Our new season kicks off with a talk by best selling author Vaseem Khan who will examine the key ingredients in writing fiction for the modern publishing market. By using examples, he will discuss five essentials that every author should take into account when penning their novel. This workshop will also give you the tools to plan, write, finish or edit your novel, and advice on how to make it stand out when submitting to today’s inundated agents and publishers.
This will be a slideshow presentation of about 40-45 mins and then Q&A.
Vaseem Khan is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India, and the Q Mysteries, beginning with Quantum of Menace, the first in a murder mystery series featuring Q from the James Bond franchise. His debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020. In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House novels set in 1950s Bombay, won the CWA Historical Dagger. Vaseem was born in England, but spent a decade working in India. Between 2023-2025, Vaseem served as the Chair of the UK Crime Writers’ Association. In 2025, his first psychological thriller, The Girl in Cell A, was published, set in small town America.
Indishman
Our guest speaker for September is Gopinath Chandroth, who will take a look at the funny side of life through the lens of a man who imbibes many British values over the years while being firmly rooted in his Indian traditions. That man is Indishman. The book is a collection of stories – reflections of a man equally at home in both cultures.
Gopi is a marine engineer by training having spent the first 15 years of his career at sea and the last fifteen as a marine accident investigator for the U.K. Department for Transport. He writes purely for pleasure but like every writer aspires for a wide readership.