Tamasha x Hachette: Creative Writing Programme

Mel Pennant 

“I’ve always aspired to write a book but had no idea how to approach it. I saw the programme as an opportunity to diversify creatively, and I loved the idea of being part of a peer group of other playwrights, stepping into something new together. 

The programme provided me with confidence – it lifted a veil off the industry and gave me confidence that my voice could be heard within in – that there was no reason why I couldn’t write and publish a book. 

A Murder for Miss Hortense, was published in June 2025 and is the first in my new crime series starring Miss Hortense – a retired nurse, avid gardener, and renowned cake maker who has lived in Bigglesweigh, a quiet suburb of Birmingham, England, since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She takes great pride in her home, starching her lace curtains bright white, and she can tell if she’s being shortchanged on turmeric before she’s taken her first bite of a beef patty. A career in nursing has also left her afraid of nobody, whether an interfering priest or a local drug dealer, and she’s an expert in deciphering other people’s secrets with just a glance. 

Miss Hortense once used her skills to benefit the Pardner network—a local group of investors that she helped found. Until, that is, she was unceremoniously ousted from its ranks, severing her ties to the majority of her friends and community. That was thirty years ago. Now, as a new millennium dawns, an unidentified man has been found dead in the home of one of the Pardner members, a Bible quote written on a note beside his body. Suddenly, Miss Hortense finds her long-buried past rushing back, bringing memories of the worst moment of her life—and secrets behind an unsolved crime that has haunted her for decades. It is finally time for Miss Hortense to solve a mystery that will see her and the community she loves pushed to their limits.  

Words can’t express what it means to me to publish A Murder for Miss Hortense. It has been a dream come true. It’s been fantastic!” 

Phoebe McIntosh 

“The workshops were very insightful. Each run by a different author, agent or editor from the publishing industry, they shone a light on the various ways in and techniques to developing our long form writing. I remember an author teaching us her technique of plotting out her novel using post-its! Post-its of one colour for characters, another for sub plots. It sounds basic but it was such an easy to adopt, tangible way to get ideas and structure flowing. I use it to this day. The group I was part of and the peer interactions were wonderful and I feel fortunate to have maintained those relationships all these years later, counting many of my cohort now as close friends. We meet up regularly and share our experiences of writing, publishing and navigating topics like book to screen, bookshop events and how /when to tackle that tricky next novel.” 

Amman Paul Singh Brar 

“My novel, Mr Sidhu’s Post Office is dear to my heart because the main character is based on my father who passed away in 2017. I knew I wanted to write about my father through the lens of the Post Office he ran for twenty years. It was while researching sub-post offices that I came across the Post Office Scandal and when I read about all the terrible things that happened to them, I knew I needed to put a light on that and that it had to be part of the story. 

Like all programmes, don’t do it on a whim. Do it as a springboard that will propel you towards a goal which should be getting your book published. Find out as much as you can on the course, ask all the stupid questions you need to, but in the end, it is about sitting down and writing, writing and writing. Then when you can’t read your own work again, keep doing it and writing it until your eyes bleed. Also get a good agent.”