The nominations for the Writers' Guild Awards were announced today (7 December), with NHB authors represented across a number of categories.

Temple by Steve Waters is shortlisted for Best Play. This engrossing drama, first seen at the Donmar Warehouse in May 2015 in a production starring Simon Russell Davies, is a fictional account of the 2011 Occupy London protests at St Paul's Cathedral. It was praised by the Telegraph as 'a triumph... a riveting drama that unpicks the institutional and psychological turmoil the saga caused'.

Laura Lomas' hard-hitting Bird is nominated for Best Play for Young Audiences. A cutting-edge monologue that throws light on the experience of a teenager in contemporary Britain, Bird centres on fourteen-year-old Leah, who begins to unpick the nature of her current relationship when waiting up for her boyfriend to call. The play premiered at Derby Theatre in October 2014, before touring the UK. The Stage called it '[a] beautifully crafted monologue with rich theatrical texture'.

Laura Lomas is also nominated for Best Radio Drama for her BBC Radio 4 play Fragments.

NHB writers swept the playwriting categories at the Writers' Guild Awards 2015, with James I from Rona Munro's trilogy The James Plays taking home the prize for Best Play, and Girls Like That by Evan Placey winning Best Play for Young Audiences. The winners of 2016 Awards will be announced at a ceremony at RIBA, London, on 18 January 2016.