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.

Sarah Mellor

“Skull. Ribcage. Collarbone.

Leigh folds her arms and leans back on the hard chair, peering at the post-mortem images through a blockade of male shoulders. The sun isn’t even up yet, the sky black through the tiny window, and she has the distinct feeling she’s being tortured. Firstly, dragged out of bed at 6 am on a wintry January morning and fighting her way through a blizzard to reach the Bridewell; secondly, being confronted with close-up pictures of the body of a teenager within seconds of arriving.”

From ‘The Departed’– included in the showcase 

“I’d always dreamed of being a published writer but had never managed to finish a novel I was happy with. Eight years ago, I decided it was now or never and the time was right to commit to learning how to write a crime novel. Signing up for the TLC Manuscript Chapter and Verse Programme was a major part of that commitment to myself.“

Previous Showcase Authors

Piers Bearne – TLC Showcase author

Piers Bearne

“I should have been in London, not this Essex midden swirling with pigeon-chest men and their gossiping dry-venus wives. I was no fighter, could not read nor write; but by

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Tina Seskis - TLC Showcase author

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. 

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Neamat Imam – TLC Showcase author

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,

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Damien Brown – TLC Showcase author

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

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Julia Ross – TLC Showcase author

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

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Sarah Butler – TLC Showcase author

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

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Pete Smith – TLC Showcase author

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

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Philip Makatrewicz – TLC Showcase author

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

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Ruby Cowling – TLC Showcase author

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

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Adam Courtenay – TLC Showcase author

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

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San Cassimally – TLC Showcase author

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

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Nicholas Lim – TLC Showcase author

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.”

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Suhel Ahmed – TLC Showcase author

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

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Terry Cudbird – TLC Showcase author

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

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