Shreya Sen-Handley – Head Judge Q&A (Flash 2025)
The multi-talented author, journalist, illustrator and librettist Shreya Sen-Handley is the head judge for the New Writers Flash Fiction Competition 2025. We’re very grateful that Shreya has taken the time to answer our questions about her work, her writing process, the types of entries she hopes to find in the competition entries, and… Robin Hood.

Your highly regarded travelogue Handle with Care: Travels with My Family (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (HarperCollins, 2022) – to give its full title – was recently presented to Queen Camilla as part of the Literacy Trust’s 30th birthday celebrations. What was it like to visit Clarence House and meet Her Majesty the Queen?
I feel grateful. Grateful to the people who nominated it as a ‘reader favourite’, and the National Literacy Trust for selecting it from the nominations it received from across Britain. I’m hoping The Queen does read and enjoy it at some point, maybe even shares it with her husband, The King, and then they both decide to give it five stars on online book sites!
That’s a joke, but as an outsider, my worldview and my writing are necessarily irreverent. I am also grateful for the extensive coverage that my book’s presentation to The Queen garnered in the British press. And the canapes were good, incidentally, at the royal event, unlike at some of the other official functions I have attended.
The Queen came across as down-to-earth (so she might write that Amazon review yet) and I was delighted to be there with my schoolgirl daughter who had also been invited for her contribution to encouraging literacy in Britain. But I guess the highlight was stumbling into The King’s bathroom by accident. I wrote about it in my monthly newspaper column for widely-circulated English-language broadsheets in India.
As indicated in Handle with Care, you’ve travelled far and wide. How have the places you’ve visited and the people you’ve met in different countries inspired or informed your fictional work?

I think everything that I experience finds its way in some shape or form into my creative work. A reviewer once referred to my “highly refined sense of the absurd” and I believe you will find that in both my fiction and my nonfiction.
In my fiction, I am able to take it further, snap the connection with reality altogether to present alternate worlds, as in my short story collection Strange, but my characters despite all their eccentricities and foibles remain relatable I’m told, probably because at heart they are acutely observed versions of ourselves. And taking in and distilling the colourful, the remarkable, but also the kinks in the mundane, whether I’m at home, or out in the world, travelling, may be my greatest strength, besides humour, I’m told. All my books travel, as a matter of fact, and not just my travelogues, so even in ‘Strange’, there are stories from London, New York, Nottingham, Kolkata, Corfu, and more. But while the settings are important, in my fiction books as well as plays, it is the characters that suffuse them with colour.
Your aforementioned short story collection Strange (HarperCollins, 2019) contains a wide variety of characters facing very different situations. Do you consciously draw your characters from real people or do they appear from your imagination?

I might have already answered this, but no, nothing is consciously done except for the structure or plot, the characters grow from kernels of ideas, some from my reading and imagination, others from people I’ve encountered or life stories I’ve been told (I’m a journalist by training after all). I do believe as well that nothing is ever completely one or the other – totally imagined without any basis in reality or totally based on reality without heightened colour, not when you’re writing creatively. And this would be true of most writers.
JRR Tolkien created his landscapes from the ones he was familiar with in South Africa and England, for example. And who knows whether Gollum wasn’t based on someone covetous that he disliked at work? In the end, I think the emotional truth in our work, and in the stories of our characters, have to come from experience and observation to ring true, but it wouldn’t make an arresting story if you didn’t then generously weave it through with your imagination.
When writing, do you have a favourite time of day or location and does it depend on whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction?
I write mostly while my children are at school, on the sofa with our dog snoozing beside me, occasionally reading over my shoulder. She has opinions. I am mostly dismissive of them. Does that sound like fiction? But you see, I make very little distinction between the two, and yet my writing habits are much less fluid. I can’t write at a café for example. You see it on the screen and it looks lovely but, to me, impracticable. The only voice I want in my ear is that of our pooch.
You’ve published fiction and non-fiction books, written numerous articles and columns for a wide variety of international publications including the National Geographic, The Guardian and the Times of India, taught creative writing, written a play and an opera, worked as an illustrator and still found time for charity work. Can you give us any tips on time management?
Ha! I don’t believe I manage my time well! There is never enough time to do everything I want or need to, so it’s a constant balancing act, with bringing up my children coming first. But they’re growing up and my responsibilities are changing little by little. I’m finding time to do things I didn’t know was possible – have the occasional nap to refresh a tired mind, or design a house, in which I have absolutely no training or experience, so, just in my head, to calm myself (not kidding – try it).
I have, I’m afraid, no sensible tips for anyone on time management. I am a bit of a workaholic and a perfectionist. I create lists and tick them off. Please, someone, help me stop!
Of your varied projects, which gave you the most satisfaction upon completion? And which were the most challenging to complete?
I’ve enjoyed all of them in different ways, and because I like tackling new art forms and genres as often as I am given the opportunity, they have all been challenges, though in wonderful ways.

Memoirs of My Body (HarperCollins 2017) was so personal (and yet also important from the socio-political point of view) that it was hard to write but the feedback I’ve received from readers, encouraged by my book to speak up about the issues I’ve raised, has been very rewarding.
The opera I co-wrote for Welsh National Opera, Migrations (2022), was a huge new adventure, into an artform I barely knew anything about, but learning the ropes (with far more ease than I thought possible), bringing my strengths and background to such a traditional western art was also a huge joy, as was the acclaim it received when it was staged.
My columns are a breeze and I really enjoy writing them, and teaching creative writing is both a delight, for what comes out of them in the end and how happy it makes your students, but also really labour-intensive. I think I pour a lot of myself into everything I do, and really, really love it too, so picking out specific work, as satisfying or challenging, is almost like choosing a favourite child (don’t have one, I swear)!
You live near Robin Hood’s old stomping ground of Sherwood Forest. How would you have fared as one of Robin Hood’s outlaws?
I try to stay within the law but I’m certainly an outsider – writer of colour, first-generation immigrant, middle-aged woman/witch, disabled, etc – so to imagine myself as one of those forced out of society and into the forests by the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men isn’t that much of a leap. I happen to have a forest green hoodie that goes well with my leggings, and all this, coupled with my empathy for the marginalised and the irreverence in my work, makes me the perfect fit, doesn’t it?
How many times do you typically revise a story before you know it’s finished?
Oh, endlessly, it has to be prised out of my hands (aka emailed to the editor with the words ‘final version’ so I can’t go back to it) before I stop cleaning and polishing!

Are there any particular styles or themes you are eager to find in the flash fiction stories in this competition? Or indeed, are there any that are unlikely to float your boat?
I am open to any styles or themes that make great reading! I truly enjoy reading the work of the many talented writers out there, as I have discovered in the writing competitions I’ve judged recently (for Writing East Midland’s Aurora Prize and the Derby Book Festival amongst others). But casting my mind back I will say that I like writers to inject humour as well as humanity in their work. And the more diverse the range of writing that comes in, the more pleasing it is!
Finally, you’ve signed a deal with Penguin to publish your fourth book (due out in 2026). Can you tell us anything about the project?
Absolutely! The idea is to write a witty, colourful, relatable and yet eye-opening history (of sorts, with a light touch) of hundreds of years of domestic and gastronomic ties between India and Britain. I’m thrilled it’s shaping into an entertaining read, which is just what I want, even as I aim to bust misconceptions and prejudices. We have a long and often unfortunate history together but amidst all that, there’s humour and shared loves, and without whitewashing the issues, I want to concentrate on that.
It’s a book about food in the way that Bill Bryson’s The Body is a medical book. There are no recipes for wellness in the latter, or instructions on how to cook some of the scrumptious dishes delved into in my new book, but there are stories and histories about them, and like Bryson again, there’s plenty of gentle humour.
You can find out more about Shreya Sen-Handley and her various projects HERE.
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Our Head Judge: Shreya Sen-Handley

Shreya Sen-Handley is an accomplished and versatile author, illustrator, playwright, and journalist. Currently working on her fourth book (to be published by Penguin in 2026), her previous works include three books with HarperCollins: the award-winning Memoirs of My Body* (2017), the acclaimed short story collection Strange* (2019), and the bestselling travelogue Handle With Care* (2022). Her books have received notable recognition, with Handle With Care being presented to The Queen by the National Literacy Trust in 2024 and Memoirs of My Body being named a UNESCO Cities of Literature Best Read in 2017.
Shreya was the first South Asian woman to write for an international opera, co-writing the Welsh National Opera’s Migrations (2022), which was lauded by The Times and The Guardian as one of the best shows of the year. Her play Quiet premiered in London in 2021, alongside work by Hanif Kureishi. In addition to her books, Shreya’s short fiction, poetry, and essays have been published widely and have been integral to British social justice campaigns.
Her varied career has spanned television journalism for CNBC and MTV, music video production for MTV, and writing for prominent international publications such as National Geographic, The Guardian, and Times of India. She has also taught creative writing at the Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, Calcutta and Punjab and is a writer-in-residence for First Story, the UK’s leading creative writing charity (to whom New Writers donate a proportion of competition entry fees). Shreya lives in Sherwood Forest, England, with her family, and continues to engage audiences through her books, columns, and media appearances, while illustrating for major publishers and participating in international literary festivals.
Website: shreyasenhandley.com | Twitter/X: @shreyasenhan | Instagram: @shreyasenhan