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Showcase

The Literary Consultancy is excited to be working on an innovative showcase for its writing talent, initially in association with Staple Magazine. See TLC Showcase Introduction for more on the inception of the Showcase and please see below for where it is now.

Once a month we will highlight the work of one author whose work we believe deserves a platform, whether simply because our readers felt it worth championing, or whether we have helped the writer on to commercial publication.

If you enjoy reading our Showcase, please feel free to share, and let us know on Facebook or on Twitter.

Louise Watts

“Soon after we got here we learnt the words for go away. There are two words for go away and one of them is stronger than the other. Also, we learnt the words for yes and no, and how to count to four. I do not remember the word for please but I do remember the word for thank you.”

From ‘The Words for Go Away‘ – included in the showcase

“The Words for Go Away is about grief, childhood, marital breakdown, and the forces of loss that shape us. It is set in the 1970s Arabia, in a place of astonishing emptiness and wild beauty, where children have the freedom to roam and where adults work tax-free, drink and party. But even so far from home, the past cannot be escaped. There is an unprocessed grief beneath the surface, just out of view, that feels wrong but is impossible to name. As the narrator grows older, and a better life for the family proves elusive, the past repeats and childhood is betrayed.” From the Introduction

Previous Showcase Authors

Julia Webb

“There is faraway bird-call, the startled flap of a fresh waked pigeon,   A deer eye appears, and vanishes back into shadow.” Extract from poetry collection ‘Bird Sisters’ – included

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Rhiannon Lewis – TLC Showcase author

Rhiannon Lewis

“William was called away by one of the crew before he could respond. For a moment, Davy stayed at the rail watching the shadow of the Esmeralda turn in the

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Andrew Malcolm

“I wanted to know if Martyn and Spry were involved at all. In a really tight group like theirs it’s hard to tell the couples. They were one of those

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Deirdre Shanahan – TLC Showcase author

Deirdre Shanahan

“If it were not for the sun glinting on the pool of rainwater in the slight dip of the lawn, John would have thought he was back  home in Cloghan,

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Richard-Buxton - TLC Showcase author

Richard Buxton

“In the centre of the square, under the American flag, a loose halyard slapped the pole, out of rhythm with the swirling wind. The gritty snow, sharp as sand, had

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Kelleigh-Greenberg-Jephcott - TLC Showcase author

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

“Truman wills himself awake, peacock-plume eyed, empty champagne bottle in his lap.  He squints toward the open door, where the chauffeur stands with the sun at his back, features obscured,

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Michael Lawson – TLC Showcase author

Michael Forester

“11.00pm glides on oil into midnight and 12.30 am, until Tolly finally finds the courage to leave her sanctuary. She makes her way to the service elevator. Her finger hovers

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Jane Aitken – TLC Showcase author

Jane Aitken

“The Prime Minister’s posture looks relaxed, but if you look closely he still has the slight twitching of muscles, emblematic of months without enough sleep, and time zone confusions from

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Beatrice Crawford – TLC Showcase author

Béatrice Crawford

“Day after day, GM, the Great Wall lent me its ramparts in the grand setting of the YanShan mountains. I had no need to know where I was going or

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Alan Evans – TLC Showcase author

Alan Evans

“She had been the centre of his life for many years but now she did not exist. At first he had been convinced that they were made for each other,

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TLC Pen Factor Special

““I’ll get straight to the point”, said Dr. Mangan who proceeded to do no such thing. He explained that the software that had processed Dweem’s original test results had proved

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Emma Norry – TLC Showcase author

Emma Norry

““Sorry! Sorry – am I late?” The clock on the wall wobbles because the door’s flung open so hard. A girl stands in the doorway and I’m a cartoon figure,

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Jane Corbett

“She asked about life in Berlin before the fall of the Wall and he told her how in the 1970’s when he first came there to avoid being drafted into

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Liam Brown – TLC Showcase Author

Liam Brown

“You’re writin your name now I see? Well good on ya. That’s all a man needs to sign his life away ha. But really it’s good. I was twice your

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James Cook – TLC Showcase Author

James Cook

“Ever since writing my first callow lyrics aged 14, I’d been striving to develop as a songwriter, learning different instruments, mastering the studio (we recorded and rehearsed day and night

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Caroline Chisholm – TLC Showcase Author

Caroline Chisholm

“My birth was hailed not by a single star, but by many bright lights that burned briefly in the night sky before falling to earth. The invasion of the Russian

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MichelleWareham – TLC Showcase Author

Michelle Wareham

“Eli wrote every week from the Western Front, until his letters stopped arriving two months ago. His letters dry. His strong handwriting reminds her of his warm presence. Mary’s letters,

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David Turner – TLC Showcase author

David Turner

“I marvelled at the vastness and flatness and emptiness of the parched red desert floor, the huge void of silence, suspended primordial time; the east–west highway that ran straight for

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Pen Factor TLC Showcase

Pen Factor Special

“I turned about the room, toe to toe, making the smallest circle. What I wanted was not there. His clock, his papers, his quill glass – emptied, cleared, gone. I

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