‘Mandy Sutter has a strong, spirited, firmly contemporary voice… her easy conversational style is spattered with striking images.’ Odyssey magazine
Short stories
I’ve published about thirty short stories in magazines like Mslexia and anthologies like Are You She (Tindal Street Press, 2004) and Parenthesis (Comma Press, 2006) and am currently working on a linked collection. It’s called The Habit of Loneliness and is set in Nigeria and Leeds.
People who read my stories often ask whether they have an autobiographical content. Well, they do, but they’re also part fiction. When I’m making things up, I hope they sound credible. On the other hand, when I’m writing down something that really happened, I hope nobody will guess. In the end whether a story actually happened in real life or not, it must happen again in the right place: on the page and for the reader.
You can listen to The Therapist, one of the stories in Are You She and buy the book on Amazon.
Poetry
My poems have been anthologised and appeared in lots of poetry magazines, like The North, Rialto, Stand and on BBC Radio.
I still have a few copies left of my two collections, Permission to Stare (Slow Dancer Press, 1994) and Game (Smith Doorstop Books 1995). Get in touch if you would like one.
Various of my poems appear here and there on the web.
Two recent ones are Private Cities, written for the Bradford Square project.
Reading is about attending a book reading and Negative Equity is about me being not quite sure whether I am a southerner or a northerner.
Novel
My as yet unpublished first novel, The Wonderful Scent of Cut Wood is, as described at Annette Green Author’s Agency, a comedy about a belated coming of age.
My second novel is called Keeping Mum.
Journalism
I worked as a freelance journalist in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I’m currently writing for Keighley Table Tennis Centre, helping keep their profile active in the local newspapers.
Blogs
I write regularly for Wildmind Buddhist Meditation, as well as keeping up my Reluctant Gardener blog on this site.