Send Nudes: By the winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2022

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Neither Blue nor Jasmine have a license to drive the car that Frank’s rented, so they take the old mopeds that belong to the house. Stella hears the exhausts flare and then fizzle as they drive away. She swims for a while. Claire and Frank set up on the veranda and start eating tuna niçoise. 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. In a short space of time, everyone’s out on the veranda. Stella supposed that staying in her room would look guilty, and it seems that Blue and Jasmine thought that too. By this point, Frank is already in the pool. Stella squats. It takes a while for the piss to come. She’s nervous with them both watching over her like that. Her aim isn’t particularly good, and she only manages to get a little bit on Jasmine’s sting. The rest splashes up around her ankles and across Jasmine’s shins. Jasmine squeezes her eyes shut and retches.

No, says Frank. You’re eighteen. Now down that pint. Down it. Something about having Frank around makes her a better daughter Can you offer any advice to other writers? Anything to help inspire or motivate, or to keep going when things get tough? As with most short story collections I seem to prefer some stories to others but this one is being rounded up.

Advance Praise

In all these instances, while the outcomes aren’t always what one might hope for, they are the choices made and enforced by the protagonists, and so they are always worth it. This year’s judging panel was chaired by novelist and broadcaster, Elizabeth Day. She was joined by Costa First Novel Award winning novelist Ingrid Persaud; writer, poet and editor, Will Harris; Booker Prize shortlisted novelist and Professor of Creative Writing, Gerard Woodward; and returning judge Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Audio. Blue swings her leg over the moped, slots the key into the ignition, and slaps the empty part of the seat behind her. Hop on, she says. Let’s make this pussy roar. In one way it’s an incredible boost to have a book out and to know people are reading it, and on the other hand when I think about that too hard it’s completely terrifying. I can’t let myself believe that the novel I’m writing at the moment is going to be published at some point, otherwise I completely freeze up. Stella feels her body float upwards, a little off the seat. Jasmine cuts a fillet away from the fish and places it on Stella’s plate. Here, she says. To get the taste out. I’ll get you some water as well.

Praised for its ‘utter truthfulness’ and ‘authentic portrayal of the dynamics of familial relationships’, ‘Blue 4eva’ is a story about a newly blended family’s summer holiday. It was inspired by Sams’ memories of her own childhood holidays on Formentera and features twelve-year-old Stella as she deftly navigates the powerplay between her voyeuristic new stepfather, eighteen-year-old stepsister, Jasmine, and Jasmine’s best-friend, Blue. First drafted when Sams was a 19-year-old creative writing student at the University of Manchester, the judges were particularly enamoured by the ‘veracity of the writing’ and the portrayal of Stella, whose warmth, agency and strength of character, were both refreshing and empowering. I don’t know if I was enjoying myself or just in a continual state of curiosity,” says Meg in Snakebite, one of 10 short stories in 25-year-old British author Saba Sams’s exceptional debut collection. Sams joins the ranks of writers such as Megan Nolan and Frances Leviston with these acute portraits of the fragile intimacies and euphoric moments snatched by a generation of women coming of age into a precarious future. Jasmine rolls her eyes, as she does every time Claire speaks. She’s hoping to go to Sussex, although there’s some doubt around whether she’ll get the grades. A roiling, raw, gut-punch of a debut collection, best read in one sitting ... I sat motionless for about half an hour after reading them; I can't wait to see what she writes next' PANDORA SYKES

Featured Reviews

In the stories where the choice isn’t theirs, the girls and women suffer not only the consequences – the narrative often ends before that – but more so the torment of the lead-up. That sense of something unknown coming permeates these stories, making them slippery in the hand and yet painfully simple at the same time. After all, the choice isn’t always ours. But life is certainly better when we make them – or so Sams would have you believe. Light comes through the sun roof and shows a faint, dark moustache on Blue’s upper lip. Only a few weeks ago, Stella noticed her own in the zoom-in mirror that Frank has in the bathroom, and used his razor to shave it off.

Her work calls to mind Eliza Clark, whose 2020 debut novel Boy Parts followed an abrasive young woman who convinces men to pose for explicit photographs, and Megan Nolan, whose 2021 book Acts of Desperation traced a woman’s cruel mistreatment of herself. Which is to say that Sams writes young women characters who are rarely straightforwardly sympathetic. “I didn’t have much in the way of standards,” Gracie, the protagonist of one story, admits. Does that make her a bad person? Not necessarily. Sams presents us with characters about whom we feel at once horrified, and then amused. Her prose, raw and tightly wrought, tests our capacity for compassion. The salad has green beans in it, and the water next to Stella’s plate has been poured into a pint glass. She takes a sip. I was maudlin as each of the intoxicating, bristling stories in Send Nudes ended, wishing I could stay on with the girls within them a little longer. I fell for this stunning collection with a rare, consuming passion' MEGAN NOLAN A roiling, raw, gut-punch of a debut collection, best read in one sitting. Sams conveys the suffocation of being and the longing to break free - from parents, partners, children, convention, your own self - in tender, spare prose. I sat motionless for about half an hour after reading them; I can't wait to see what she writes next' PANDORA SYKES This collection delves into the lives of different women at various stages of their lives, it was as if the stories were a snapshot of someone’s life. Each story examines womanhood, sexuality, and modern day issues. There are some very detailed and graphic topics such as abortion, abuse, sexual assault, adult/minor relationships. Although these themes are dark, the writing is simplistic and honest when writing about them.

Reviews

Joining Day on the judging panel were Costa first novel award-winning novelist Ingrid Persaud; writer, poet and editor, Will Harris; Booker prize shortlisted novelist and professor of creative writing, Gerard Woodward; and returning judge Di Speirs, books editor at BBC Radio. Dad took me out to practice once, says Jasmine. I guess he thought it was a good opportunity for bonding.

Also announced today was the winner of the BBC young writers’ award with Cambridge University, an award created to inspire and encourage the next generation of short story writers. The award was won by Elena Barham, 19, from Barnsley for a story set in the 1940s, Little Acorns.

Send a message to Saba Sams

Everyone laughs at that, apart from Jasmine. Stella laughs so hard she nearly falls off her chair. When the laughter dies down, Jasmine’s looking right at her.