Suchandrika’s sell out show I Miss Amy Winehouse

Suchandrika Chakrabarti is carving out quite a name for herself on the comedy writing circuit, but you may not know that many years ago she took some writing short courses at City.  Back in 2009, she took Novel Writing and Longer Works class, then taught by Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and in 2010 she took part in the Novel Studio.

Speaking of her experience on City’s courses, Suchandrika said ‘I guess I’d have to preface this with some context on where I was in my life at the time, because that really affected my experience, and my relationship to writing. I was in my mid-twenties, and I had lost both my parents in my late teens, so I was really in the depths of double bereavement. I had always thought of myself as a writer, and my parents had enthusiastically supported me in that idea, but I wasn’t writing. I came to the courses at City in that headspace, i.e. not the ideal one.

‘In the years since I took the courses, I have gone on to teach others how to write personal essays, which are often about trauma. I’ve found that there are two stages in wanting to write about the experience: the first is often the result of a rush to make sense of what happened for the writer themselves. It’s incredibly vulnerable and isn’t conducive to editing; it shouldn’t be published. The second stage is about shaping the experience in a way for the reader to find meaning in it; this version can be published, as the writer has processed the trauma, at least to some extent.

‘I was deep in stage one at the time I took the courses. I wasn’t ready for class feedback, or to write from my own emotional experience. It did feel good to be writing at all, though. I found the teachers supportive and very encouraging. The courses introduced me to the process of getting class feedback, the value of being around other writers and of engaging with their work, too.

‘The courses gave me back some faith in my own writing as the teachers were so thoughtful and considered in their feedback. I had a story published in a literary magazine called Decongested Tales, and had the chance to read it out at an event at Foyles bookstore. These were really important events that helped me gain some confidence back in writing, and I still think of them fondly.

‘It wasn’t until I went freelance in 2018 that I was able to make some headway. I started with writing personal essays, in which I explored using metaphor and more literary language to write about grief, my parents’ stories and my experiences.

‘Over the next two years, I wrote a number of personal essays for a wide array of journalistic outlets, from Marie Claire to Prospect Magazine, by way of Artsy.net and gal-dem. Then the pandemic happened, and during that time I found myself teaching online, setting up a Personal Essays Masterclass with the London Writer’s Salon.

‘Personal essays were a helpful middle ground between journalism and memoir / fiction for me; they allowed me to write what I had once felt was unwriteable, and put it out into the world.

‘I’ve always loved comedy and watching stand-up, but I had no idea how to begin with trying it out. After hosting a podcast at my last staff journalist job, at the Daily Mirror, I had a lot of people asking me if I did stand-up. I wanted to give it a go, but couldn’t guarantee free evenings until I went freelance. Finally, in January 2020 – the twentieth anniversary of my mum’s death – I did a six-week stand-up course at The Bill Murray in Islington, a two-room north London pub set up by comedians. I loved it, and found that performing improved my writing – plus I was in a much better frame of my mind to take on the live feedback that stand-up comedy brings.

‘During the pandemic, I made a start on a novel that drew on my experiences of grief, but was definitely fiction. That wasn’t quite the right format though, and I felt that maybe the narrative voice sounded more like stand-up. So I challenged myself to write my story as my Edinburgh Fringe debut. I wrote I Miss Amy Winehouse, which is creative non-fiction rather than fiction, written in a month (May 2021). I worked it out in various performances across the UK and Europe, then took it to Edinburgh in August 2022, supported by Soho Theatre’s Edinburgh Labs. It’s the closest I’ve come to writing my novel.

‘I’ve had a couple of poems published recently, and I’m working on some scripts, as well as my second Edinburgh show. I’ve even started playing about with character comedy, including wigs and other silly props! I wrote for TV for the first time this year, on ‘Have I Got News For You’, which would make my parents incredibly proud.

‘Writing a novel is still the ultimate dream, and I really hope to get there one day.’

Author and comedian, Suchandrika Chakrabarti

Suchandrika Chakrabarti is a writer, comedian and podcaster from London. She is currently working on her second solo show, Doomscrolling.

If you’re interested in following in Suchandrika’s footsteps, check out our full range of short writing courses HERE.

Or see what else we offer HERE.

By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

The 13th December 2023 was the perfect night for a wonderful selection of readings from competition winners and our professional, Caroline Green. At the showcase event for all the fantastic talent coming from the Creative Writing Short Courses here at City, University of London, this term’s City Writes brought the supernatural into Christmas and took us on such an emotional journey it was like living through a night with Scrooge. What a way to celebrate a season where we all want to cosy up and hear stories around the fire.

We heard from the competition winners first. Chosen from a group of students and alumni of Creative Writing Short Courses who sent in 1,000 words of fiction or non-fiction, this term’s winners had me crying from laughter and despair.

We started with skullduggery loving, Writers’ Workshop alumnus, Martin Corteel whose extract, ‘Cat Among the Pigeons’, is taken from his novel-in-progress Dover Soul about battling publicans at the outset of the First World War. His lively reading followed publican Archie who attacked a rival pub dressed as a temperance lady. No need to say more. It was hilarious.

Martin was followed by Vasundhara Singh, a Novel Studio graduate joining us from India. Vasundhara’s story, ‘The Last Woman of Gwalior’ was a harrowing tale in which the women of India have been wiped out by a virus. The museum to the lost women was both beautifully and wittily depicted. Without women to beat and complain to, the men drift about and stare at off-coloured bras in the museum. There’s so much more to it than this, though – what a story.

We came back to the UK with a painful and moving story of a woman haunted by the loss of her baby. Alumna of An Approach Creative Writing, Cathie Mullen, read her story ‘Tulips’ leaving many eyes on those zoom screens very moist. The sparse space of simple domestic tasks laced in the dull agonies of despair was very powerful indeed.

Thankfully, Novel Studio, Crime and Thriller Writing and Writers’ Workshop alumnus, Mike Clarke took us to Spain next with an extract from his novel-in-progress. Magenta Bougainvillea and White Jasmine took us into the secluded mansion of an imposing older woman walking with a skull-headed cane. It was such an atmospheric piece with floral scents and basking lizards and left us all wondering quite why these three women were meeting after so long and what secrets or relationship dramas were about to unfold. Get writing, Mike!

Tunde Oyebode, alumnus of the Writer’s Workshop, who is working on a collection of short stories, read next. If his story ‘Never Born’ is anything to go by, we have to hope he gets this collection out soon. Even over Zoom the silence was palpable. The story was told from the perspective of a young boy writing about feeling he wished he was never born as he witnessed the distress caused to his fragile, but caring mother around their difference in skin colour and hair texture. A boy at school says that can’t be his mother because they don’t look alike. They get into a fight. You’ll have to watch the Zoom recording to find out more. A very powerful, personal and nuanced story about love and systemic racism.

Reeling a little, we were brought back into the festive spirit with Emma O’Driscoll’s extract from her crime novel-in-progress, Trapped by the Flood. An alumna of the Crime and Thriller Writing Summer School and Novel Writing and Longer Works courses, Emma took us into the soon to be sold and dismantled manor house recently inherited by Richard. With the whole family gathered for Christmas and the flood trapping them in the house, Richard lords his control of the family finances over the family and, for fun, suggests a game of murder… I think we were all hoping he’d be the one to go.

Having gone on such an emotional rollercoaster with our competition winners, we went from the closed-room style mystery of Emma O’Driscoll to crime writing with a supernatural twist as we delved into brilliantly compelling world of the Rose Gifford series as our professional prize-winning writer and City tutor, Caroline Green read from her novel The Whisper House, the second in the Rose Gifford series.

Caroline Green is not only a tutor at City, she also teaches for the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and is writer in residence at both Pentonville Prison and East Barnet School. Alongside her teaching, Caroline finds the time to write prize-winning fiction in three different genres: YA, adult psychological thrillers and crime. We were very lucky to have her.

Not only did we get treated to a reading from The Whisper House, Caroline was kind enough to answer some of my questions as well as several from the audience who asked about how she plotted out her novels, which parts of writing she liked the most, what her writing schedule was like, the research aspects of writing crime and what it was like to work in Pentonville Prison. Caroline explained the midpoint is the most significant focal point for her planning – that she doesn’t always know what will happen at the end. We heard about her days writing at the British Library and the amazing writing competition she recently held at Pentonville prison.

For more on this, all of Caroline’s extra tips and of course, a full rendition of all the wonderful readings, you can watch the night in full here. City Writes was definitely my advent of the season.

Don’t forget the City Writes competition next term when we have a double act from Novel Studio alumni Laurence Kershook and Katharine Light. The Broygus by Laurence Kershook came out in 2022 and Katharine Light’s Like Me came out earlier this year. This promises to be another fantastic night. Watch this space for more information in the New Year.

And for any past or present City Writing Short Course students, there’s 10% off if you book a spring 2024 short creative writing course (excluding the 1, 2 or 3-day courses) by 20 December 2023.