A Brief History of Tindal Street Press

Tindal Street Press grew out of a writers’ group, called Tindal Street Fiction Group, which was founded in 1983 and is still going strong.

Tindal Street is the no-through-road street in Balsall Heath, Birmingham where the group used to meet, and afterwards drink in the Old Moseley Arms. During the 80s and 90s the group produced several anthologies of stories and in 1997 published a book-length collection of stories by Alan Beard, which became a successful dry-run for Tindal Street Press. The group, however, is a distinct organization from the publishers, with different aims and personnel.

Tindal Street Press was the brainchild of Penny Rendall, a freelance publisher’s editor, now a member of the board, who established the business structure back in 1998 – as a not-for-profit arts organisation. A gang of four – Penny, Alan Mahar, Jackie Gay and Emma Hargrave – were the original team which began the publishing in 1999 with Hard Shoulder. The office at the Custard Factory was established in 2001. After Jackie and Penny left in 2002, Luke Brown joined the organization, rising to Editor in 2007. Emma was managing editor, then publisher until 2007, before going on maternity leave and working part-time from Edinburgh. Melissa joined the team in 2010 as Operations Manager. Alan has been Publishing Director for the last ten years, in the early years combining publishing with writing and teaching.

Tindal Street Press has always aimed high with its distinctive, regional, literary fiction, and in 2001 had already scored three prize listings with its first four titles. Since the Man Booker listing of 2003 the prize record has been strongly maintained. By 2009 twelve of our 48 titles have been listed for national literary prizes, including the most prestigious Man Booker, Orange and Costa.