Agent Q & A

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.

Suzannah Ball

Suzannah has been at WME since 2019 and is based in the London office. She works with a wide range of authors and is excited to be building her own list with an emphasis on all things romance, horror, fantasy and speculative fiction – anything that makes our own world feel larger than life, or draws readers in a new fantastical world, will be right up her street. She’s proud to work with authors who have a vivid imagination and are able to tap into a reader’s deepest desires.

Suzannah represents adult, young and new adult fiction, and is keen to work closely with both debut and experienced authors to help them develop material and ideas. Some of her clients include Instant Sunday Times Bestselling author Jennifer Delaney, #1 NYT Bestseller Philippa Rice, and Rachel Wood, among others. And alongside her US colleagues, she represents the UK interests of various clients including Sarah A. Parker, SenLinYu, Callie Hart, and romance authors Ivy Fairbanks, Annie Crown and Peyton Corinne. She loves working with authors from across the world and finding their books the right home outside of their primary market.

For UK representation she is looking for a story that will immediately sweep you away and writing that pulls at the heartstrings, especially if it can make her cry. In fiction specifically, she wants to find writing that sparks joy, be that through comedy, quirky coming of age stories, or swoon-worthy romance (send her all the tropes!), and is open to a wide range of both commercial and literary writing. She’s also a fan of books with a darker edge; so send her anything gothic, uncanny, or with vampires. She loves losing herself in speculative fiction and fantasy, and some of her favourite authors in the space include Erin Morgenstern, Deborah Harkness, Sarah J. Maas, and Diana Wynne Jones. Most importantly, she wants to read a beautifully crafted story with a strong narrative voice.

She reads widely, but some of the books she is obsessed with include BOY PARTS by Eliza Clark, IN AT THE DEEP END by Kate Davies, THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern, THE DEAD ROMANTICS by Ashley Poston, and everything written by Emily Henry or Lucy Score. Essentially, anything that has characters you can really root for and fall in love with will be high up on her wish list.