Wintry Tales

Wintry Tales is a pair of plays made up of ten short stories. They combine the wild imaginations of school children with the work of major writers from the North East of England. The book draws on the Live Tales creative writing model developed at Live Theatre in Newcastle, which puts children's authorship at the heart of the process. The result is a set of alternative takes on the Christmas story.

The stories include a mysterious snowfall inside an ASDA, a wizard detective who loves hot chocolate, a lonely polar bear looking for another sharp-toothed friend, and an elf who starts a workers' revolution.

The plays are simple in form but full of ideas, and they can be staged by just two actors, on a crowded stage or an empty one. The focus is on the words and the outrageous ideas behind them. The book is aimed at anyone looking for an alternative Christmas offering to read, perform or watch live.

Rory Mullarkey is a UK playwright whose body of work spans the National Theatre, the Globe, the Royal Court Theatre and other venues. Lisette Auton is a disabled writer and the author of the children's books The Secret of Haven Point, The Stickleback Catchers and Lights Up.