Inside the Writers' Academy

In Media Guardian (free registration required), Gareth Maclean talks to Abi Brown about being on the BBC Writers' Academy course and writing her first episode of EastEnders.

"It undoubtedly kills your social life, and I couldn't have done it without the love of a good man, but I learnt so much and have gone from nought to EastEnders in a remarkably short time," says Brown, the amazement evident in her voice.

Indeed, Bown, 41, only started writing seriously some seven years ago, and her background was in theatre. She had also written some short stories but nothing to match authorship of an episode of a soap which, despite the continuing parlous state it apparently finds itself in (at least according to the tabloids), still pulls in hefty audiences.

"They're filming it at the moment," she says, "and it's amazing watching actors saying your lines. Like nothing else, in fact."