There is nothing like purchases to make a link between strangers. It was the glue of two literary women who met at the Lahores Literary Festival several years ago. “We ended up being accompanied, talking about books and shopping. It’s a great photo of us in an old Haveli. I remember that your hair was blue and a blue parrot was placed on your shoulder, ”says Bloomsbury’s editor Alexandra Pringle for her meeting with future creative partner, writer and historian Alex von Tunzelmann. Blue hair has long disappeared, though von Tunzelmann has gone to purple before their future writing master.
Together with their mutual friend, editor and literary consultant Faiza Khan (Pringle hired him to run the Bloomsbury list in Delhi), they talked about opening a boutique with a cure for goods and artifacts extracted from their trips . “We realized that our love for objects is based on the story – I believe everything has a story and a life,” says Pringle, who lives in a home boat in Chelsea filled with staffordshire figures, fine porcelain and ancient findings from Morocco . The idea of a writing attraction then flourished with the contribution of author and journalist Nesrine Malik and, in 2022, Silk Road Slippers was founded.
There is a number of writing shelters there, often staged in picturesque places like in the south of France and attracting mainly a certain part of middle -class England. This double literary act, however, was determined to create a complete comprehensive workshop with practical exercises, seminars, reactions one by one and the central attraction of an invited author. Masterclass held in Marrakech began in November 2023 with Shehan Karunatilaka as the first author invited. Esther Freud (February 23-28) and Alan Hollinghurst (March 2-7) are the main billing for the next spring master classes, which cost £ 3,200 per person (with a 1,000-£ deposit paid after receipt).
With experience combined in writing, publishing and editing books, teaching and discovering literary talent, the founders offer a 360 degree approach. Where Pringle tends to memories and fabrications, von Tunzelmann enjoys crime and history. “Before Silk Road Slippers, I was one of those people I thought you couldn’t learn the script, but I had to eat my words when I realized there was something joyful in the process of releasing people to be creative,” says von. Tunzelmann, author of the best -selling history books, including Fallen idols: twelve statues that made history (2021). “This is invaluable whether you are going to write professionally or not – it is liberating. There are many shelters where guests find space and time to write, but without training and teaching. Ours is a work camp – it’s hard work! ”
Over the five days, participants (maximum group size is 14) bend from all angles starting with a 15-minute writing exercise every morning, followed by a full classroom lesson covering a series of topics, from plot summary to the development of the characters, to the first and second drafts, to the editing and finding of an agent. “It is very public and participating and has been very confident, but it can be tense and emotional,” says Pringle, who has more than 40 years of expertise, especially as editor -in -chief of Bloomsbury, previously in Virlago – and who has Four authors for the first time like Lucy Ellmann and Esther Freud, as well as William Boyd, Margaret Atwood and Khaled Hossein. Experience is not necessary. “It doesn’t matter if you wrote a book before or not.”
Novels by four of the invited authors
Our evenings from Alan Hollinghurst (Picador)
My friends from Hisham Matar (Viking)
Kinky Terrible by Esther Freud (Penguin)
AFTER LIVES by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Riverhead)
“I think we’re very international,” Pringle continues. “My mother is Moroccan, Faiza is from Pakistan and Nesrine from Sudan. We have lawyers, journalists, academics, business leaders, CEOs coming from Syria, Iraq, Panama, Australia, USA, Oman and Scandinavia. These are people who have achieved a lot in life and now want to learn how to exploit their creativity. ”
Coming to new ventures can occur at any age. “I have worked on scripts, non-fiction books and radio documentaries and the story is essential in all of these,” says von Tunzelmann, 47, who is a good Pringle partner. They pass infectively and happy between concepts and reality. “I don’t use the word r,” laughs Pringle, now in the 70s, when asked about its “retirement” by Bloomsbury. “I want this part of life to be for joy and adventure. I spent my 70th birthday in the desert with my son and I look forward to the next 10 years. ” Without screaming, she is working on her book titled Caravan – A memory of herself as a young woman who did not know she was Jewish and following her story up to generations of Jewish Moroccan barbers. He was sold in a bid war, with Pringle giving the right to independent Canongate publisher and Simon & Schuster in the US. “Writing is about that deep inside; It’s a gentle thing. I’m writing my book as I want to find out who I was new. If you write something personal, you have to be honest and go deeper than you think you need – and that’s painful and strange, ”she says. Pringle jokes that, upon completion, she will have done everything in the publication – agent, editor, writer – except for selling books.
Both also bring practical advice. Von Tunzelmann learned from her parents, both academics, that many research and planning can be counterproductive. “You have to start writing, otherwise the search is endless,” she advises.
The business of publishing and writing has changed dramatically in the last decade with the growth of publishing and marketing conglomerates, and the reduction of the time spent on the authors. On the other hand, social media spaces like Booktok and Substack imply that new logs can penetrate a wide and wide space. Pringle quotes the example of Achilles By Madeline Miller, the retelling of a Greek myth that became viral among teens and sold more than two million copies globally.
Silk Road Slippers (which also organizes daily London seminars) offers tips and mentoring after the course, which is invaluable when a writer for the first time is ready to seek an agent. “Where do you go? It takes so many people to publish a book and take a long time. Unlike the title that rolls behind a movie, we are all behind a screen, ”Pringle says.
The alchemy of writing is best followed in a favorable environment and the course is held in Jnane Tamsna, a small boutique hotel in the Palmeraie area of Marrakech – a city that has born novels such as Esther Freud’s fairy tale. Kinky Terrible. She is owned by Pringle’s friends, Meryanne Loum-Martin, a Franco-Sengalese lawyer and her ethnobotanist husband Gary Martin. They have landscape the biodiversity of nine -hectare land, which are filled with pools. “We all gather for botanical cocktails and dinners that Meryanne designs as scenes,” Pringle says. “From traveling to Medina and walks in hotel gardens … it’s about a Russian story doll,” adds von Tunzelmann. The “Great Magic” of writing – a phrase they borrow from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book – is that after being provided with pen and paper, keyboard and screen, you are never completely sure of the extraordinary that can be released.
