Tindal Street Fiction Group - a literary elite?

Oct 15 2010 By Lorne Jackson

Lorne Jackson talks to an author who helped make a city publisher a success story.

Alan Beard doesn’t look like a gangster. There’s no glint of malice in his eye, no glimmer of gun-metal visible through sinister folds in his jacket.

With his blandly brushed hair and respectable spectacles he is more librarian than Lucky Luciano.

That’s because he is a librarian, not Lucky Luciano. Beard stamps books for a living, not the faces of dumb shmucks who know too much.

Yet there is another side to this Bournville-based bloke, who is quietly nursing a half pint of lager in the pub where we meet.

Beard is the most senior member of a Birmingham group that fosters respect, resentment, and, some would say, fear in the city.

He isn’t joking when he says: “We get accused of all sorts of horrible things. I was in the Mac once, and somebody came up to me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the Tindal mafia, aren’t you?’”

It’s not quite as bad as it sounds.

The man in the Mac was referring to the prestigious writer’s group that Beard joined in the eighties.

The Tindal Street Fiction Group was formed in 1983. A society of aspiring authors, they met regularly to critique each others work.

There are many such groups, of course, but what made this one special was the quality of the membership.

Most went on to forge successful writing careers. The group was also the starting point for Birmingham’s small but remarkable publishing house, Tindal Street Press. And Beard was a key figure in making it such a successful business.

The house was originally set up to publish Taking Doreen out of the Sky, a collection of Beard’s short stories.

Though not a commercial smash, it was a critical hit. The quality of the writing meant that Tindal Street became a serious proposition, even to Londoncentric critics who mostly refuse to see past the creative output of the capital.

That first collection was printed in 2007. Now Tindal Street Press – which no longer maintains a direct connection to the writers group it shares a name with – has published Beard’s second collection, You Don’t Have to Say. The man who helped make Tindal a tiny titan has returned with more tales. Though he’s rather modest about his part in the success.

“I’d started getting my stories published in literary magazines, and broadcast on the radio. Then after about 10 years, in 1995, I had a collection,” he recalls.

“Even though the stories had been published in reputable magazines, they were turned down by all the major publishing houses. Picador and Cape, and so on.

“The Tindal writer’s group had already done an anthology of stuff that we’d written, which had done fairly well.

“So we all agreed to publish a book by one author. My book was ready to go, so I was chosen. It’s as simple as that.

“All I did was say ‘Yes’ and gave the group my stories.

“Then the collection got all these great reviews from all over the place. I didn’t expect that, even though I knew there was a lot of talent in the group.

“You see, at that time publishing was virtually all based in London. There was very little provincial stuff coming out. And we felt, as a group, that we were being turned down because we came from Birmingham. At that time the city had a certain reputation which was less than positive.

“We decided that if we couldn’t break into the London scene, we’d make our own scene. And we did.”

Even though he has now published two collections of short stories, Beard remains a proud member of the Tindal Street Fiction Group. He is the group secretary, as well as being the longest serving writer.

But what about that rather sticky reputation that led to Beard being accused of mafia mingling – are the Tindal troupe really bad guys, or just bookish bods?

“I think the resentment comes about because we don’t let anyone in,” he says. “Hardly ever, at least. We are elitist.”

He believes that’s not such a bad thing. Before joining the Tindal Street scribblers, Beard had been a member of a writer’s group that was open to all.

Not a pleasant experience.