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Six brand new short stories that connect India and England through imagination, humour and hope .
Meet the authors below
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Belinda RushJansen was born in London in 1960 and moved to Scotland at an early age. She lived in a remote croft in a nature reserve on the Black Isle and those early years were spent in proximity to wild and domestic animals. These later became the focus of her work when she studied at Edinburgh College of Art. From 1980 - 83 she specialised in stone carving. During this time she exhibited at The Royal Scottish Academy and was invited to become a member of The Royal Scottish Women Artists. She has won a number of awards - including RSA for best female sculptor. Today, many of her sculptures are in public buildings and private collections worldwide. She now lives and works in a nature reserve in Wiltshire. Her hand-carved shapes and graphic mark-making seek to capture the essence and spirit of our animal nature and connectedness to the ancestral world. Nomadic Inuit carvings, pre-historic cave art, and Egyptian and Chinese tomb animals have inspired her since her Edinburgh art college days.
Find out more at https://www.rushjansen.co.uk/about
Smita Tharoor created the podcast Stories Seldom Told. She has interviewed people around the world, sharing their stories and life-lessons on how they manage their unconscious biases. The stories include a transgender man in New Zealand, someone with 4th stage cancer in Delhi, a black man who is mistaken for white over the phone in London, a practising Iranian Muslim sharing stories of Islam and Jihad, our unconscious biases about the Kama Sutra, a gay dad in California, someone who lost 3 limbs in a landmine in Afghanistan and more. It is heard in 107 countries and currently has a global ranking in the top 5% of podcasts. Smita is an associate lecturer at the University of Arts, London and at Jindal University, India. She is the recipient of the “Global Diversity Leadership” Award at the World HRD Congress. Smita is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practitioner, Coach, Mentor and Mindfulness Practitioner. Growing up in pluralistic India taught her the value of tolerance and the appreciation of accepting differences. She is passionate about the unconscious bias and how it impacts on all aspects of leadership development. Her experience working in the UK, India, Europe, Asia and the USA gives her a unique advantage in understanding the expectations and needs of different cultures.
Maggie Pollard writes poems with heartfelt and incisive reflections on family life. She performs her stories at venues in Staffordshire and Derbyshire. For her Writing That Sings commission at Leek Book Festival 2025 she has reflected on an old songbook that’s been in her family years. Maggie also plays one of the characters in the new audio play Om, Pom, Pom written by A.T. Boyle, which premieres at Leek Book Festival on 7th June 2025 at the Foxlowe Arts Centre. Maggie Pollard writes poems and heartfelt, incisive reflections on family life. She performs her stories at venues in Staffordshire and Derbyshire. For her Writing That Sings commission at Leek Book Festival 2025 she has reflected on an old songbook that’s been in her family years. Maggie also plays one of the characters in the new audio play Om, Pom, Pom written by A.T. Boyle, which premieres at Leek Book Festival on 7th June 2025 at the Foxlowe Arts Centre.
A.T. Boyle had her first books published at the age of 24 and has been writing and commissioning ever since. Although Alison is creating a new picturebook for children – a hopeful and funny story world and characters inspired by Covid lockdown – these days she mostly writes for adult readers. Her first short story entered into a BBC Radio 4 competition reached the shortlist. Her first short story entered into the Mslexia International Awards was shortlisted and then turned into a dual language Turkish and English tale printed in a special edition book in Cumbria. Eight of A.T. Boyle’s short stories were published in the first exObjects anthology launched at the Bangalore International Centre alongside best-selling memoirist Vikram Sampath and novelist Shinie Antony. Belinda RushJansen and seven other authors contributed stories on climate change, heritage, and lost and found objects. The objects that stirred the writers’ memories, including a chocolate cake, love letters, a tiny icing sugar dove, a whole room in India, are printed in colour inside the book. Alison has spent her life singing – in harmony with her dad, in a band that campaigned for safe cycle routes in London, at a Chess cafe in Camden with a 1930s band, on the west coast of Ireland, in Vermont USA, and at Bangalore International Centre India in 2024. She has a singing role in her new audio play Om, Pom, Pom which premieres at Leek Book Festival on 7th June 2025 at the Foxlowe Arts Centre.
Find out more at https://www.tharoorassociates.com/stories-seldom-told
Click here to listen to Maggies piece
https://m.soundcloud.com/artificialsilkorg/old-cloths-exobject-spoken-piece
You can buy a digital copy of exObjects, the art of holding on, letting go here.
Find out more about Alison and Artificial Silk’s home-grown and international collaborations here: https://artificialsilk.org/index.php/about-alison-boyle/
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Local stories
Sadabahar
Evergreen Leek included new stories about climate change and heritage. Everyone was invited to write on a blackboard in the Foxlowe garden and on a colourful postcard what ‘evergreen’ means to them. Mike of Moorlands Climate Action met one of the writers Devasiachan Benny and many local councillors and families took part.
