Rob Ganley

Thursday Nights: Short FictionCelebrating 40 years of Tindal Street Fiction GroupTindal Street Fiction Group celebrates 40 years in 2023. It's not just any writing group, though - it's truly extraordinary.Made up of accomplished writers, its members down the years include Booker and Orange prize long-listees, best-sellers, winners of several awards including the Tom-Gallon award, a Shirley Jackson award and the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger, and appearances in several Best British Short Stories anthologies. Thursday Nights is a snapshot of work from the group today, which meets fortnightly in Birmingham on Thursday evening. The 14 stories and novel extracts in this collection are the work of current members, all local writers with eyes on the world.The stories travel from Birmingham to India, via San Francisco and Italy, stretching from the 19th century to the modern day.From the writing group that gave birth to regional publishing powerhouse Tindal Street Press in the 1990s, look inside these pages and join us on the latest adventure in our long and storied journey.

The city is a rich tapestry, home to native Coventrians and newcomers of every nationality and ethnicity. But behind the modernity, Coventry's storied past lives on in its architecture and artworks, its visionary centre and outlying council estates. This book reveals some of its hard-to-find origins as a city with a major medieval influence, and the relics of its industrial boom as a centre for making cloth and clocks, cars and bikes. But it was manufacturing munitions that made it a target for the German Luftwaffe in WWII, flattening its medieval heart, and prompting the distinctive look and feel of its centre and surrounds today. It details everything from a quirky homage to 11th-century Lady Godiva, to the remnants of the walled city of the English Civil War that spawned the phrase ‘sent to Coventry’. From the remnants of the ruined cathedral to the boho Fargo village, from the origins of the influential Two-Tone music style born here, to the impact of UK City of Culture 2021 status, it’s all uncovered inside. This unusual guidebook invites the inquisitive to head off the beaten track and explore many of the city’s lesser-known places.