The ABC's Talks Department, the first Federal Department within the organisation, was formed in 1936. The functions of the Talks Department were to arrange and be responsible for all talks on the National Programme and to be responsible for the general supervision of talks on the State Programmes. 

In 1938 the Department began selecting, purchasing and arranging for the broadcast of short stories and story serials. This series contains the scripts of serials obtained in this process.

The Talks Department attempted to cultivate the art of writing stories for the radio (both short stories and serials), as a means of obtaining material for broadcast. In 1939 the ABC conducted a radio short story competition to promote the development of local writing skills. As a result, between June 1940 and June 1941, for example, 788 short stories were submitted and 204 were purchased, while in the six months from January to June 1941, 22 serials were submitted and 10 were purchased.

The scripts that comprise this series date from 1945 to 1953 and are typed separately by episode. All episodes for a particular serial are grouped together within a folder. Each script contains the following information: Title, episode, author, station, reader and time of broadcast. Apart from those scripts submitted by Australian authors, there are also scripts which have been adapted from novels by mainly British authors, including Dickens and Austen.

It was the responsibility of a Talks Executive within the Talks Department to read and select short stories and serials for programming, to notify the authors of acceptance, and arrange for the payment of fees or the return of rejected stories to the authors. Contained within this series is a file of Survey Reports compiled by Talks Executives RA Bronownski or George Hewlett, which date from 1942. These reports document the acceptance or rejection of a particular piece of submitted work and the amount that would be offered for it. 

The submission of serials by members of the public gradually declined, and by 1953 short stories had become the more popular medium for presentations prepared by the Talks Department. These short stories however, were more frequently compiled by ABC staff or external contract employees, rather than submitted by members of the public. No new records were therefore created in this series after 1953.

Administrative information:

Archives file number:     RWS50/4/80