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The Offcuts Drawer | Successful Writers Share Their Best Worst Ideas

Writing Podcast Featuring Rejected Scripts and Unfinished Work by Top Writers

The Offcuts Drawer is a writing podcast where successful screenwriters, playwrights, journalists, novelists, comedians and authors share their creative failures — including unfinished scripts, rejected stories, and early writing attempts — and these are brought to life by actors and explored in honest interviews.

Tips, truths and lessons learned from top writers’ greatest failures.

Novelists, screenwriters, authors, playwrights, journalists, writer-performers, columnists, poets…

Every writer has a virtual bottom drawer where they keep the bits of writing they never finished, had rejected or can’t quite find a home for – the unfinished novel, the cut scene, the rejected script, sometimes even the childhood essay…

In each episode of The Offcuts Drawer actors perform these pieces and the writer talks to host Laura Shavin about the story behind them, sharing the often surprising twists and turns of their career that led them to where they are today.

Best Arts & Culture Podcast honoree, Webby Awards 2021.

Best podcast I’ve ever done. What makes it is the serious attention to execution: each piece is brought to life by a top team of acting talent. I started by listening to my own. I’ve gone on to listen to a bunch of others. They’re all top class.
Jay Rayner

The most fun podcast I’ve ever done
Chris Brookmyre
A distinctive and original idea. I had a great time!
Val McDermid

Brilliant brilliant podcast
Isy Suttie

Thoroughly enjoyable… a lovely concept, beautifully realised… Great stuff.
Miranda Sawyer, The Observer

This is really, really inspiring. It’s really powerful… they’re like fragments of the writers’ souls… and it can be very funny depending on who’s on and what they’re talking about. 
BBC Podcast Radio Hour

This is a great idea for a show, done brilliantly.
David Quantick

Episodes

Audio hosted at offcutsdrawer.podbean.com

The Offcuts Drawer is a podcast for writers and readers alike, featuring top writers sharing the work that’s fallen by the wayside – from unfinished novels and forgotten scripts to rejected short stories, articles, pitches and cut scenes. Through live performances by actors and intimate interviews, we explore what didn’t make it – and what happened as a result.