This is a short story before bedtime for adults. It's not so much a who done it, but an I done it. Downfall is the fictional story about a character pushed to the edge, and the character who pushes her over it.

It's part of a series of night-time audio read by me. I'm Yvonne. Writer, audio lover, and narrator.

About the author

Yvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning author, academic, editor, podcaster, host, creative producer, and writer. Her debut, Remembered, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Not the Booker, and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Winner of The Shirley Jackson Award, Curdle Creek is her second novel. Former Commissioning Editor (literary fiction) at John Murray, Yvonne was a finalist in the Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Zora Award for Fiction for Curdle Creek, a winner of the RSL Scriptorium Award, and is the Academic Director of Creative Writing at Cambridge University. She has six creative nonfiction titles in the Ladybird Series (children).

Yvonne is presenter of the Write Your Novel with Yvonne Battle-Felton series and podcast, Bookable Space. She aims to live a literary life and bring people together over stories.

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This is a recording from a live event celebrating books launched in Summer, 2026. In this episode of About Last Mic, Yvonne Battle-Felton reads from the US edition of Curdle Creek. In this extract, Osira finds herself a long way from home. Curdle Creek is a rural town with a population policy of one in, one out. Now that Osira is in England she is surprised to find that life outside of Curdle Creek is not so different as life inside her rural, ordinance-loving town. She is also surprised by who she has to become to survive it.

Inspired by Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, Curdle Creek is the winner of the 2024 Shirley Jackson Award (novel).

Yvonne Battle-Felton is an author, academic, and podcaster. Her debut, Remembered, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Not the Booker, and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Winner of The Shirley Jackson Award, Curdle Creek is her second novel. Yvonne was a finalist in the Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Zora Award for Fiction, has been awarded the RSL Scriptorium Award, and lives in West Yorkshire, England. She aims to create a literary community bringing readers and writers together over wordsThis is a recording from a live event celebrating books launched in 2026. In this episode, I'm reading from the US edition of Curdle Creek. It's a section of the book that I don't often get to read from. In the book, Osira finds herself a long way from home. She's surprised by what she finds and by who she is when she's away from Curdle Creek.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.