Tapping into literary talent
Tindal Street Press is celebrating its tenth anniversary, Terry Grimley reports.
For a small publishing house to get three books long or short listed for the Man Booker Prize in its first 10 years is good going by anybody’s reckoning.
What makes the success even sweeter for Tindal Street Press is that the three authors concerned, like the publisher itself, are based in Birmingham.
To mark Tindal Street’s 10th anniversary Clare Morrall (shortlisted for Astonishing Splashes of Colour, 2003), Catherine O’Flynn (longlisted for What Was Lost, 2007 ) and Gaynor Arnold (longlisted for Girl in a Blue Dress, 2008) come together at the Birmingham Book Festival tonight for a discussion chaired by Ion Trewin, chairman of the Man Booker Prize.
But while the Man Booker is Britain’s most publicised prize it’s not the whole story of the success of these three Birmingham novels.
Astonishing Splashes of Colour, the best seller in Tindal Street’s history, has been translated into a dozen languages. What was Lost actually won three awards (Costa First Novel Award, British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year and Jelf Group Novel Prize), was shortlisted for three more (Guardian First Novel Prize, South Bank Show Literary Award, Commonwealth Writers Prize) and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Girl in a Blue Dress was longlisted for the Orange Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize.
It’s not bad going for a small company that set out a decade ago to swim against the tide of literary prejudice by giving a national voice to West Midlands writers.
“Publishing is so entrenched in London, we felt we were at a disadvantage ten years ago,” says publishing director Alan Mahar.
“We saw our aim as, if you like, exporting Birmingham. You could do Birmingham books for Birmingham people and no-one would have got to hear about them outside the West Midlands. We know that most booksellers and readers are in the south east, and our aim is to take the talent here to more people outside.
“I do think some areas of the arts in Birmingham are too Birmingham-focused, and if you are nurturing ambitions about your work you can find a national audience. The three Booker-listed authors all live in Birmingham – three careers that were started by Tindal Street Press. All those books have been translated and published in North America and all over Europe, but it all started here and those authors are quite proud of that as well.”
To mark its anniversary, Tindal Street has come full-circle with its latest publication, Roads Ahead, a collection of 22 short stories by young writers, edited by Catherine O’Flynn, which revisits the formula of its first book, Hard Shoulder.
“Hard Shoulder was more Birmingham and the West Midlands, but this is more an indication of the broadening of our geographical spread,” Mahar points out.
“Hard Shoulder was the first of our books to win a prize – it won a Raymond Williams Prize. Three of the first four books we published were shortlisted for national prizes – The Pigbin and Whispers in the Walls were the other two. The count at the moment is that out of our 48 titles, 12 have been listed for national awards.”
Yet initially it seemed that Tindal Street faced a daunting task in trying to crash the literary world. The West Midlands was perceived as such unpromising territory for fiction that stories were rife of local authors being persuaded to relocate their stories to London.
“When we started I think we felt we had a point to prove, and the point is that there are good writers in Birmingham and a publisher can be based here,” says Mahar.
“We saw early on that the London literary world might be a bit sniffy about literary projects coming from Birmingham, but with our success we’ve had a lot of respect and a lot of admiration, and indeed a lot of envy, for what we’ve achieved. Consequently it’s now a lot easier to interest people in the books we have to sell. Fellow publishers, agents, editors and reviewers are well-disposed to our books, so whereas ten years ago we thought of that as a real stumbling block, it’s not now.”
The downside for a small publisher is that having created a successful author it finds it difficult to hold on to them. Of its Booker trio, Clare Morrall has had two subsequent novels published by Sphere, while Catherine O’Flynn has a contract with Penguin for her second. However, Gaynor Arnold will stay with Tindal Street for her next book, a collection of short stories which it will publish next year.
“With a turnover of £300,000 you can’t be bidding in six figures for a book. A lot of people debate whether we should feel betrayed but it still reflects quite well on us when people remember the first book.
“A comparison could be made with a small record label, where the artist goes on and gets signed by one of the major labels. We retain the rights on the original book. There’s a mountain to climb every time we have to find new writers, we have to repeat the trick. So it’s hard, but our record is quite good.”
But with ever greater competition among writers and economic pressure on the publishing world, Tindal Street doesn’t necessarily have to restrict itself to raw talent on its doorstep. As London publishers continue to cut back, even well-established writers can find the appeal of a small, dedicated publisher attractive.
“Our reputation in the trade has grown enormously, and with publishers cutting back on their lists there are quite well known authors who are not getting contracts. That’s not to say that we have to snap them up, but we are a viable alternative. Recent Tindal Street offerings including Black Country author Anthony Cartwright’s Heartland (described by When Saturday Comes as “a great football novel”) and Beauty, Raphael Selbourne’s novel about a Bangladeshi girl’s quest for freedom, have been well received, as has Roads Ahead.
“We can be depressed about how literary writing is marginalised now and is required to make a profit, but we’re still committed to new writing, and we’re still committed to regional writing,” says Alan Mahar.
* Clare Morrall, Catherine O’Flynn and Gaynor Arnold are in conversation with Ion Trewin at the Library Theatre tonight as part of the Birmingham Book Festival (Box office: 0121 303 2323 or online at www.birminghambookfestival.org).
