
Tag Archives: Opera
In more classical music news…
In classical music news, in which I never expected to be…
News of our Welsh National Opera short films in top music magazine!

Interview with Britain’s Best Independent Bookstore

I really enjoyed my interview with Britain’s Best Independent Bookstore Five Leaves Bookshop (national and regional winner several years in a row) which premiered last night. I got to yak about life and sleep and children and buses and travel and opera and books with poet and publisher Pippa Hennessy. And about growing older and growing up…
In world’s largest English language newspaper Times of India this month…
Top Notts Magazine Covers Our Opera

“She’s had two books published by HarperCollins, written for international media and was even the regional head of a television channel at the age of 25. It’s fair to say that there are achievers in this world, and then there’s Shreya Sen-Handley. And if that impressive CV wasn’t enough, she’s now become the first Indian and South Asian woman to write a Western, international opera, called Migrations. We catch up with the multi-talented writer to find out more…” (please click on pic to read more)
French platform interviews me just before lockdown and we talk about state of world, life, books and more
Best Independent British Bookstore interviews me as part of their British author series, premiere on 29th September
The Best Independent British Bookstore of 2018 (and regional winner before and after), Five Leaves Bookshop, interviewed me this week as part of a new online series on British authors. It was a wonderful half-hour chatting and laughing with the amazing Pippa Hennessy who plays a pivotal role for literature in the region, spearheading the campaign that brought Nottingham its UNESCO City of Literature status. In the course of the interview, I was asked to read from my HarperCollins collection of modern tales of the unexpected, ‘Strange’, and judging by the broad smile on Pippa’s face, it went down well. Please do watch the interview when it premieres on September 29th, and all the other fabulous interviews that are already out. Here, in the meantime, is a picture of us with Henry Normal, the BAFTA winning creator of popular British sitcoms like ‘The Royle Family’ and ‘Alan Partridge’, Oscar-nominated film ‘Philomena’ starring Judi Dench, and more, on a panel discussing writing. Henry Normal is another of the authors interviewed in the Five Leaves series. Please click on the pic to know more.
Asian Books Blog interview on the lure of the strange, surreal, and macabre
EC: What draws you to the strange, the surreal, the ominous and the macabre?
SSH: ‘Strange’ ideas come to me quite naturally, I suppose, because I’m neuro-atypical. To think within the constraints of convention or ‘normality’ is a stretch because my brain is wired differently. But I also feel that the mainstream that seeks to exclude those they perceive as ‘different’ is secretly not that well-adjusted or ‘normal’ themselves. That all of us have quirks and angularities that we deny, or are unaware of. I sympathise with both the overt misfits and the secret ones. I have empathy for those who find that life, and their own nature, and the lack of understanding from the world around them, have derailed their plans of leading a contented, conventional life. A ‘normal’ life. But as we acknowledge differences more and more, whether in sexuality or culture, or anything else, perhaps we see that there is no such thing as ‘normal’. My imagination teems with those on the margins for reasons of genetics, ostracization, illness, economics, and more, and in my work they find a home.
(Please click on pic for rest of the interview)