Emily-Jane Clark: Writing Mentor

Emily-Jane Clark is the author of THE BEASTS OF KNOBBLY BOTTOM: ATTACK OF THE VAMPIRE SHEEP, which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Prize 2024 and THE RISE OF THE ZOMBIE PIGS, published by Scholastic. She has also just signed a new four-book deal to be announced this summer.

She also writes for adults, and her bestselling part-memoir part-humorous survival guide for tired parents, SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK, made the top one hundred of all books on Amazon.    

Emily-Jane is also a successful comedy writer and has worked on The Daily Mash, Mock the Week, The Jonathan Ross Show and Mash Report. Her work includes the viral sketch ‘F**k Off, say women’ starring Ellie Taylor, viewed more than four hundred million times on YouTube. Her scripts have also won the Craft of Comedy New Writing Award, Sitcom Geeks Script Challenge, reached the finals of the Funny Women Awards, and been shortlisted for BBC Writers Room twice.

As an experienced proofreader, she has a keen eye for detail. She is also a freelance editor for script writers who now have work in development with Black Dog, Red, and Sky comedy.

Previous mentees have gone on to be offered book deals, reach the finals of the Bath Novel Awards, and be accepted on a creative writing course at Oxford University!

Specialises in: Contemporary fiction, women’s fiction, comedy/satire, historical fiction, picture books, children’s books, plays and screenwriting, memoir/autobiography, narrative non-fiction, subject-led non-fiction.

Emily-Jane provides tuition for our Mentoring Service.

Writing a book is a frustrating process.  For every hour the words flow easily on to the page, you’ll spend three staring at a blank screen or cleaning out the fridge…because you couldn’t possibly write one more word with a three week old pot of hummus lurking in there!  You can go from believing you are writing a fantastic bestseller to deciding you are rubbish in the space of ten minutes.  It really is a rollercoaster!  For me, this is where mentoring really helps. It is just as much about giving writers the encouragement and confidence to keep going than it is about helping them to tell their story.  

Memoir writing can be especially tricky because you ARE the story, and it can be hard to be objective about what to include. It is so tempting to write everything down, but it is more productive to find an angle- what is the heart of your story? What is the message? Is it a story about overcoming mental health issues, grief, adversity? Is it an insight into a certain lifestyle or career? Who will want to read this? A mentor can help you break your story right down and get to the heart of what you want to say.  

Having a mentor is also very useful if you are writing a humorous book. Not all funny stories or jokes work as well on paper, so it really helps to have someone to bounce ideas off and test those gags out on! 

I am passionate about inspiring new writers to take the seed of a story and help them nurture it into a fully-fledged book- one step at a time.  I also love helping experienced writers to make their manuscript shine!     

 I would love to work with memoir, non-fiction or humour writers from all walks of life, whether their stories are in book, short story or script form.  

I am a Penguin WriteNow shortlister with two chapter books and a picture book in development so I would also love to mentor children’s writers. 

As an experienced TV writer, I am also keen to work with script writers from all genres.