TSFG member Cathy’s new book contains both poetry and prose, and has won critical praise: “An unflinching look at life rooted in a West ‎African childhood and embracing urban ‎England… poetry and prose lightly ‎peppered with Igbo words and phrases. ‎These vignettes, ‎facts and dreams, with a rich cast of characters, confront us with a spectrum ‎of human experience in vivid, succinct ‎language.”  —  Chris Fewings, poet and literary organiser

You can see Cathy read in one of the videos on the Waterloo Press’s site here.

Beard’s story ‘The Room Peels’ is one of 19 ‘tales of modern unease’ in which authors, including Mark Haddon and Margaret Drabble, were asked to respond to two parallel theories of the abject – Julia Kristeva’s theory of the psychoanalytic, intimate abject and George Bataille’s societal equivalent. Read more here.

TSFG members Mick Scully, Natalie White and Marg Roberts appear in Lockdown Tales. This project ‘aims to gather stories about living in times of national emergency. We are collating anecdotes of past and present, when people’s personal freedoms were suddenly restricted. Examples of these situations could be wars, the AIDS crisis, or fleeing to another country as a refugee. You are free to write in any short literary art form, including memoir, fiction, poetry or drama on any subject triggered by our title.’.

Lockdown Tales is one of many initiatives run by the innovative HEARTH Centre, an organisation which ‘uses the arts to animate key issues in mental health, social care and the humanities, and promote well being – which we do through theatre productions and literary events and courses.’ More information here.

HEARTH’s artistic director Polly Wright, is a theatre director, performer, facilitator, writer, lecturer, and researcher who co-founded Women and Theatre in Birmingham. She is also a longstanding member of TSFG.

Ex TSFG member Luke Brown’s piece ‘Beyond Criticism’ is the opening story in ‘Best British Short Stories 2020’. Luke was a member of the group throughout the 2000s. He has had two novels published, My Biggest Lie (2014) and Theft.

Ex TSFG member Julia has written an essay examining how the online world battles for our attention and why:

New short book for Peninsula Press coming October 2020 . . .

An essay on the battle for our attention in the age of distraction.

‘Attention pays. In today‘s online economy it has become a commodity to be bought and sold… In exchange for our attention, information and entertainment is ever at our fingertips. But at what cost? In this essay, at once personal and polemical, meditative and militant, Julia Bell asks what has been lost in this trade off. How can we reclaim our attention? In a world of infinite distraction, how can attention become radical?’

Read more here: https://peninsulapress.co.uk/product/radical-attention

Two of Joel Lane‘s books are re-published in great new editions from Influx Press.

https://www.influxpress.com/the-earth-wire

‘Stories as urgent and uncomfortable and ultimately transcendent as they were when they were written.’

– Nina Allan, author of The Dollmaker

‘A poet of misfits, outsiders and the forsaken, his empathy for their suffering ever poignant.’

– Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual

Sibyl has had her flash ‘Rose’ published in Litro Magazine. Click on the link below to read in full:

Two TSFGers feature in this clip from the Birmingham Literary Festival. Michael Toolan reads his story ‘Isosceles’ at the start, and later ex member Garrie Fletcher reads from ‘Weekenders’.

It’s wonderful to see Elizabeth, our newest member, win such a prestigious prize. Here’s the story . Here’s what the judges said:

Sidura was a member of TSFG in the early 90s before returning to live in Canada. ‘You Are Not What We Expected’ follows her earlier novel ‘Holding My Breath’ published by Tindal Street Press in the UK. It has had an excellent critical reception, including endorsements from Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours: