Deepest Red

The long and short of it - Interview with Courttia Newland

Short story anthologies are thin on the ground in this country at the best of times, but think about short story collections by black writers, well they are practically non-existent. ‘How many can you think of?’ the writer Courttia Newland challenged me when I met him recently. I struggled to name one – apart from Music for the Off-Key, his latest book, a collection of twelve macabre stories based in inner-city London.
It would seem to some that over the last few years Courttia Newland has been on a mission to single handedly save the short story. He has co-edited anthologies, set up Tell-Tales his own publishing company and has now published the collection that he always had in his mind to write.
‘I always wanted to do a collection of short stories.’ he says, ‘It’s the first thing I started to work on. Even my second novel Society Within was a collection of short stories really. I remember I used to read the reviews where people would be saying “this is not a novel it is a set of short stories” and I would think yes, even I think that.’ Seemingly it was easier to sell that book as a novel, but now Newland is out and proud as a short story writer and was not prepared to compromise when it came to publishing Music for the Off-Key.
‘This collection is based on eight years of short stories that I have written and wanted to get out there. I approached a few publishers and they were not interested so I even considered publishing it myself. Then I got an email from the small publishers Peepal Tree saying they were interested.’
Ask Newland why he believes other publishers were not interested and you realise it is something he has thought about a lot. ‘Publishers here don’t like short stories whoever they are written by. They claim they don’t sell, which is strange because they do in America and Europe. Maybe it is snobbery from the editors – the novel is a very British thing after all, it’s like cricket in a literary form.
‘But I also think the black writer thing is tied up in it. Some think we haven’t quite achieved the novel form properly yet, so they are going to think “when you have graduated to novels then come back and see us about short stories.”
For Newland love of the short story form seems to have been a life-long obsession. ‘I remember when I was about twelve I read Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl. I didn’t know I was going to be a writer then but it stuck n my mind. I used to watch Tales of the Unexpected on TV every Friday too. I loved those stories with a twist.’ So maybe we have Roald Dahl to thank for one of our most prolific writers? ‘Certainly when I became a writer I knew that was the stuff I was trying to do.’
Having met Newland several times I can’t help notice how upbeat he seems at the moment. Things seem to be going well for him. He has just launched his collection, had a play showing at Edinburgh Festival (as past of the White Open Spaces project) and is working on a new novel that he says he cannot stop thinking about. On top of that he has two other plays waiting to be shown and continues to develop Tell Tales.
‘Tell Tales is actually something I am very proud of it. We are doing a limited tour this year and we are hoping to develop a bi-monthly series of events for next year. There are now seven or eight writers we have published in our three anthologies that have book deals. I am not saying it is just because of us, but I do feel exceptionally proud. When I first edited the IC3 anthology for Penguin, I got a load of flak. Critics were saying why are you showcasing such amateur writers, well a lot of them have book deals too now – so I am very proud.’
He is less pleased however with some of the work that has been published by black writers over the last few years. ‘I am a little bit dubious about where we are at now.’ he admits, ‘I didn’t think a lot of some of the people that were getting deals over the last few years. Politically I am not too happy about where the books are coming from. I am not saying they shouldn’t be writing but there seems to be a monopoly of vision.
‘I’m talking about the growing up in London but don’t know who I am thing…am I African or West Indian..please! I think that is totally belittling us because that has gone now. There are a whole generation of kids out there who know who they are. They know they are British and they know they are African or Caribbean. They know they can be all those things. So please come from an original angle.’
Newland admits that he has not been excited by much of what is being published for a while. ‘To be honest I have yet to see the type of writing that excites me – I have yet to write the kind of writing that excites me, apart from this collection. I feel like I am being stifled – like they are trying to dumb me down and I don’t want to be dumbed down!’ Having listened to him perform his short stories on numerous occasions and having read Music for the Off Key in one fascinated sitting I can honestly say there is little chance of that.
Music for the Off-Key is published by Peepal Tree and on sale now.

posted by Andrea Enisuoh @ 8:56 AM