Birmingham Celebrations for Tindal Street Press

Thursday, 15^th October 2009

Tindal Street Press celebrates its Tenth Birthday with Roads Ahead and a Booker Prize Trio

On consecutive Thursdays Tindal Street Press held two parties in Birmingham to celebrate a decade of prize-winning independent publishing. The first focused on the future and new writers, while the second looked back at prize successes with a Booker-themed event.

Roads Ahead
Proud of its record of developing new voices, it was fitting that this first party should be to launch a celebratory anthology of young writers, edited by Costa First Novel Award-winning Catherine O’Flynn. In the Medicine Bar, a club below Tindal Street Press’s offices in the Custard Factory, Catherine O’Flynn introduced short readings from her new discoveries, saying:

‘Tindal Street Press is incredibly important to Birmingham – perhaps more important than Birmingham sometimes realises. It is an internationally acclaimed publisher and I think reflects Birmingham’s true identity – quietly getting on with doing the job. But its importance extends far beyond Birmingham, beyond the publishing industry and through to writers and readers everywhere. So Happy Birthday Tindal Street.’

Tindal Street Press’s first title Hard Shoulder was an anthology of young writers that racked up reviews in the national press, and with Roads Ahead Tindal Street Press were consciously remembering their first book, as well as looking for the authors who will shape the next ten years of the press.

Birmingham-based bestselling authors, David Lodge and Mike Gayle, joined many of the 22 young contributors to the anthology Roads Ahead. Agents and publishers from other UK independents mingled with Tindal Street authors, other writers and supporters at the club-atmosphere party.

Booker Prize Trio
And on Thursday 8 October, fresh from Hilary Mantel’s triumph at the Booker, Ion Trewin came up to Birmingham to share a stage with Tindal Street Press’s three recent Man Booker nominees: Clare Morrall, Catherine O’Flynn and Gaynor Arnold.

Ion Trewin’s anecdotes of Booker history entertained a large audience and he spoke of how used the publishing world has become to Tindal Street Press is such as short time:

‘In 2003 I remember Martyn Goff having to practise saying that unfamiliar imprint’s name “Tindal Street Press”. But today, the words slip effortlessly off the tongue, so used are we to their presence on the prize lists.’

Alan Mahar, Publishing Director, said, ‘It was superb to see our three greatest successes share the same stage for the first time. Three Man Booker Prize listings in six years may be the pinnacle of our decade of achievement, but a quarter of all our titles have been listed for national prizes, and media coverage has been consistently healthy.

Expectations within the trade are high. The challenge for the next ten years is for this small team to keep on delivering distinctive regional fiction which gets noticed. And our list for 2010 certainly looks set to live up to our hard-won reputation.