WRITING EVENTS

Rowan Lawton

Rowan joined The Soho Agency in 2019 after two decades in the industry, predominantly in agenting. Her internationally bestselling authors have been awarded and shortlisted for literary prizes including the British Book Awards, the CWA Daggers, the Irish Book Awards, the Wales Book of the Year, Romantic Novel of the Year and the BBC National Short Story Award. She has also been involved in the judging of a number of fiction prizes including Richard & Judy ‘Search for a Bestseller’ and the Bristol Short Story Prize. Rowan was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2012.

Rowan’s taste ranges from the most commercial well-written genre fiction and domestic suspense to accessible literary and reading group novels, as well as narrative non-fiction (often, but not always, written by women) – particularly moving and inspiring memoirs.

Photo credit – Andrew Hayes-Watkins

Tanya Byrne

Tanya Byrne’s debut young adult novel, Heart-Shaped Bruise, was published by Headline in May 2012 and earned her a nomination for New Writer of the Year at the National Book Awards.

Since then, she has written four other young adult novels and has contributed to several short story anthologies including A Change is Gonna Come, which was named Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week and was honoured with a Special Achievement Award by the YA Book Prize.

As a brown, queer, working class author, she is determined not to pull the ladder up after her so is passionate about encouraging authors from marginalised backgrounds to tell their own stories and making publishing more open to everyone.

Her latest novel, Afterlove, is out now. It’s currently being adapted for television.

Photo credit: Maya ziyu Ou

Hattie Grünewald

Hattie Grünewald is an agent at The Blair Partnership.
She represents commercial and upmarket fiction, including women’s fiction, crime and thriller, historical and book club fiction, as well as some non-fiction in the areas of lifestyle and personal development. Before joining The Blair Partnership she spent six years at Blake Friedmann agency. In 2020 she was a Bookseller Rising Star, and won Agent of the Year for the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

Ludo Cinelli

Ludo Cinelli is an Agent and Managing Director at Eve White Literary Agency.
He joined the company in 2017, after various internships in the publishing industry. He is building and maintaining his own list of clients as well as being involved with all day-to-day aspects of running the business. He has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. He was shortlisted for The British Book Awards, Literary Agent of the Year 2022.

Susannah Rickards

Susannah Rickards is a writer and literary consultant. Her short stories frequently place and shortlist in national and international awards, most recently Alpine Fellowship, HG Wells, Bridport, Bath, Carve USA and in the past Commonwealth, Conan Doyle, BBC Opening Lines and International Pen, among others. Her collected stories, Hot Kitchen Snow, won the Scott prize for best debut and was published by Salt. Other stories have been anthologised, published in literary magazines and newspapers, broadcast on BBC radio and in story dispensers on London and Paris underground stations. She teaches fiction writing at Oxford University.

Kim Sherwood

Kim Sherwood is an author and creative writing lecturer. Born in Camden in 1989, she has taught at the University of Sussex, UWE Bristol, and in schools, libraries and prisons, and now lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Kim’s first novel, Testament (2018), won the Bath Novel Award and Harper’s Bazaar Big Book Award.
It was longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Pick. In 2019, she was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second book, Double or Nothing, is the first in a trilogy commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to expand the world of James Bond, published by HarperCollins UK in September 2022 and globally in 2023.
Her next novel, A Wild & True Relation, which will be published by Virago in February 2023 was described by Hilary Mantel as “a rarity – a novel as remarkable for the vigour of the storytelling as for its literary ambition. Kim Sherwood is a writer of capacity, potency and sophistication.”

Photo credit: Rosie Sherwood

Marcel Theroux

Marcel Raymond Theroux (born 13 June 1968) is an English novelist and broadcaster. He wrote The Stranger in The Earth and The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: A Paper Chase, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2002. His third novel, A Blow to the Heart, was published by Faber in 2006. His fourth, Far North, was published in June 2009. His fifth, Strange Bodies, was published in May 2013. He has also worked in television news in New York City and in Boston.

He is the elder son of the American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux and his then-wife Anne Castle. His younger brother, Louis Theroux, is a journalist, documentarian, and television presenter.

Marcel Theroux was born in 1968 in Kampala, Uganda, where his American-born father, Paul Theroux, was teaching at Makerere University. His mother is Anne Castle, an English woman. The family spent the next two years in Singapore, where his father taught at the National University of Singapore. After their return to England, Theroux was brought up in Wandsworth, London. After attending a state primary school, he boarded at Westminster School where his best friend was Nick Clegg. He went on to study English Literature at Clare College, Cambridge. He won a fellowship to study International Relations with a specialization in Soviet and East European Studies at Yale University.

He lives in London and is married. His paternal French surname originates from the region around Sarthe and Yonne in France. It is quite common in francophone countries and is originally spelled Théroux. His father, born and raised in the United States, is of half French Canadian and half Italian descent.

Read the full article here.

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Photo By Shayan Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Charlotte Seymour

Charlotte Seymour began her career in publishing as a literary scout at Eccles Fisher Associates. Following six and a half years as an agent at Andrew Nurnberg Associates, in 2022 she joined Johnson & Alcock, representing fiction and non fiction, and selling UK rights on behalf of US publisher Other Press.

Charlotte represents authors whose works have been Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellers, and won or been nominated for prizes including the Goldsmiths Prize, Northern Book Prize, Dublin Literary Award, White Review Short Story Prize, National Book Awards (US) and PEN America Literary Awards, and international prizes including the Prix Goncourt, Swiss Book Prize and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

In fiction, Charlotte looks for book club and literary fiction as well as outstanding character- and voice-driven crime, thriller and suspense. She loves writing that crosses boundaries, whether geographic or linguistic or in bringing a twist to a genre.

In non-fiction, she is interested in accessible, engaging writing on a range of subjects including popular science, social and cultural history, reportage, nature, the arts, food and cookery. She especially loves hybrid books, for example, when in a memoir, the personal is interwoven with a bigger story or subject.

Charlotte enjoys working editorially with her authors, bringing existing projects to fruition and helping come up with new ideas. As well as championing literature in translation, she is eager to see more submissions from new and original voices in English from around the world.

Charlotte was Secretary of the Association of Authors’ Agents 2019-2021 and a Bookseller Rising Star 2021. See here for more about what Charlotte is working on and enjoys reading.

Katie Fulford

Katie is an agent at Bell, Lomax, Moreton. Prior to joining the agency she spent 25 years at HarperCollins in a variety of roles including Group Rights Director, Managing Director of Collins non-fiction and senior positions in William Collins and 4th Estate, Fiction and Children’s. She was Executive Producer on Channel 4’s 2019 critically acclaimed TV adaptation of the much loved classic The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr which was awarded an international Emmy. Her extensive and varied experience across a range of publishing and rights management, puts her in a unique position to be able to work with an author to offer representation and guidance across all media and in all markets.
In terms of fiction, her interests are broad and varied. She likes contemporary and historical, commercial and reading group fiction but it will nearly always be female led. She is looking for intelligent and hooky crime and thriller, family drama, uplit and bookclub books with big issues and memorable characters with immersive settings. She loves a good romance and is always on the lookout for a sharply written romantic comedy.
Recent favourite books include The Great Circle, Notes on an Execution, The Girl with The Louding Voice and Three Hours.

Emma Darwin

Emma Darwin’s new novel, The Bruegel Boy, will be published in September 2025. Her debut The Mathematics of Love is probably the only novel ever to have been nominated for both the Commonwealth Writers Best First Book and RNA Novel of the Year awards, and her second, A Secret Alchemy, was a Sunday Times bestseller. She is also the author of Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction and the memoir This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin. She teaches creative writing at Oxford University and Goldsmiths, University of London, and has given workshops from Auckland to Zurich. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing, and her blog This Itch of Writing is linked to by writing courses around the world.

Emma Haynes

Emma is responsible for BPA’s bespoke programme of literary events and retreats as well as managing the First Novel Award and submissions to literary agents. With a background in communications and special events she has an eye for detail and a desire to give writers the best possible experience in an imaginative programme of events. Her retreats at Asthall Manor, the childhood home of the Mitford sisters have set a new benchmark in literary experiences.
With an up to date knowledge of what literary agents are looking for, Emma offers a reading service and advises writers with a polished manuscript which agents to approach and how best to ensure your work gets read. She also contacts agents on behalf of writers where there is a potential match.

Anna Davidson

Anna Davidson has worked in book publishing for almost thirty years as a writer, editor and managing editor. Past roles include Head of Editorial Management at Faber & Faber and Publishing Manager at DK Books. Anna is both a traditionally published and self-published author. She is an Alliance of Independent Authors ‘Inspirational Indie Author’ and an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading.

Hellie Ogden

Hellie joined WME’s London office as co-head of the UK Book division in 2023. She represents general fiction and children’s books and enjoys novels with bold storytelling, moving prose and vivid, thought-provoking characters. She is actively taking on new clients and as an editorially focused agent, she has a keen interest in helping to develop and nurture debut writers. She represents a number of global bestsellers and award-winning writers across genres including Kiran Millwood Hargrave, M.J. Arlidge, Samuel Burr, Fran Littlewood, Sharna Jackson and Jessa Hastings. She often speaks at writing conferences and mentors debut writers.

She is incredibly hands on editorially, and loves to help shape a piece of work from the very rough idea through to a polished, original manuscript. She’s looking for a few special, standout books every year from high-concept thrillers and suspense with fresh hooks, big ideas and daring twist to a new crime series with a protagonist that you want to come back to again and again and love stories from exciting new voices. Hellie is always open to original, courageous ideas and seeing a time/place/person in a new light. Page turning literary fiction tapping into the millennial experience, nostalgia, sexuality, and family complexities always interest her.

Hellie reads broadly, literary through to commercial, and in a bookshop will hunt for moral complexities, unusual twists and prose that will floor her emotionally and challenge her too.

Rebecca Hilsdon

Rebecca joined Michael Joseph in 2017, having worked at Hachette, and is building a list primarily in women’s fiction.
 She is looking for stand-out, compelling voices that are honest, wickedly funny and heart-breaking. Stories about women on a journey, which does not necessarily end in romance, particularly appeal to her.
 She is always on the lookout for relatable characters, can never resist a novel with a strong hook, and loves books that are beautifully written and stay with you long after you’ve finished the last page.

Joanna Swainson

Joanna is co-founder of literary agency Hardman & Swainson. She represent a range of authors, particularly across the genres of crime and thriller, speculative, historical, accessible literary and book group fiction. She also represent narrative non-fiction writers, and is particularly keen on science, history, nature, folklore and memoir. She doesn’t like to be too prescriptive in what she’s looking for when reading submissions, but a strong hook, intriguing characters and great writing with surprising insights and observations will always grab her attention. Atmosphere also plays an important part in any book she enjoys.

David Simons

David Simons is a Scottish-born author whose novels include The Credit Draper (2008), The Liberation of Celia Kahn (2011), An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful (2013), The Land Agent (2014), A Woman of Integrity (2017) and most recently The Responsibility of Love (September 2021). He was short-listed for The McKitterick Prize for The Credit Draper and he is the recipient of writer’s bursaries from Creative Scotland and the Society of Authors as well as a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship.

Caroline Green

Writing as Cass Green, Caroline’s debut adult novel The Woman Next Door was a Number 1 e-book bestseller and her second, In A Cottage, In A Wood was a Sunday Times top ten and USA Today bestseller. She is also an award-winning author of fiction for young people. Her first novel, Dark Ride won the RONA Young Adult Book of the Year and the Waverton Good Read Award. There’s A Dog In My Brain, A comedy for 7-9s is out January 6^th.  She is the Writer in Residence at East Barnet School and has taught writing at City University and for Writers & Artists. In 2021, Sleep Tight, the first of three genre-bending police procedurals, was published by HarperCollins.

Marina de Pass

Marina is The Bookseller’s Rising Star of 2023. She joined The Soho Agency in 2016, after working for several years in the editorial departments of Little, Brown and HarperCollins. She has a rare insight into the publishing industry – in addition to her agenting work, she is also a published author, and has studied creative writing at the Faber Academy.
 Marina is building a list of upmarket commercial and accessible literary fiction –from twisty crime and thrillers to smart rom-coms and big, sweeping love stories to historical fiction, especially lesser known stories about incredible women from the past – and is actively looking to take on clients in this area.  She is looking for strong female leads, plot twists, novels with feminist threads, diverse characters, a-ha moments, the list goes on . . . She is particularly drawn to novels that hit on relatable moral issues and provoke genuine emotional reactions. And even though she isn’t looking for straight sci-fi or fantasy, she has a soft spot for books that have a mythical or magical edge.

photo credit – Andrew Hayes-Watkins

Jane Finigan

Jane Finigan is a partner at Lutyens & Rubinstein Literary Agency. Her list is a small but perfectly formed and spans an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction. As well as Claire Fuller she represents critically acclaimed and award winning novelists including Lisa Owens, Ned Beauman, Sarah Haywood and bestselling non-fiction writers including Meera Sodha, Simon Parkin and Alex Beard. She works closely and collaboratively with her authors and is always on the look out for powerful, intelligent, witty and unexpected new voices.

Claire Fuller

Claire Fuller didn’t start writing fiction until she was 40. Her first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days won the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize, her second, Swimming Lessons was shortlisted for the Encore prize, and her third, Bitter Orange is long listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. Claire also writes flash fiction and short stories. Many have been shortlisted in competitions and she has won the BBC Opening Lines short story competition, and the Royal Academy / Pin Drop prize. Her fourth novel, Unsettled Ground will be published in 2021.

Eve White

Eve started Eve White – Literary Agency in 2003. Her company has grown to represent everything from prize-winning literary fiction to bestselling picture books worldwide while maintaining the caring, family feel of a boutique agency. Eve’s goal from the start was for massive success for each of a small stable of authors. She is very happy to say that she has achieved that aim with Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling writers on her list and many book-to-film deals signed. One debut was longlisted for The Man Booker Prize, another became the best selling debut novel published in 2014, and three were selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club. Throughout it all she has continued to work with each individual closely – both editorially and to help to shape their career. Eve was shortlisted for The British Book Awards, Literary Agent of the Year in 2015 and in 2017. She was also our judge for the inaugural BPA First Novel Award in 2017 and 2023.

Nelle Andrew

Nelle Andrew, an agent at Rachel Mills Literary Agency was nominated for Literary Agent of the Year at The British Book Awards 2018, and was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016. Her career includes discovering and agenting Sunday Times, and New York Times bestsellers; award winning novelists as well as several Richard and Judy Book Club picks. Nelle has a particular affinity for debuts of any age as she is a published novelist in her own right and personally knows the struggle to get published. As such, she is keen to find those voices who she can champion into long and productive careers. She is on the board of both the Lucy Cavendish Prize for unpublished writers and the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer’s Award. Nelle judged Blue Pencil Agency’s First Novel Award 2019 and signed not only the winner, Kate McNair but also shortlisted author Neil Daws. She also judged Blue Pencil’s 2020 Pitch Prize competition which gave 10 writers the chance to pitch their novels to her and receive editorial and industry feedback in a one on one meeting.