and Hate (2008). Nourishment, his new novel, will be published in September 2010. Gerard lives in Somerset.

Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

By Gerard Woodward. It was the pride of the American railroad - if you could find it.

Series of stories inspired by railway stations