Brixton author Tamsin Grey first thought of becoming a writer when she was just seven, but buried the idea in her 20s and 30s considering it, ‘deeply embarrassing and big-headed’ to think she might be able to write something other people would want to read.
It was only in her 40s, with an established civil service career as a speech-writer, that she took the risk of going for it. And it was possibly yoga that gave her the courage to try. (For a while she taught a regular yoga class at Brockwell Lido.) “The yoga philosophy of dharma – or life’s purpose – set me on the journey of writing my first book,” says Tamsin. “I became obsessed with the fact I needed to do it before I died or I would regret it on my deathbed.”
That book – She’s Not There – was published to critical aclaim by Harper Collins in April. Ian McEwan describes it as ‘a debut with a sure touch’; Lisa Jewell calls it “mesmerisingly good’.
