Indie Picks - explore some of the best of Indie Publishing through our author recommendations

by Catriona Troth

It all started after London Book Fair 2014, when Porter Anderson of The Bookseller, in one of his characteristically provocative posts, questioned whether indie authors actually read books written by other indie authors.

I was already in the throes of organising the inaugural Indie Author Fair – bringing forty indie authors together to create a pop-up bookshop at the Chorleywood Lit Fest. We had a unique opportunity to demonstrate the quality of work from indie authors and I wanted to spread the net as wide as possible. So, inspired by Anderson’s challenge, I called for recommendations for the best indie reads. The responses came in from all quarters, and the results were put on display at the Fair on 16th November.

So now, here is our invitation to explore the best of Indie Author Publishing through a selection of our Indie Picks... 

Recommended by JW Hicks: Author of Rats

Roz Morris: My Memories of a Future Life As soon as I read the title I was hooked; it conjured such speculations! But it was the three dimensional characters in this wonderfully written novel that kept me reading. They leapt from the page, insisting I speed through to the very last one. But even after the book was finished those characters – those people – stayed with me. If it’s true that a good book haunts you, then Memories of a Future Life is a darned good book. It’s the characters, drawn with such exquisite care by Roz Morris, that make this book unputdownable. For example, Carole, the classical pianist imprisoned in a world of pain caused by RSI. And Jerry, subject to such violent panic attacks he’d once been hospitalised for a suspected heart attack. And there’s Gene, of course – the mysterious face-from-the-past; the puzzle that Carol wants so desperately to solve. My verdict? Memories of a Future Life is a truly satisfying book and well worth reading.

Inceptio by Alison Morton This hi-octane, fast moving thriller is set in an Alternate timeline, in a branch that split from ours before the fall of Rome. In this Alternate Earth the Roman Empire has dwindled into the matriarchal state of Roma Nova. Karen Brown lives in the Autonomous City of New York, but has roots in Roma Nova. She is targeted by Renschman, a government enforcer with orders to eliminate her. Aided by Roma Novan special operative, Conrad Tellus, she escapes to Roma Nova in the nick of time. But crazed Renschman follows... You can read more of Carina Mitela’s adventures in Books 2 and 3 of Alison Morton’s Roma series.

Becoming Human by Eliza Green Becoming Human by Eliza Green, is a powerful tale. I was glued to it by the time I finished the prologue! Alien space vehicles terraform a planet. For humans of a dying Earth to occupy this New Earth the indigenous species must die. The Indigene survivors find refuge underground ... to plot revenge on the murderous Surface Creatures. Humans and Aliens – how very different, yet how much alike as they fight for survival. Just what is the terrifying secret that must be hidden, but which needs to be discovered? The deep, dark secret that underlies the New Earth colonisation? I defy any reader to experience anything but tingling tension as they read this totally absorbing futuristic hi-energy novel. Recommended by Kevin Booth: Author of Celia’s Room House of Silence by Linda Gillard A young woman for whom family signifies betrayal and abandonment, and who has learnt to maintain her emotional isolation, falls for a seductive young actor whose sprawling web of relatives she welcomes as icing on her romantic cake. Yet invited for Christmas at their chilly old mansion presided over by a flighty matriarch, cracks in the family’s happy façade cause her to question the enigmatic past of this apparently idyllic family. Steering skilfully between the genres of romance and mystery, Linda Gillard has written a captivating read that will keep you guessing till the end. One Night at the Jacaranda by Carol Cooper In search of love, a delightful miscellany of contrasting London types sign up for a night of speed-dating at the Jacaranda pub. Following the trials and tribulations of an undercover journo desperate for a feature, a GP with custody issues, a single mother, a terminally ill cat-lover, an obsessive misogynist and an ex-con, among others, Carol Cooper has written a light, witty an enjoyable book about the perennial quest for one’s better half.

Recommended by Rohan Quine: Author of The Imagination Thief

Cured Meat by Polly Trope: Cured Meat by Polly Trope is a unique and inventive combination of confessional autobiography (with much darkness to confess) and literary/experimental fiction. Its wilful smudging of the boundaries of those two categories, both on the scale of its overarching journey and from paragraph to paragraph, is poetic in itself, veering from stark to gently humorous and transmuting degradation into lyricality.

Songs from the Other Side of the Wall by Dan Holloway Songs from the Other Side of the Wall by Dan Holloway investigates love, pain, time, identity, coincidence, personal fulfilment and narrative structure itself. Its ambitious and successful embrace of these big themes is served up with tasty and original forays into more specific arenas of human activity – such as the subtleties of Tokaji wines and their culture, currents in contemporary art, and the human politics of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its hip, sensuous surface smoothly overlays a less smooth landscape of emotional disjunction and quite some existential anguish and alienation. This is challenging literary art, resulting in serious entertainment.

These Fragile Things by Jane Davis In These Fragile Things, the characters’ thought processes, emotional machinations and motivations are unfolded with thoroughness and clarity in real time, giving us a feeling of being intelligently anchored in reality throughout. But there are heights and spaces aplenty above this grounding. One of this novel’s many energetic and skilful successes is perhaps in suggesting that whether or not there are Miracles as such, each of us does nonetheless retain the option of remaining richly alive to the Miraculous within the fabric and the mysteries of the everyday world around us.

Recommended by Elizabeth Woodcraft, author of A Sense of Occasion

Lillian's Last Affair by Sue Katz- The interesting thing about this book is its subject matter. This is a collection of short stories about seniors and their sex lives - something we never read about - told with humour, sensitivity, lust and dignity. A good read.

The Irish Twins by Susan Hill I have loved Susan Hill's writing for a long time, Strange Meeting is an all time favourite. I was interested when she began publishing her own books. This in fact is a novella - with an unfortunate title - but demonstrates her unquestionable skill of pulling you in to the story as we follow the destiny of two smart determined girls and the twin brothers that they meet.

Recommended by Patrick A Parish

Amulet: Book 1 of the DragonBlade Series, by Nancy Lee Parish Amulet is a debut novel, intended to be a fun fantasy that's suitable for most ages (however, is not intended as a strictly Young Adult works). It's a professionally edited novel that couples a unique writing style with a fast paced rhythm and best of all, dragons. I would actually recommend the entire series (there are currently two books and a third WIP), however, it always seems fitting to start at the beginning.

Banshee in the Well,  by Robin Lovejoy Banshee In The Well is intended to be a debut Young Adult story. This story tells of a young boy who finds a girl in the well on his farm. The girl turns out to be a 13th century banshee who needs to find a way to get her magic back and return from our time to hers. The relationship between the two main characters is really well written as is the way Sathra, the banshee sees modern things which she has obviously never seen before. As well, it was written by a Tolkien, what more can be said?

Beyond Hades, written by Luke Romyn Beyond Hades is another beginning selection of a series that I believe would be suitable for most age groups, however isn't strictly speaking Young Adult. From the gripping prologue which immediately seizes your attention, Romyn hurls you into an endless vortex of action through unexpected dimensions which leaves you trying to catch your breath. Where many have tried to create the next fantastic adventure which resulted in a remake of some past epic novel, Romyn has successfully created a series of parallel worlds the likes of which I'd never seen and he has done so seamlessly as to make the reader believe this could actually be. Recommended by RJ Lynch: author of the James Blakiston Series  The Red Hill by David Penny The Red Hill is a historical novel set in Muslim Spain at a time when Islam is about to lose the foothold it has had there for a long time. Islamic characters and views are presented with an unusual degree of sympathy, while the details of ordinary life both for those in power and for the common people, are entirely convincing.  The Testament of Mariam by Ann Swinfen This is a story we all know – a basic item in the British canon – but presented from an unusual point of view. We see the life of Jesus (and the role of Judas) but we see them from the point of view of the sister of Jesus and the fiancée of Judas and not, as we usually do, filtered through the eyes and wishes of the Churches. The characters and events are presented with a freshness and a feeling of reality that carries the book forward.  Recommended by Roz Morris: Author of My Memories of a Future Life and Lifeform Three Breathing For Two by Wolf Pascoe  It is a curious responsibility to drug a person to immobility and unconsciousness. Then you must keep them in that precarious state until the surgeon has done his work. And while those moments or hours may be blank for the patient, they're sometimes way more of a struggle than the sleeper would ever suspect. The style is poetic through its simplicity, sensitivity and insight. Wolf Pascoe takes you on an unforgettable journey between night and day. The Survival of Thomas Ford by John Logan A story about a man who survives a crash in which his wife dies. But the driver who caused the collision is hunting him down because he is worried about being identified. From this apparently straightforward premise comes a story that is tense and gripping - but far from simple. The characters Thomas must outwit are unhinged, amoral lowlifes, from a milieu that gentle Thomas has never before had to encounter - like most of us who live normally and quietly. This gives the novel a universal, mythical quality. This is a story of survival, but not just physical escape. It is a crawl back to life after a clash with barbarous, feral forces. It is also a clash with conscience - if someone died beside you, and you feel responsible, how do you survive? Do you even deserve to? The prose is bold and unfancy, yet supple enough to connect with the vast and elemental. I frequently found myself rereading pages - not because of any problem with clarity, but because a phrase drummed in my head long after the plot had dragged me past, demanding a second look. The storytelling is effortless, the echoes are long lasting.

The Industry View - The Ghostwriter

Teena Lyons

Teena Lyons talks to JJ Marsh
 
After ten years as a news reporter and feature writer on national newspapers and consumer magazines, Teena left Fleet Street in 2006 to pursue a career as a ghostwriter.

Her first project, a collaboration with ex-Asda chief executive and Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton, was a business book bestseller. On Leadership, published by Random House in 2008 was called ‘immensely readable’ by Management Today; and World Business wrote: “the book barrels along at such a pace, with such enthusiasm, that we are breathlessly carried along... a profoundly hopeful read – informed by the almost palpable joy Leighton feels in inspiring and leading others.”

Following this success, Teena collaborated with Deborah Meaden of TV’s Dragons Den on her book Common Sense Rules – another bestseller. 'A refreshingly sensible look at an area plagued by hype and mythology': Management Today. ‘Inspiring’: Daily Express.‘Extensive practical advice’: The Independent.

 Since then, Teena has written more than twenty books, including the follow-up to On Leadership, Tough Calls. Her work ranges from straight, ‘how I made it’ style biographies, to broader analysis of contemporary issues, to what it takes to run a successful business, from global corporations to entrepreneurial start-ups. She has also written a number of ‘real life’ autobiographies for ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives.

www.professionalghost.com 

Having read your book, I can see you have a very pragmatic approach to writing – ‘don’t care if my name isn’t on the book as long as it’s on the cheque’. I find this a very refreshing angle in a field full of towering egos.

I genuinely feel this way, which I know most people find very hard to believe, particularly close family and friends who often get quite miffed that all my hard work is not publicly recognized. I say: I do a job I love, get paid for it and learn at the feet of some amazing experts along the way. That is reward enough.

I suspect it also helps that I had a background in National papers. I have seen my name ‘in lights’ many times before. Perhaps I have got it out of my system.

One observation that stuck with me – you mention the variety of skills a ghost must employ. Being a good writer is not enough. Which professions would you chuck into the blender to create the perfect ghostwriter?

I would zizz-up a winning blend of journalist, actor, politician and entrepreneur. That would be perfect. Journalistic skills are used throughout the process, from structuring the interviews, to quickly reacting to new, hitherto unexplored angles and then, of course, interpreting it all on the page. The acting side of this hypothetical ‘super ghost’ would be able to really get under the skin of a character, which is crucial. Meanwhile a bit of political acumen is frequently required to steer a way through certain, perhaps more sensitive, subject matter. Finally, sound business skills are essential. Running a profitable ghostwriting service depends on picking the right projects, charging the correct going rate and being quite firm about terms and conditions. It doesn’t fit well with the clichéd image of a tortured-author-in-a-garret, but a ghost can never lose sight of the fact they are a writer-for-hire.


You quote many other people in the same line of work, such as Andrew Crofts (a favourite at Words with JAM). Is there a sense of fellowship and community in the ghostwriting world or are you all elbowing each other out the way to get the best gigs?

It’s funny you mention Andrew. He was the first person I turned to for advice when I decided to become a full-time ghost. He was amazing and spent a long time on the phone giving me tips and useful pointers. Since then, I have met lots of other ghosts and always try to be just as helpful, deadlines notwithstanding.

My agent Andrew Lownie has many ghosts on his books and frequently gets us all together at his fantastic Halloween parties (Halloween – ghosts – geddit?). I have also run into other ghosts at speaking engagements and been put in touch with some through various contacts. I can honestly say they are a great, very friendly, bunch. Sometimes we even swap the odd ‘war stories’ about tricky clients – with due (no names) discretion, of course.

We do occasionally find ourselves up against one another for some jobs, but it is never ink-pens-at-dawn. I think we all accept that ghostwriting is a people-based business. Authors choose ghosts as much on personal chemistry as on track record and that goes the other way round too. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

What kind of books do you read for pleasure, as opposed to research/work?

I have to say 90 per cent of the books I read are to do with work. I always ask the people I collaborate with to tell me the books they like most, as part of the getting to know them process and then read the books they cite. I’ll also look at similar books in the genre I’ll be writing about. The good thing is this introduces me to a huge variety of topics. I’ll be reading a gritty misery memoir one week and then an inspirational biography of an international business tycoon the next.

As for the remaining 10 per cent, well my reading list goes back a long way. I clipped one of those ‘250 books you must read before you die’ rundowns from a newspaper more than a decade ago and have been slowly working my way through them ever since. The clipping has long since disintegrated because I carried it around in my handbag for so long, but fortunately my husband laminated a copy, so I still have that. It has introduced me to an incredible list of classics. I am also a sucker for anything by Wilkie Collins, Alexandre Dumas and John Updike.

Some authors bemoan the ‘celeb’ biographies/cookbooks/party planning advice which dominate the shelves and bestseller charts as evidence of general dumbing-down. Others say there is a demand to be met and it should be met by the most skilled. What’s your view?

I have always been a great believer in market forces. If there is a demand to be met, it should be serviced and it is really not helpful to be sneering about what makes it onto bookshelves. If books get over-looked in this scrabble to sign the ‘next big thing’ (and of course many do), there are ample opportunities to get them to market in other ways thanks to self publishing. The good ones will find a way and I know that for a fact. A couple of the authors I have worked with really struggled to find a publisher, but have done really well under their own steam. If anything, there is a far greater democracy in the market today and that is a good thing.

You offer publishing assistance for authors via your website. Why did you choose to provide such a service? And how do you balance the demands of such a varied career?

I hadn’t intended to do this when I started out, but one of the authors I worked with had a dreadful experience with a self-publishing company and it really annoyed me. He paid a lot of money and received a really poor service. Part of the problem was he had no idea how to publish his own book. I thought I owed it to him, and others that followed, to find out how it all worked. Before I knew it, I was helping authors on a regular basis. I’ve assembled a great team of freelance editors and designers, and a good range of reliable printers. At the moment I only work with authors who I have ghosted for (who haven’t got a mainstream publishing deal), so it is not the major part of my business. It does give ‘my’ authors peace of mind when they are setting out on a book project. They know that their book will be professionally published by a reliable company.

What would you say were the key journalistic disciplines you apply to the skill of ghosting?

Many people would anticipate that I would answer ‘writing well’, but there is a lot more to it than that. I vividly remember when I started-out as a journalist and was doing my NCTJ industry qualifications, the tutor on my course said something along the lines that ‘being a good journalist is barely anything to do with writing well’. I was profoundly shocked by that because at the time I really believed that was the be all and end all! He was right though. Being a good journalist – and ghost for that matter – is about digging out the story in the first place and exploring all the angles. Quite often people come to me with a very fixed idea of what their ‘story’ is. I’ll spend an hour or so with them and realize that is not the real story at all. Very often, the real humdinger of a tale might be something they have never considered would be of interest to anyone else, but to me it is screaming out to be told. I can’t express what a great moment it is when you spot that angle. It gets me every time!

I should also mention that other journalistic discipline I can never ignore – deadlines. I am still very disciplined about deadlines, both from a publishing point of view and also from my own business angle. I can’t afford to spend months and months agonizing over a paragraph. I set myself a tight word limit per day (which varies depending upon the complexity of the book in hand) and stick to it religiously, even if it means I have to creep back to my office after the family has gone to bed.

Obviously none of us can predict where publishing is going, but are you optimistic that you’ll continue to get commissions and attract readers to interesting stories?

I wish I could say yes but, even though I am optimistic about my industry, I am still plagued by that freelancers’ anxiety that each job will be my last. I have tried every trick in the book to make myself relax during ‘quiet’ weeks, knowing the next job is never far away. I just can’t do it though. The next job does always come along though (at least it always has so far…) and then I kick myself for not spending more time in the garden when I had the opportunity!

The morality question - you mention ghosts should not judge their subjects. Is there anyone you could not countenance writing with? (Mine would be Robert Mugabe / Jeremy Clarkson.)

Funnily enough, this reared its head quite recently. A rather extreme politician was touting around, trying to find a ghost and approached a number of us. As I have said, it is quite a tight knit community, so it did get discussed. One of my colleagues in the profession summed it up quite neatly when he said: wow, I thought I had no scruples left, but it turns out I do. Most of the time I am not that judgmental, but experience has shown me that there are some subjects that just don’t ‘feel’ right to get immersed in.

Last question, what are you up to next?

I am just finishing a fascinating book on leadership by a nuclear submarine commander. It’s the type of inspirational memoir which has left me questioning what I have done with my life. Still, by working with him, I have come as close as possible to get in ‘experiencing’ some extremely gripping events.

The next big project is a memoir for a well-known elder statesman of stage and screen. I’ve done a few interviews already and have to admit to being ever so slightly star-struck by all the gossip about some of my favourite film, theatre and TV stars. As you can see, there is never a dull moment in ghosting.

Genre Spoof Competition - The Winners!

We are chuffed to bits to announce the winner and runners-up of our genre spoof competition! Congratulations to everyone! All to be published in the Bookmuse Readers’ Journal, on sale in November. Read our first prize-winning spoof below to whet your appetite...


WINNER (£30 Amazon Voucher)

The Artemis Descent by Cul Quest (Paul Long)


RUNNERS UP  

Bats in the Belfry by Madeleine McDonald

Bounty Hunter by Debb Bouch  

Creepy Killers Can’t Climb Stairs by Susan Rocks  

Dripsnot Goes in Search of a Wife! by Moya Rooke  

I. S.P.Y. by Colin Willison  

The Iron Maiden by Jo Furniss  

Lord of the Wings by Judith Field  

Quite a Few Hues of Green by Candida Verity (Pauline Brown)  

The Case of the Facebook Identity by Gargi Mehra  

The Lourdes of the Reeds by Roger Pattison  

The Pot Thickens by Susan Howe  

The Rummy Business of Incest and Infidelity by Maureen Bowden  

Whatever Next? by Edward Binge

All runners up will receive a printed copy of the Bookmuse Readers' Journal.


The Artemis Descent by Cul Quest (Paul Long)

Lecturer in Ancient Vegetables, Saxon Rout, addressed the assembled throng.

“And that is why the turnip is responsible for the Colossus of Rhodes,” he said, finishing his lecture, and the crowd erupted into a mass of ecstatic applause, several patrons fainting at the immensity of his revelations.

Art allowed himself a wry smile. His field – vegetable based antique divination – was a small one, but he was the expert in his discipline. Just then his red phone rang.

“Come to the British Museum at once,” implored the strange voice on the other end. “It is of earth-shattering portent!”

*

Saxon stared down at the dead body of the old man on the floor as Reginald Crawl hovered worriedly by his side.

“When we found him he was holding nothing but this,” said Reginald, showing Saxon a dirt covered spoon.

Suddenly police sirens pealed.

“They must not discover you with the body!” panicked Reginald. “Come with me! ”

*

From the back of the van Saxon turned the dirty spoon over in his hands as he contemplated it. From the markings on the crechante – or tip of the handle – he could tell it was of ancient stock, possibly pre-Sumerian but more probably from ancient Greece, around the time of the Cretan architect Chersiphron. However, a small indentation, possibly carrot shaped, spoke of a history more applicable to the time of Christ, as everything seemed to be these days.

Saxon was just contemplating the possibility that the smudge marks on the faffan – or tip of the spoon – may have been caused by some act of arson, possibly on one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, when the van juddered to a halt.

The door opened to reveal Reginald with a Luger in one hand and a spade in the other.

“I’m afraid I’ve uncharacteristically changed my mind,” he weasled. “The reputation of the British Museum is more important than your life, which is why I have driven you to Turkey where I shall kill you and dispose of your body.” Reginald coughed, dropping the spade onto the threshold of the door. “Any last words?”

“May I adjust my tie?” asked Saxon, and then suddenly dropped the spoon which clattered onto the metal surface of the van floor.

Reginald gasped and leapt for the spoon, allowing Saxon enough time to pick up the spade and artfully thump him over the back of the head, knocking him out cold.

Saxon was now stuck in Turkey, with no idea what to do next, and then noticed something which would not be revealed until the next chapter.

*

A secret map, squirrelled away in the pocket of Reginald Crawl, revealed a cryptic statement. “For whom the Temple holds dear, let Lydia lead the way.” As far as Saxon knew there was only one historical artefact in Turkey known as ‘Lydia’, and that was the ancient kingdom of Lydia where it’s population once spoke the Anatolian language of Lydian, and where the first satrap – or governor – was Tabulus, who was appointed by Cyrus the Great.

Saxon closed down Wikipedia and set off on his destination.

*

Saxon made his way through the Byzantine ruins, searching for a clue. Although his field was mainly vegetable based he had some precursive knowledge of other ancient artefacts, and it was this knowledge which allowed him to catch sight of the etching in the side of the ruins. It was the shape of a man with long hair who bore a striking similarity to Robert Powell. One hand pointed off to the left, and Saxon turned his head to judge what the outstretched finger was pointing at.

Of course, Saxon erupted internally. It all fell into place.

*

The ancient Temple of Artemis – one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Once a large palace filled with life and laughter, and now a ruined wasteland of pillars and stone.

As Saxon walked through the rubble he pondered what stories the ancient stone could tell him. Stories of love, hate, intrigue and other things.

Now the word count was reaching its maximum potential Saxon suddenly noticed an etching of an ancient Brussel sprout in the base of one of the pillars, with an arrow pointing upwards. Above him, around the top of the pillar, unfurled a story, one which held some earth shattering secrets for mankind, and one which, luckily, no one else had noticed yet, lacking the ancient vegetable based knowledge Saxon had.

*

Saxon burst into the underground inner chamber in the British Museum to find Reginald Crawl, the chief of police, both the front bench and the shadow front bench, and several members of the royal family all sharing a cup of tea.

“Your secret is no longer safe!” Saxon cried. “The man who built the Temple of Artemis was also the artisan who created the first cup of tea Jesus ever drank! And furthermore, it was a divine Brussel Sprout which led the Magi to his crib! Soon the world shall know!”

Reginald collapsed to his knees, weeping. “Do not approach the media with this news of earth shattering importance. If the world knew the truth society as we know it would crumble at the seams, for some unspecified reason. For I am the descendant of the Brewer of Jesus’ Tea, and the fame would kill me, again for some unspecified reason.”

“Why did you kill the man with the spoon?” investigated Saxon.

“He died of natural causes, taking the secret of how many sugars Jesus had with the tea,” expositioned Reginald. “We thought you could find out the truth! I only pretended to try to kill you in Turkey so you wouldn’t connect me with the amount of sugars required!”

“And that secret will stay with me.”

“Tell us!” shrieked Reginald as Saxon turned his back on them and left the building, a wry smile on his face. After all, he knew the secret. The answer was no sugars.

*

The Bookmuse Readers' Journal

You know the sort. He’s always got his nose in a book. She forgets the time because of a story. Their shelves are creaking but they can’t walk past a bookshop. Natural habitat? The library. Paperback, ebook, cereal packet, doesn’t matter – if it’s got words, they will read.

You know who I’m talking about.

Readers.
For a reader, there is no greater gift than a book.

We present The Bookmuse Readers’ Journal, a precious little tome specially designed for booklovers. It’s got everything: quotes on reading, note pages for your to-be-read pile, entertaining genre spoofs, a framework for reviewing, Bookmuse reviews and recommendations, snippets of author interviews and all things bookish.

Give it to the reader in your life.

On sale now, just in time for You Know What.

My Name Is...

by Catriona Troth

Sudha Bhuchar - photo by Robert Day

My Name Is... is a play by Sudha Bhuchar, currently on a short tour with the Tamasha Theatre Group.
It is based on the true story of a twelve year old Scottish/Pakistani girl who disappeared from her home on the Isle of Lewis.

When the story first exploded onto the front pages of British tabloid newspapers in 2006, it seemed like a classic tug-of-love, clash-of-cultures story – a young girl ‘kidnapped’ by her father and taken to Pakistan to undergo a forced marriage with an older man.

The true story was far more nuanced, as Sudha Buchar’s script, drawn from many hours of interviews, reveals.

At the Platform Theatre at Central St Martins in London, a tiny stage encompasses two sitting rooms, one in Pakistan and one on the Isle of Lewis. At the back of the stage, half obscured by a gauze curtain, are the newspaper headlines that sought to force them into one or another stereotypical box. More newspaper cuttings litter the floor.

The picture that emerges is complex and layered. By allowing us to see each family member as a true individual, by allowing their stories to unfold over time, we see how the free and easy mixing of communities in the 1980s was slowly warped by events happening in the wider world. How a damaged young woman’s need to belong drove her to create a version of herself as a perfect Muslim wife until, in her own words ‘Suzy was gone, well and truly gone.’ This is a pressure cooker created, not by the clash of cultures, but by these families and these individuals.

Bhuchar has resisted the temptation to fictionalise the story (apart from altering the names) and instead stays with the authentic voices of the three family members - father, mother and daughter – as they tell their story from different sides of the world. And those voices have extraordinary directness.

But this is not strictly ‘verbatim’ writing either. Bhuchar has shaped the script, interweaving the stories and letting the voices cut across each other, so that we hear two versions of the parents’ first meeting, two versions of family’s hajj to Mecca. At times the actors cross the invisible divide to take part in a remembered scene or speak words attributed to them by one another. At times, too, they break through a kind of ‘third wall,’ to address, not the audience in the theatre, but the original audience of Bhuchar and her tape recorder.

Afterwards, playwright and actors took part in a New Writing Platform discussion with the audience, looking the process of creating My Name Is... and the challenges of verbatim theatre This was first in a new series of events presented by the MA Dramatic Writing course run by University of the Arts London, to explore, discuss and share new ideas.

Bhuchar began by explaining how she was drawn to the story by an article in the Guardian, the first that attempted to reach beyond stereotypes and accusations, and how she approached the family and asked to interview them. She flew to Pakistan and spent several days with father and daughter. The daughter then persuaded the mother to see her, and she spent several more days on Lewis with her. The result was 120 pages of interview transcripts which took eight years to shape into this play.

“The technique came in layers,” Bhuchar explained. “I’d never worked like this in my life! To begin with I thought that I would fictionalise the story, but nothing I wrote had the power of the original words. In the end the promise I made was that, however I shaped it, I must not make up any words”

Asked about her interview technique, Bhuchar spoke of not having her own agenda, about having empathy, about being interested in simply ‘overhearing.’ One of the ways she got the mother to open up was to go back to the very beginning of the story, to when the two of them met, when they had been happy together. “Usually people don’t ask me that,” she was told.

Of the three actors, only Kiran Sonia Sawar who plays ‘Gaby/Ghazala’ wanted to listen to the interview tapes to catch the nuances of the original voices. Umar Ahmed, who plays ‘Farhan’, grew up in Pollokshields and actually knew the father by sight. Karen Bartke who is from Glasgow but from a different background to ‘Suzy’, didn’t want her performance to descend into mere imitation and found it easier to connect with the emotion through the scripts – something she did with incredible power.

Early this year, the cast had the chance to perform the play with mother and daughter (now back living in Scotland) in the audience – something that was terrifying but also profoundly gratifying. Seeing their parents’ early lives together played out, in their own words, was particularly moving for the daughter. She told the actors afterwards that, as the youngest child, she had almost no memory of her parents being happy together.

At the end of the discussion, one of the audience members commented that he had been waiting all through it for the author to come down on one ‘side’ or another. Yet that never happens. By allowing each of the characters their own authentic voice, she manages to preserve a balance, so that your heart reaches out to each of them in turn.

You can read the Guardian article the first inspired Bhuchar to write the play here.

And you can read my interview with Sudha Bhuchar about her time as Artistic Director of Tamasha here.

Sudha Buchar: Making a Commotion with Tamasha

by Catriona Troth

Tamasha is a Hindi word meaning a commotion or creating a stir. And for the last 25 years, the Tamasha Theatre Group, founded by Sudha Buchar and Kristine Landon-Smith, has been creating a stir, first as a voice for the South Asia diaspora in Britain, and more recently as a voice for a whole range of rarely represented cultures.

Sudha Bhuchar - photo by Robert Workman

Now, a few months before she hands over the reins of the company to her successor, Bhuchar talks to Catriona Troth about Tamasha’s past, present and future.

“I began working with Jatinder Verma at Tara Arts. At that time it was just a community group, and I
wasn’t a professional actor. I was a chronically shy teenager and it would never have occurred to me to be an actor. But I became involved because I was hungry to engage like-minded people,” Bhuchar begins.

Her long-term partner at Tamasha, Kristine Landon-Smith, was already a professional actor when she joined Tara a few years later, playing a male part in Broken Thigh, a play based on a story from the Mahabarat. In the course of that tour, the two became close friends.

It was on one of her occasional trips home to see her family in India that Landon-Smith became involved in promenade performance of the modern Indian classic novel Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand. She brought a video of the production back to show Bhuchar, and the two realised there were no equivalent contemporary stories of the Asian diaspora on the British stage. It was to fill that gap that the two women set up the Tamasha Theatre Company in 1989.

“We had some seed funding from Tara and they hosted a reading of Untouchable. Then we got some Arts Council funding to do a tour and got into Riverside Studios. But we were incredibly naive. We didn’t realise that we had effectively underwritten the show. If the production had failed, we would have been £60k in debt. Fortunately it didn’t fail.”

Some of their casting challenges were extraordinary. “Untouchable was a cast of 10 or 11, mostly young boys, and we had this crazy idea to perform it one night in English and one night in Hindi. So we were looking for a cast of bilingual boys! But we have always searched for new talent – not necessarily on the radar, not necessarily from drama schools.

“Back then, there was a real hunger among Asian audiences. Phillip Headley at Stratford East wanted to engage with the audience on his doorstep, so he asked us what we could do. Our first couple of shows – like House of the Sun which was set in a block of flats in Bombay – were adaptations of novels. Back then, there was still subsidy available, so one show led to another.

“That went on for several years. We didn’t think about this ‘company’ per se – we just thought about the next show. Then in 1993, Oxfam approached us to do something connected with their work for their 50th Anniversary. Out of that came, Women of the Dust, a play inspired by Sunil Gupta’s photographs of the women labouring on construction sites in India.”

But it was the success of Ayub Khan Din’s celebrated play, East is East, which Tamasha first brought to the stage in 1996, that proved the real turning point.

“That play went mad and at that point we decided to accept that Tamasha was a company and not just a successions of projects.”

At this point, for the first time, they applied for fixed term funding from the Arts Council. Landon-Smith was becoming serious about the directing side of things, and also about teaching. So Tamasha began to develop a training side, which has now grown into Tamasha Developing Artists (TDA).

TDA, which was formally launched in 2004, is an artist-led professional development programme for emerging and established talent. It offers training courses, workshops, masterclasses, bursaries and ongoing professional support, and aims to ‘train and nurture the artistic individuality of the theatre voices of tomorrow, and to take positive action to encourage greater diversity in British theatre.’ It now represents fifty percent of Tamasha’s business.

Bhuchar has worked as actor, playwright and artistic director. Does her heart lay with one of those roles, or does she see them as interconnected?

“It has all come out of being young and Asian in this country. When we were growing up, we thought what we were experiencing, only we were going through it. Then my sister and I went to a Diwali function at Tara. They were doing sketches about the generation gap and questioning religion and our parents and racism.

“It was all those things that led you to hang out with people like yourself, which somehow led to acting. And then the writing came out of a lack of opportunities as an actor. And the need is still there.

“But I never woke up one day and thought ‘I’m going to be a pioneer.”

Does she think it would it be harder to start something like Tara now?

“It is harder, because the funding it not there. On the other hand, nowadays there are unpaid opportunities like development and scratch nights.

“In the 80s, if you went to the National Film Theatre to see a Satyajit Ray film, everyone you knew would be there. Now there is a lot more going, yet it is still on the margins. It is hard to see proper change, proper shaking up of the mainstream.

“For a while, there a wave both in theatre and in television. I was in an all-Asian programme on Central television that went out at seven thirty in the evening. Yes it was a niche programme with a niche audience. But now there is an assumption that we are all integrated. You have your Asian family on Eastenders and Emmerdale and sure, fine. But the community has grown enormously and the representation is abysmal. So people like me go, ‘Oh, my god, where is the tangible difference?’

“If Tamasha has branched out over the years, it is not because the need to represent South Asian voices has diminished. Rather, we have branched out because we recognised that need was shared by many other groups too. We used to have courses for British Asian writers only, and then we would have others knocking on our doors, saying ‘there is no other place for us – can we be British Asian for the day?’ So we started to ask ourselves why we were creating these barriers.

“Now, someone has said to us that being in a Tamasha rehearsal room is like being on the top of a London bus and actually there are no other places like that.”

Landon-Smith went back to Australia in 2013, and now Bhuchar herself is looking to move on too. So why now?

“We used to say Tamasha was Kristine and me and if we didn’t want to carry on, we would fold up and someone else could start something new. But with the growth of TDA, we realised Tamasha had grown beyond the two of us. And once you acknowledge something has outgrown you, then you start thinking how and when you will be succeeded.

“We had talked about 25 years being the right time to move on. Then she was headhunted for a wonderful job in Australia. [Landon Smith is now a lecturer in acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts, in Sydney.] We were in the first year of a three year plan for Tamasha, and it made sense for me to stay on. It was very important for us to pass on the identity of the company, its legacy, its history, to someone who had time to be embedded. Finn Kennedy was appointed through a huge open process. And now he and I are coming towards the end of an eighteen month process of working together.”

So what does the future hold for Tamasha?

“Finn talks about ‘making work along cultural fault lines’ - whether that is race or class or religion. He has had ten years as writer-in-residence at Mulberry School for girls in Tower Hamlets. He has changed the culture of that school, from a time when girls were not allowed to be in a drama group, to taking an all Muslim cast in a play written by him to the Edinburgh Festival.

“Finn was also behind ‘In Battalions,’ a report into the effect of Arts Council cuts on theatres' capacity to develop new plays and playwrights. That came about in response to a conversation with Culture Minister, Ed Vaisey, in which he claimed the cuts were having ‘no effect.’ That has been like a call to arms.

“So he is someone very passionate. Quite political. And he is a writer. So maybe things will become a little more writer-focused.”

And what lies in the future for Sudha Bhuchar?

“That is hard to answer, because I don’t have a new job to go to.

“My job has been about nurturing other artists, about administration, about fundraising. I want to catch my breath, think about myself. I am not a teacher in the way that Kris and Finn are. I want to be creating work.

“Part of our work over the last three years has been under the umbrella of Small Lives, Global Ties. I guess I will always be interested in ordinary people leading extraordinary lives. So I will be exploring new collaborations to tell those stories.

“I do have a couple of projects in mind. One is called Golden Hearts, which is about the fact that Asian men are particularly vulnerable to heart disease. That began as a Scratch Night and then I realised I needed to do something more with it. I am hoping to work with the British Heart Foundation on that.

“The other is an adaptation of White Mughals by William Dalrymple (the true story of a love affair between a British army officer and a Muslim woman in 18th Century India). I am trying to get that off the ground with a company called Dash Arts, who did a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in eight different Indian languages!

“But the whole thing is predicated on getting partners and getting money. So we will see. Maybe I will just decide to go and do yoga and recharge my batteries for a while!

“As one of the TDA artists told me, ‘Jump off a cliff and the universe will be there to catch you.’”



East is East is being revived in the West End this autumn. Read more here.

And you can read about the development of Sudha Bhuchar’s play My Name Is... here.


We hope to have an interview with Finn Kennedy, Tamasha’s incoming Artistic Director, in a future issue of Words with Jam.

A Shower of Golden Rules – or How to make social media work for you by Derek Duggan

There are a lot of pressures on writers these days. Not only do you have to write books and stuff but now, with the demands of an ever present public, you have to write about other things across several platforms.

This can seem a little daunting to the novice, but there are some simple rules and once you follow them you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank (and then, as a writer, crying all the way home again). First, and most conspicuously, you will have to make regular posts on social media sites. This can be a little bit tricky as you have to show people that you, as a writer, are better than everyone else while making yourself seem like a regular Joe Soap at the same time. It doesn’t matter which platform you choose, the rules are the same.

1. Wine/alcoholic beverages. You have to mention wine in at least every other post or people will think you’re not an alcoholic and therefore not a real writer. It doesn’t matter if you’re really a teetotaler, you still have to post things like – Hey, is it wine o’ clock yet? – or – It must be beer thirty – or – It must be time to down a bottle of whiskey and shit the bed by now! Nobody will buy your work if you don’t do this. In a recent study at the British University of Made up Studies it was found that the amount of times wine was mentioned on a writer’s time line was directly proportional to the amount of sales achieved. And that’s a fact. If you can’t think of any wine related thing to say why not simply post a link to some online article that says drinking lots of wine makes you really good at doing everything and makes you really healthy and people who live under bridges and shout at traffic are just doing it wrong. This will help you to connect with regular alcoholics and convince them to buy your stuff.

2. Work in progress. You have to mention this from time to time or people might forget that you’re not just someone who lives under a bridge and shouts at traffic. Don’t go into details – just say something about drafts and word counts and that should keep everyone happy. In this way you can connect with regular people by pretending that you do some work too and don’t actually spend the whole day farting about on the internet.

3. Stuff about dogs/cats. It’s a well-known fact that people who are interested in buying books are much more interested in photos of your dog than they are in your reviews. Think about it - How many times have you come across a novel that has all five star reviews on Amazon only to be put off buying the book when, on inspection of the author’s Facebook page, it turns out they haven’t posted twenty five pictures of their dog sitting on the couch in the last half an hour? I think you can see the logic in this. It will help to show that you have as little in your life as ordinary people and thus connect with them.

4. Wine. See number 1.

5. Links to grammar tests. You need to post one of these a month to show how good you are at doing English and to remind other people that they are shit at it. This will show people that you’re dead clever and that because you got ten out of ten on this online test your book is obviously a work of genius and is definitely worth reading. People don’t want to think that the book they’re reading is stupid as they feel it might reflect badly on them and people will think they’re a thicko. Dan Brown probably got ten out of ten on several online grammar tests. I rest my case.

6. Food stuff. In case all the animal pictures haven’t convinced the general readers out there that you are at least as boring as them there is always room for the occasional food post. Just stick up a photo of your dinner and watch your book sales soar. Everyone loves a good picture of someone else’s dinner. A recent study done by a University somewhere found that when normal people sit down with their families at night after being at work all day all they want to do is pick up their tablets and look at pictures of other people’s dinner. They can’t get enough of it. And the study found that when people see a picture of some potatoes and random meat and boiled-to-fuck vegetables on Facebook, the first thing they do is to go to Amazon and buy a book. It’s in a scientific study so it must be absolutely true.

7. Links to a good review you just got. There’s nothing that excites common people more than knowing that a writer they know has just received a five star review on Amazon or somewhere. Most ordinary folk can’t wait to read how LoveCats169 couldn’t put your book down and they’ll be delighted that she’s managed to spell most of the words correctly in her review. This shows how normal people, just like the other people you know on Facebook, would like your book if they read it.

8. Wine. See number 1.

And that’s it for social media. See? It’s nothing to be worried about.

Glad I could help.