The Writers of Wales Database

BROUGHTON, SARAH

Website: http://www.sarahbroughton.com

Sarah is a writer and researcher and lives in Cardiff. She has written documentaries for television and a novel, Other Useful Numbers (Parthian, 2008), which was developed into an audiobook read by Cerys Matthews in 2009. In 2008 she was awarded an Academi Bursary for the non-fiction book she is writing on Anna Kashfi. Her short non-fiction has been published extensively, including in New Welsh Review, Western Mail, Blown Magazine, Exeter Flying Post, Big Issue, Platfform and Mslexia. She also reviews fiction for New Welsh Review and has had work published in Matter.

She is currently studying for an MPhil in Writing at the University of Glamorgan. Sarah is a Member of Academi and the Society of Authors.

Reviews:
With respect to Other Useful Numbers (Parthian, 2008)

“…The crisply humorous style of Broughton's novel alleviates the loneliness and heartbreak which forms so much of its subject matter, while her ear for the nuance of conversation is pitch perfect…”
Anna Scott, New Welsh Review

“…A great portrait of a dislocated mind … absorbing, moving and funny…”
Lesley Glaister

“…Dryly captures the madness and the sadness of families through this perfectly observed account…”
Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian


Selected Publications:
Other Useful Numbers (Parthian, 2008)

Contributed to:
Sideways Glances (contributor) (Parthian, 2005)

Broadcast Non-fiction, Television
'Kathleen Ferrier: An Ordinary Diva' (1x60') (BBC2 / BBC Four, 2003)
'Amazing Gracie' (1x60') (BBC2 / BBC Four, 2004)
'Josephine Baker: The First Black Superstar' (1x60') (BBC Four, 2005)
'Vera Lynn: Sincerely Yours' (1x60') (BBC Four, 2007)
'Edith Piaf: Singing for Her Life' (1x60') (BBC Four, 2007)
'Val Doonican Rocks' (1x60') (BBC2 / BBC Four, 2008)

Feature Film
'I'm in Training, Don't Kiss Me' (ACW Lottery Award, 2003)

Broadcast Fiction, Radio
'It's a Small World' (5x30') (BBC Radio Wales, 2000)




Other Useful Numbers (Parthian, 2008)

Tracy is a kleptomaniac and a compulsive liar. A lost soul, she drifts fecklessly about, sponging off her friends with a high turnover of menial jobs as she searches for Anita. Tracy thinks that if Anita’s disappeared out of her life, then she must have disappeared out of this world, and that means detective work. But Tracy is quintessentially unreliable, and it gradually becomes clear that it is her neurosis, rather than Anita’s disappearance, that is the driving force behind her adventure.

"…At midnight when the steady trickle of guests has slowed to gatecrashers and social workers, I stop looking and join the party. I play Spin the Bottle and Roy Orbison and 'Give Us A Clue'. I’m a television programme and I’m not a comedy. “Sounds like,” and then I mime sitting on a church pew. Pew – new – ‘News at Ten’. Except that nobody knows I’m a church pew, they think I’m sitting on a bus. But I’m not a comedy. Boom boom. I bite the icing from the Gems because it reminds me of nipples and smoke other people’s cigarettes. It was that kind of night. Like no night at all..."

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