I’m always thinking about what it looks like to be a young woman: about bodies and power, about friendships and family, about the ways we’re constantly looking to break free,” Sams said. “Blue 4eva engages with sexuality, too, particularly with queerness, in a subtle way that I found interesting to write.” Digital natives reared on Snapchat and Tinder, Sams’s characters are largely blase about sex. In Here Alone, seduction begins as a game for Emily – “this was her favourite part: the exchange of signs” – but she loses control. The ensuing tale of delusional desire and casual male cruelty nails rejection with stinging clarity. Family offers little by way of a safety net, as beleaguered parents inhabit an extended adolescence of their own. Roles are reversed: one daughter tries to shield her inebriated mother from social services, another fashions a consolatory beach in a high-rise flat when the pandemic scuppers a long-awaited holiday. They’re midway through the meal when Blue waves at someone. Stella looks over her shoulder to see a man a few tables away. Jasmine looks too. In the kitchen, they boil the samphire and chop it fine with other ingredients, like capers and red onion, to make a relish. There’s a barbeque on the veranda, and Blue lines fillets of white fish over the coals. The flood lights are on in the pool, and the water looks like a huge turquoise crystal. Stella’s mother married Jasmine’s father in February. Stella was twelve, Jasmine was eighteen. For their honeymoon, Claire and Frank went to Costa Rica. Stella and Jasmine weren’t invited. When they returned home, Frank announced that he’d booked three weeks in a villa on the smallest island in the Balearics, to make up for it. Jasmine was over from her mother’s. Claire had baked a lemon drizzle.

Blue pulls her legs out of the pool and stands up. Stella thinks that if she had a camera, she’d take a photograph of Blue right there, on the edge of the pool like that. Stella feels the inside of her mouth get dry. She pours herself a glass of water from the bottle and takes a sip. It was me, says Stella. She has the same feeling she had when she ate the fish eye. It was me, she says again. Each of the five shortlisted stories are available to listen to on BBC Sounds and are also published in an anthology BBC National Short Story Award 2022 with an introduction by Day, published by Comma Press.The setting came first. I’ve been going to Formentera with my dad’s side of the family since I was tiny, and it’s a place that felt so rich with potential in terms of writing. It’s a very small island and a complex, perfectly-formed little world. The winner of 2022 BBC National Short Story Award was announced this week as London-based writer, Saba Sams. Following the announcement , we spoke to her about ‘Blue 4eva’– the winning story. Winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2022** **Shortlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2023** In Tinderloin and Snakebite your protagonists find their animal companions to be more dependable than the humans they invest in. Is this a reflection of their age or are adult relationships just as unreliable? Saba Sams wins 17th BBC National Short Story Award for Debut Story Celebrating the Power and Agency of Youth

SELECTED FOR STYLIST'S BOOKS YOU CAN'T MISS IN 2022 - 'A MUST READ' 'An exhilarating debut' GUARDIAN Baume is nominated for her poetic third novel Seven Steeples, which depicts a couple escaping into the wilds of south-west Ireland. Barney Norris in the Guardian called it a “glacially beautiful book”. Gower said Baume had “created a marvellously shambolic and memorable pair of characters” and described the book as “tender and true”. It isn’t a question Stella’s been asked before. Frank’s interest in taking photographs of her only developed this holiday. I don’t mind, she says. It’s fun.

This included stories on toxic female friendships, jealousy, abortion, sending nudes (hence the title), seduction, desire and the complex relationships to other women (eg mothers and daughters, best friends, the ex’s). Send Nudes is a seriously impressive debut. Saba Sams digs into the chaos, euphoria and menace of sexual attraction, friendship and family with bravery and wit. The balance her prose strikes between observation and empathy is remarkable, and its rhythms irresistible' - Chris Power Saba Sams has won the seventeenth BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (NSSA) with ‘Blue 4eva’, a story about sexual identity, agency, power and class, taken from her debut collection, Send Nudes. A punchy collection of stories about being a woman in today's society; whether you're already an adult or a teenager becoming one. Sams writing is engaging and bright, showing the humor or the bitterness of a scene without spelling it out. She spoke at an even volume, as if she was saying something completely normal, still looking out over the road as the cars went by. Stella didn’t reply. The words stayed in her head like an echo, and she couldn’t think of anything else.