Frances Byrnes

Writer in Residence

Frances is attached to the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences as its Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow, offering writing support to students and staff for academic work. All consultations with her are one-to-one and entirely confidential.

Frances Byrnes is a radio writer and a features producer. She writes drama for BBC Radio: most recently a Drama on 3 adaptation of L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between, starring Richard Griffiths and Oscar Kennedy (2012). Her latest play on Radio 4 was Belle Amie (2011), an original sequel to her Classic Serial dramatisation of Maupassant's Bel-Ami (2009).

A Classic Serial of Hans Christian Andersen's The Red Shoes and Frances's version of Shane (the Western by Jack Schaefer) are forthcoming on Radio 4.

She has also made many, many programmes for BBC Radio, producing writers of great or of no experience. She has won several Sony Awards for her productions, most recently in 2010 for Now Wash Your Hands: the Story of Izal in Words and Song ('A novel idea, brilliantly executed,' Sony judges), working with a first-time presenter, Sally Goldsmith. She loves what John Cage called 'grace and clarity', and is most proud of Apollo: A Ballet for Radio (broadcast six times; presented by Christopher Cook) and also of The I Love You Bridge, a quest to find the lovers behind a graffiti marriage proposal in Sheffield (presented by the award-winning film-maker, Penny Woolcock in 2011, repeated 2012). She's currently creating an audio document of a European dance experiment, and a Radio 3 feature about stainless steel.

Frances gives workshops and masterclasses. She's an Arts Council Assessor for New Writing (Theatre) and for Dance. She presents programmes about dance, such as After a Dancemaker Dies (Radio 3, 2010, repeated 2011), 'remarkable...beautiful' (Artsdesk); '...rare insight' (Radio Times). Her radio essay about St Vitus Dance (2011) is being repeated on Radio 3 this September 2012.

Frances can be found in Room C202A. This is on C Floor of the Alfred Denny Building and is available two days a week, Tuesday and Wednesday. To book an appointment: Email: f.byrnes@sheffield.ac.uk or telephone: 0114 22 20133