How to Disappear

How to Disappear shines a torch into the dark corners and finds a world inhabited by the missing and the dead, by monsters and wounded beasts, discarded dreams and the memories of strangers – a trawl through the apparently empty spaces and what might be found there. At its heart is the narrative sequence Room of Leaves. It is 1959. Grace, at last, falls in love. Jilted at the altar, she sets up home in the garden of her mother’s bungalow and waits, for thirty years, in a world of birds and bright umbrellas, for Frank to return…

Amanda Dalton is a poet and playwright specialising in theatre and radio drama. Her first book-length collection, How to Disappear (Bloodaxe Books, 1999), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and chosen as a Next Generation Poets title by the Poetry Book Society in 2004. Her second collection, Stray, was published by Bloodaxe in 2012. She has had numerous original dramas broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Adaptations include re-imaginings of the silent movies The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Nosferatu and dramatisations of classic fiction including novels by Henry James, E.M. Forster and Tove Jansson. Her theatre writing to date is for large scale outdoor and site-specific performance, and drama for young people, including several commissions with Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Before embarking, in 2017, on a freelance career, Amanda has been a deputy head in comprehensive schools, Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation and Engagement Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre, where she is currently an associate artist. She is a Royal Literary Fund fellow, and has held writing residencies and fellowships in many setting including Leeds University, the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, Barton Moss Secure Care centre and the Brontë Parsonage museum. Much of her career has been focused on teaching, mentoring and the curation and artistic leadership of innovative cross-artform projects, focussed on community engagement and empowerment, and on collaboration between outstanding professional artists and the public. She lives in Hebden Bridge.