Dale Smith (writer) - Career

Career

Smith's first published work was a poem published in the Leicester Mercury about Native Americans. He was still a pupil at junior school at the time. By the time he had moved to secondary school, he had had several fan fiction short stories published in Cosmic Masque, the fiction magazine of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society and this encouraged him to submit two short stories to Marvel UK's Doctor Who Magazine. These were published in the Brief Encounters section, some of the last stories published before the feature was discontinued.

Whilst writing short stories, Smith was also studying at Soar Valley Community College, Leicester, where he developed a keen interest in the theatre. He joined Jez Simons' Haithi Productions youth theatre group where he appeared in Simons' and Joyti Patel's The Fire Dragon at the Phoenix Arts Centre alongside future ER cast member Parminder Nagra. He entered the Independent Radio Drama Productions (IRDP) Young Radio Playwright Competition 1994 with the play Hello?, after re-writing the ending at Simons' suggestion. He won the competition, and the radio play was broadcast on LBC and performed at the Cambridge Theatre, before transferring to the Old Red Lion Theatre for a four week run.

Following the success of Hello? (with reviews calling the play "35 minutes of tense drama" and "frighteningly direct . . . it will haunt you for a long time afterwards.") IRDP produced another of Smith's plays. The Kissing Game enjoyed a four week run at the Tristan Bates Actors Centre, and following a relocation to Manchester to read Drama at Manchester University, Smith continued to have work produced: he was runner up in the 1997 Manchester Student Playwriting Competition before winning outright in 1998 with the play A Night on the Tiles. This was followed by a play set in and around Northampton during the Battle of Naseby.

Whilst the BBC considered Heritage for their Past Doctor Adventures range, Smith continued to write short Doctor Who stories, and during 2001 he had stories published in three major charity anthologies: Missing Pieces, The Cat Who Walked Through Time and Walking in Eternity. Smith has acknowledged the role these stories played in his successful commission, saying, "It can't be coincidence that the month that I was contacted about my proposal was also the month it was announced I had stories in the three biggest charity anthologies of the year, can it?"

After graduating from university, Smith worked part-time at Manchester University's John Rylands University Library, where he met his future wife. He returned to writing Doctor Who with the novella The Albino's Dancer, published as part of the Telos Time Hunter range, which was followed in turn by short stories for Big Finish Productions' Short Trips and Bernice Summerfield ranges.

Smith wrote a paper in the academic textbook Time and Relative Dissertations in Space edited by David Butler and the novel The Many Hands for the BBC's New Series Adventures range.

Most recently he contributed a short story to the Obverse Books' collection, Wildthyme in Purple.