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.
Suad Kamardeen
“Jamila presses the power button on her phone to silence the vibration from her mother’s call as she wheels her suitcase to the boarding queue. After a thirty-minute delay, they are finally boarding the plane to Berlin. She stops in the middle of the aisle, nearly bumping into the man with grey sweats ahead of her, to confirm that all she’s done is muted Mama’s call, not end it. There would be no end to her mother’s speech if that happened. She slips her phone into the front pocket of her backpack, and continues forward with a huge smile on her face. She’d practised this walk – her walk of freedom – in front of her bedroom mirror so many times in the past few days. It didn’t matter that her heart wasn’t entirely where she wanted it to be.”
From ‘Freedom, here I come’– included in the showcase
Previous Showcase Authors
Tina Seskis
“In the end they settled on Caroline Rebecca, although Frances didn’t particularly like either name – but Andrew had suggested them, and anyway she couldn’t face thinking of any others.
Neamat Imam
Mass graves were discovered in different parts of the country. The buried were exhumed and reburied. Roads were cleansed. Walls were washed to make room for new graffiti. Pakistani tanks,
Damien Brown
“So I shrug. Again. No idea what to say. No idea even what to think, which has been exactly the problem since I arrived: I don’t even have to walk
Julia Ross
“I remember tiny pin-points of calm when I looked into his eyes. There are moments of unendurable love amid all the blackness. My mother said I was exhausted. The health
Sarah Butler
“Time will catch up with you, she tells me – by which she means I should get on and have kids before my ovaries dry up. You did the right
Pete Smith
“I was born south of the river in Brixton in the 1950s, well-before it was mockneyfied by the arriveste sons and daughters of Britain’s white middle class in their holy
Philip Makatrewicz
“Ibimina’s husband has come once again to call. He must want something – a toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.” Extract from ‘Ibimina’ – included in the
Ruby Cowling
“Behind these fences are big houses; the houses of plump-skinned people who soften their problems by bathing them in money. You are half the height of their garden gates. A
Adam Courtenay
“In 1542, Spanish conquistadors travelled east from the Peruvian colony of Quito, over the high range of its active volcanoes, across its high passes and wild stony uplands to seek
San Cassimally
“I experimented with two pebbles in my mouth to puff my cheeks up a tad, but gave up on the idea suspecting that to an observant eye such as his
Nicholas Lim
Dudec nodded. He fluttered a hand. “This could be something new!” “Rafal, when you hear hoof beats,” Garrett held up her knife like a warning finger, “Think horses before zebras.”
Suhel Ahmed
“‘That’s when I made the mistake,’ Amina exclaimed. ‘I should have taken the money and moved to a Bengali community, somewhere in Tower Hamlets, Coventry, Luton or Leicester. It’s so
Terry Cudbird
“I have now reached the age when I have to choose between sex and walking. I cannot indulge in both,” he told me. He was whimsical on the subject of
