WritersMosaic, the online magazine from The Royal Literary Fund, is launching the Mosaic Monologues, a new six-part audio drama series to reinvigorate the power of storytelling, featuring performances from award-winning, global majority writers.

Six writers have each created, curated, and performed a twelve-minute monologue, stepping fully into character to bring their stories to life. Unlike other audio drama series, Mosaic Monologues sees writers perform their own work: the storyteller is the character, creating a raw, intimate connection between voice and story, with no separation between text and performance.

First in a new strand, this series sees each protagonist battle with an agonizing dilemma which forces them to question their role within their own lives. Each writer does this in imaginative and widely different ways, experimenting provocatively with time and place.

Tahmina Ali’s character, Anika, suffers under the worldly weight of motherhood and expectation. In her innermost thoughts, Anika fights for a space to breathe, to take up space against the odds stacked against her sense of self. Whilst Zonaira, brought to life by Nabeela Ahmed, grapples with her sense of belonging in England as a Kashmiri woman, holding onto herself amidst prejudice and preconceptions. Connor Allen takes listeners on a journey through grief with his character, TJ, who struggles under the weight of his pain as he embarks on a curious, endless journey; seemingly to nowhere. As he winds through time, connection, and love he recognises something true in a mysterious fellow traveller. Mara Menzies personifies the gremlin-like character of fear itself, who worries over the waning power she holds over a woman’s sense of self, as her victim finds something peaceful stirring in a quiet place. At Manchester airport, Testament’s dejected character seeks to flee his homeland, but is accosted by a portent of doom which appears to have sprung from the fiery pages of William Blake’s prophesying. Whilst John, Shahid Iqbal Khan’s protagonist, brings listeners inside his moral turmoil: his patients just aren’t the same after their life-altering surgery which has become the accepted norm, but will those in power listen if he raises his doubts?

Mosaic Monologues offers global majority writers the opportunity to experiment, explore, and play beyond the constraints of racial or cultural expectation. Unbound by convention, each performance invites listeners to delight in the vivid characters and tales that emerge, showcasing the boundless potential of the spoken word.

The six-part audio drama series features:

1. Creation, by Mara Menzies

Menzies’ character, fear itself, tells of how it wove itself into the life of a woman exploring her freedom. Fear begins to cause her to collude in her own limitations and downfall – yet there are things in life that fear has not bargained for.

2. Sapphire’s Blues, by Connor Allen

In this episode, Allen explores grief and connection through the character of TJ, who is on a journey with no destination, winding through the intricacies of time and love.

3. Shifting Shadows, by Tahmina Ali

Ali adeptly deals with themes of identity and sacrifice in her story about Anika, who, between motherhood, marriage, and expectation, has always put herself last: but not any longer.

4. The Before and After, by Shahid Iqbal Khan

Khan invites listeners to consider a moral dilemma. What if everyone around you is so convinced of the benefits of an established practice, that it is almost impossible to question or to even raise doubts about it?

5. A Woman’s Work, by Nabeela Ahmed

Ahmed’s character, Zonaira, battles with the human need to belong. Will Zonaira’s life and work choices be accepted and valued by her Kashmiri household?

6. The Prophecy, by Testament

In this episode, the listener meets TJ, a black man determined to escape from Britain, leaving even his family behind. After he finds a book of William Blake’s poetry in the airport bookshop, he has an encounter with a stranger that brings everything he thinks he knows to an end.

Mosaic Monologues are available to listen to on Spotify, and via the WritersMosaic website. Mosaic Monologues is produced by WritersMosaic’s John Siddique, and directed by Ishy Din.