Chloë Rayban is best known for her YA novels. Her wacky, humorous ‘Justine’ novels have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and twice for the Guardian Fiction Prize. One of them was made into a feature film by Columbia Tristar. Over the past twenty-five years, her books have been published by Random House, Harper Collins, Hodder, Headline and Bloomsbury. She enjoys writing for all age groups, YA, Middle Grade and Early Readers. Under her real name – Carolyn Bear – OUP publishes her books for younger children, the most popular being the Scrapman series, which sells worldwide, most recently in China. She says her books “grew up with her children” and she now also writes both fiction and non-fiction for adults. Find out more on chloeraybanbooks.com

Claire is an experienced journalist, writer and editor. Until last year she was the Editor of Kindred Spirit, the UK’s leading mind/body/spirit magazine. She has been coaching and mentoring writers for nearly 15 years. She has been a freelance contributor to leading women’s magazines and national newspapers, particularly The Times and the Guardian, and has also been editor of a number of consumer and specialist women’s magazines including Health & Fitness magazine and Girl About Town. Claire has written 30 non-fiction books for adults and creative non-fiction titles for children, some under the pen-name, Rory Storm. Among her titles are three books in the Hodder Teach Yourself series on how to get published and how to make money from freelance writing. She has coached authors for top publishing houses and has also run writers’ workshops, always with the emphasis on fun, style and discovering your inner creativity. Claire is married with two grown-up sons and lives on the edge of the West Pennines with her family and dog. For more information, go to www.clairegillman.com.

Clare Coombes is an author, editor and literary agent with over 15 years’ experience of writing and editing professionally. She is a co-founder of the first Liverpool-based literary agency, who has already closed a number of major multi-book deals for debut authors since launching in late 2020. Clare is a published author of two novels, Definitions (2015) and We Are of Dust (2018) – which received development funding from the Liverpool Film Office for a TV adaptation. Her experience spans the breadth of editorial services and includes work across a variety of forms including full fiction manuscripts, anthologies, non-fiction proposals and pitches for film and TV. She also has a background in PR and marketing, alongside teaching roles on creative writing programmes, including at post-graduate level, on topics from approaching an agent to self-editing.   Find Clare’s agency on Twitter here: @LiverpoolLit  

Clare Harvey is the acclaimed author of four historical fiction novels published by Simon & Schuster (UK). Clare has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Nottingham, and experience in creative writing tuition for all ages and abilities, from early years to retirees. Mentoring and workshop clients include Writing East Midlands, Inspire Libraries, Derby Quad, the University of Nottingham, and many others. Clare has also given talks and/or facilitated panel events for Derby Book Festival, Wirksworth Book Festival, Lowdham Book Festival, States of Independence Book Festival, Inspire Libraries, Waterstones Events, and Jarrold’s Books. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Clare has a background in journalism (print and radio), charity PR, copywriting, and English tuition. Clare was born in Devon, but an expat childhood, a military marriage, and a love of travel, means she has lived and worked all over the world. She now lives in Nottingham with her family. She’s currently working towards her creative writing PhD at Coventry University.   You can find out more about Clare on her website here: https://clareharvey.net or on Twitter here: @ClareHarveyauth

Constance Renfrow is the former lead editor of the fiercely independent Three Rooms Press in New York. Here, she edited such titles as Meagan Brothers’s groundbreaking LGBT YA novel Weird Girl and What’s His Name, hailed by Foreword Reviews as “[having] all the makings to become a classic of this generation”; Johanna Drucker’s tremendous debut eco-fiction Downdrift; and Eamon Loingsigh’s eloquent examination of the nineteenth-century Brooklyn Irish, Exile on Bridge Street (Langum Prize Shortlist). She is also a former columnist at DIY MFA, where she offered insight into the book publishing industry. Her first book, Songs of My Selfie: An Anthology of Millennial Stories was a 2016 IndieFAB Finalist, and her short fiction has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and the Best of the Net, and most recently won the Porter House Review Prize in 2019. She received her MFA in fiction from Pacific University.

Debi’s first two novels, Nirvana Bites and Trading Tatiana, urban thrillers set among the sub-cultures of South East London, were published by Orion to critical acclaim. Debi has now set up her own imprint and has re-published both novels as e-books, along with the other three in the Nirvana series. Since 2006, Debi has spent most of her time helping other writers to perfect their novels through critiques, mentoring, Book Doctor sessions and creative writing workshops. She edits in all genres and many authors that she has worked with have been signed up with agents and gone on to see their books published. She also runs the phenomenally successful Jericho Writers’ Self-Edit Your Novel course, together with Emma Darwin. An astonishing one in five authors have gone on to be published following the course. Debi also acts as a competition judge and is a reader for the Costa Short Story Awards.   * Please note that, due to extreme demand, Debi only works with self-edit alumni and previous clients *   Find Debi on Twitter here: @DebiAlper  

Deirdre began her publishing career in a literary agency, working with children’s authors ranging from Tom Fletcher and David Farr to debut novelists and upcoming new authors. Since then, she has gone on to work in children’s editorial at major publishing houses, working across everything from picture books to YA. She has worked with upcoming debuts launching in 2023 and 2024 and on high profile authors such as Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Ravena Guron, and David Farr. She also works on a freelance basis on submission packages and manuscripts. Deirdre brings a keen editorial eye and in-depth knowledge of the market, and spends more time reading children’s fiction than anything else. Having worked in both a literary agency and a publishers, she has a strong understanding of how the process works from both sides, and what both agents and editors are hungry to read. Before her start in publishing, Deirdre was a children’s bookseller for many years and tutored in creative writing while she earned her MPhil in Children’s Literature from Trinity College Dublin.  

Dexter is the acclaimed author of a number of novels: Little Nineveh (Polygon 1995), Joyride (Fourth Estate, 1999), White Lies (Fourth Estate 2003) and One True Void (Two Ravens Press 2008). Dexter is an experienced editor, literary novelist, memoirist and translator.   Self-educated, he spent many years wandering Africa, Europe and America until settling in France in 1994.  He worked as a teacher in a Ugandan missionary school and as a roving reporter for the BBC World Service before publishing his first novel in 1995.  Since then, Dexter has become the acclaimed author of a number of novels, a translation, literary non-fiction and a memoir of childhood.  He is one of the founding writers on the cult website Caught By The River, contributing chapters to both their nature anthologies. He publishes regularly and is now considered to be one of our most original British nature writers. Dexter lives in a yurt in Normandy. As a long serving editor with Jericho Writers, (since 2005) many of Dexter’s clients have achieved considerable success in finding agents and publishers.  Among them is Costa shortlisted novelist, Elisa Lodato.

Diana has 25 years of experience in the non-fiction arena, with a writing career that began in journalism and media in Docklands London and continued in magazines, books, brochures, newsletters, radio programmes, e-zines and websites. Diana has years of editing and mentoring experience in Memoir and more general non-fiction work for Jericho Writers. Whilst Mind, Body and Spirit is her specialism, manuscript focuses have included areas as diverse as interior design, diet/food/cookery, hypnotherapy, parenting/family issues, meditation, mountain trekking, feng shui, positive attitude, religious and transcendental experiences, travel and immigration, addiction recovery, healing, and physical and mental health challenges. A strong technical ability in writing and an honours degree in English, Drama and Film, combine with practical experience in the holistic field to make Diana uniquely able to appreciate the challenges of conveying material in both niche and traditional areas. She enjoys author support as much as developing her own projects, which, in recent years, have included consultancy and writing for the bestselling, Tattoo Tarot: Ink & Intuition deck/booklet set (attracting over 1, 350 positive reviews on Amazon), plus a follow-up Tattoo Tarot Journal book, further, similar projects of Movie Tarot and Music Tarot, and research for the text of the Tarot Colouring Book, all with Laurence King Publishing. Most of her Jericho Writers authors have gone on to either win contracts with agents and publishers or successfully self-publish their work—frequently with excellent reviews on Amazon.

Edward Fenton has worked as a writer, publisher and editor for almost his entire career. He started out as a music journalist for NME, before getting his first job in publishing. His novel ‘Scorched Earth’ won the Sinclair Prize for Fiction, judged by a panel of former Booker judges. He has written and/or researched over twenty radio documentaries, broadcast on BBC Radios 1, 3 and 4, and his documentary on Samuel Pepys’s love of music was described by the Independent on Sunday as ‘radio documentary at its best’. He has a particular interest in diaries, and in 1998 he set up an independent publishing company, Day Books. His editions of historical diaries have featured in the Books of the Year lists in the national press, chosen by writers including Iain Sinclair and Martin Amis. He co-wrote the libretto of an opera which had its London premiere at the BBC Proms: and he is currently a member of the Four Wordsmen, who regularly perform their work at a range of events and festivals.  

Eleanor is an experienced fiction editor and has worked on titles across the various children’s markets, from Young Fiction to YA. She loves discovering fresh talent and working with new authors to hone their story-telling skills.   Eleanor has had nine novels for children published under her own name. Her titles include Sammy Feral’s Diaries of Weird (winner of the Lancashire Library’s Fantastic Book Award 2014), Felix Frost (Quercus Books), The Blue Lady and The Grey Girl (Hot Key Books). Eleanor has also written under the pseudonym Zed Storm, devising writing and working as a series consultant on the Will Solvit books. She has also written Book of the Film novelisations for movie studios, and countless activity and story books for various Disney films and franchises in her days as an editor in licensed publishing. Eleanor is married with two young sons. When not writing, editing or helping with maths homework she loves nothing more than to practise yoga!   Find Eleanor on Twitter here: @ehawken

Her second novel, The Unspeakable Acts Of Zina Pavlou, is inspired by a true crime and has been chosen as a BBC2 Behind the Covers TV Book Club pick. Her debut novel, She Came To Stay, was selected by Hachette for their Future Bookshelf initiative. It’s an Amazon number 1 bestseller. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, Marie Claire, Grazia and Red, among others. She has spent her career predominately in women’s publishing. Born in London to Greek Cypriot parents, Eleni is particularly interested in stories about people who feel they don’t belong. She’s obsessed with the 1950s, but equally loves contemporary fiction. She’s now freelance. You can find her on Twitter, Insta and FB: @elenikwriter and her website is www.elenikwriter.com    

Elizabeth is an award-winning author with 20+ years of editorial experience, in both fiction and feature film.  She is a development editor for the award-winning crowdfunding publishers Unbound. She also teaches Creative Writing at Oxford University and is the arts Trustee at the inter-disciplinary creative and academic charity, The Blackden Trust. Elizabeth’s debut novel Nightdancing (Headline) won a Society of Authors’ Betty Trask award and was shortlisted for the Pendleton May First novel award.  Her second novel, The Ingenious Edgar Jones, a historical fiction/ fantasy based in Victorian Oxford, was published in both the UK and USA to critical acclaim.  She is currently developing  a collection of rewritten Folk Tales – Lost & Found – in collaboration with the Young Wood Engraver Of The Year, Phoebe Connolly. A student of Elizabeth’s Advanced Creative Online class at Oxford, Georgia Fancett,  went on to win the Daily Mail First Novel award 2018. In her role at Unbound, Elizabeth worked with Rose Cartwright on the development and editing of her award-winning memoir PURE, which was adapted into a Channel 4 TV drama.   Find Elizabeth on Twitter here: @Lostandfoundst2

E.L Norry is a MG/YA writer represented by The Soho Agency. Her first book was published in 2019, a commission in the historical VOICES series (Scholastic). Em wrote about the Victorian era. Son of the Circus blended fact and fiction, a favourite thing of hers to do. In 2020 she added non-fiction with a biography of Nelson Mandela (Puffin). She also had short stories in the collection Home Again: Stories about Coming Home from War. (Scholastic). 2021 is busy! Amber Undercover (OUP), a standalone upper MG contemporary action-adventure hit the shelves. She also has stories in three anthologies: Happy Here (Knights Of), The Place for Me: Stories from the Windrush (Scholastic) and A Very Merry Murder Club (Farshore). Non-fiction is a football biography of Lionel Messi (Scholastic). Em has previously written for a younger age group, reluctant and dyslexic readers. A Good Friend (Hodder Education). Recently, a two-book deal with Bloomsbury was announced. Book 1 in an MG fantasy series is out in 2023, in collaboration with Storymix and Jasmine Richards. Find Em on Twitter here: @elnorry_writer

Emily runs her own Editing and Rights Consulting business, working alongside indie authors, indie publishers and consulting for big name international literary agencies. During her time at the agency, she worked with best-selling authors such as Stephen Fry, Paula Hawkins, Owen Jones, Carole Matthews, Sarah Vaughan and Rosie Walsh, alongside national treasure children’s authors such as Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson. She was runner up for the David Miller Bursary in the Deborah Rogers Rights Award 2017. At the start of 2020, Emily launched her own freelance book editing and rights selling business under the name Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy. She also regularly consults for big literary agencies such as Janklow & Nesbit and Johnson & Alcock, in both Rights and Primary Agenting departments.

Emma is the author of highly acclaimed book club fiction novels and is known for mixing humour with darker emotional themes. Her debut, The Songs of Us, was snapped up in multiple pre-empts and auctions and was short-listed for the RNA contemporary novel of the year award. Her work has since been translated into seven different languages. She has had four books published so far: The Songs of Us, The First Time I Saw You, If I Could Say Goodbye, and It Was Always You which was published by Headline Review in the summer of 2022.   Find Emma on Twitter here: @ItsEmmacooper    

Fay Sampson has three times been shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, with Pangur Ban, Chris and the Dragon and A Free Man on Sunday, and won the Barco de Vapor award. Her crime novel The Hunted Hare was the CRT Fiction Book of the Year. She has taught creative writing and been a Writer in Residence.  She has been editing manuscripts for nearly 20 years. Fay has helped other writers to publication, including Mark Leyland who won an award for an unpublished children’s novel. Hilton Pashley’s Gabriel’s Clock became the first in a YA series. Fay has had many positive feedbacks from clients, like the following:  “It’s exactly what I was hoping for – your feedback is invaluable.”

Gary Gibson is one of the UK’s leading authors of hard science fiction, space opera and post-apocalyptic fiction. Since his first short fiction sale in 1990, Gary Gibson has published sixteen science fiction novels with Pan MacMillan, Newcon Press and through his own imprint Brain in a Jar Books, including Stealing Light (2007), Extinction Game (2012) and Echogenesis (2021). The Guardian said that he was “To be considered alongside the leading triumvirate of British hard SF writers: Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, and Neal Asher”, while the Daily Mail described him as “one of our best exponents of hardcore sf adventure”. As an editor for Jericho Writers, he’s worked with several hundred unpublished as well as published authors. His speciality is sf and fantasy, but he’s also worked with writers of horror, crime and post-apocalyptic fiction. You can find Gary’s website here (www.garygibson.net) and follow him on Twitter at @garygibsonsf  

Gideon is an experienced editor, story analyst and a published author. He writes the Drake’s War series of WW2 Espionage Thrillers under the pen name Gideon Saint. Drake’s War has been selected for The Bernard Cornwell Reading Club and has been an Amazon.co.uk best-seller. Before he took up novel-writing, Gideon previously worked for Twentieth Century Fox, Focus Features, and Universal Pictures International as a story analyst. Gideon also ran a department of a trade publishing business in London for a number of years. Gideon has a BA (hons) in Contemporary Media Practice (Westminster University), an MA in Creative Writing (Lancaster University), an MFA in Creative Writing (Kingston University), and he studied Screenwriting at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). Having been on all sides of the table, as an author, editor, publisher, screenwriter and story analyst, Gideon is uniquely placed to help you on your journey to becoming a published author or screenwriter.  

Hal Duncan is a queer Scottish writer and editor, known mainly for his literary fantasy and science fiction novels, but writing also short stories, poetry and criticism. A blend of pulp and postmodernism, his first novel, Vellum (Tor), was described by Lucius Shepard as ‘the Guernica of genre fiction’, and shared awards shortlists with everyone from Neil Gaiman (BFS Award) to Brett Easton Ellis and Haruki Murakami (World Fantasy Award). It won the Spectrum Award (for LGBT science-fiction/fantasy), the Kurd-Lasswitz-Preis and Tuehtivaeltaja (for the German and Finnish translations respectively) and was nominated for the Crawford, the Locus and (for the French translation) the Prix Europeen Utopiales. Hal was also a judge on the 2012 British Fantasy Awards and co-edited the Caledonia Dreamin’ anthology in 2013. As professional freelance editor, he worked on Sean Eads’ Lord Byron’s Prophecy, finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award 2016, while as mentor he worked on an early draft of Cameron Johnston’s The Traitor God, subsequently picked up by Angry Robot and shortlisted for the Dragon Awards 2018.  

Haydn Middleton has written extensively for both adults and children. His nine novels for adults, marketed variously as literary fiction and fantasy, include The Ballad of Syd & Morgan which was dramatized in 2023 on BBC Radio 4 and his most recent novel for children is The Girl Who Said No To The Nazis (Pushkin Children’s, 2020). Since 2015 he has taught Creative Writing for Stanford University’s Oxford Program, and more recently for the Sarah Lawrence Programme at Wadham College, Oxford. Before becoming a freelance author of children’s fiction and non-fiction – producing scores of books on subjects ranging from Emmeline Pankhurst to jellyfish – he worked as a history schoolbook editor at Oxford University Press. He is not related to Kate Middleton and looks nothing like her.

Helen has worked in publishing for nearly twenty years. She was a fiction editor at Faber and Faber for 8 years, and a commissioning fiction editor at Head of Zeus for two years. She also ran the classics list at Vintage, Penguin Random House, and was a commissioning editor for Arcadia Books. She has worked as an international book scout for both Louise Allen-Jones Associates and Virginia Marx, keeping abreast of contemporary fiction and non-fiction and making recommendations to foreign clients. She’s worked at literary agencies Abner Stein Associates and MMB Creative. She also taught creative writing and editing at Bath Spa University, the Faber Academy and on a residential Arvon course. Authors she’s edited and published include Victor Lodato (twice shortlisted for the Sunday Times Short story Award), Sophie Hardach (shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Novel Award), Laurie Canciani and Michelle Paver (Sunday Times bestselling author of WAKENHRST). At Faber, she worked with authors such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Edna O’Brien, Andy O’Hagan and Sarah Hall. You can find Helen on Twitter here: @Helen_E_Francis

As an agent, Helen is very hands on developmentally, and works with her clients to perfect their manuscripts before submission, encouraging her authors to push their writing to new levels. Before becoming an agent, she spent years producing developmental edit reports for the agents she interned under. Her strengths lie particularly in identifying plot holes and pacing, world building, and character development. Reading is Helen’s superpower, and she averages about 200 books a year (not including manuscripts for work). This has helped her develop an excellent understanding of the market. Helen presently carries out agent 121s with authors and has taken part in various panel events in her role as an agent. Helen also offers writing advice as both an agent and an author on Twitter, trying to make the writing process more transparent for authors. You can find Helen at @HFLane_writing

Holly is a YA author and a script editor for television and film. Her debut, the first in a YA urban fantasy trilogy titled Midnight’s Twins, was published by Hot Key Books in 2020 as part of a three book deal. The final novel in the trilogy, A Midnight Dark and Golden, was published in 2022. She currently writes YA and adult fantasy and urban fantasy. Before becoming an author, Holly worked for nearly a decade as a script reader for a wide range of production companies, including Working Title, the BFI and Pathé. She has a Diploma in Script Development from the prestigious NFTS and cut her teeth working in the film department of Aardman Animations. Since then she has worked as a development editor for Red Planet Pictures and as a development executive at Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios. Holly also runs a successful ‘Screenwriting for Novelists’ course and teaches creative writing at festivals and as a guest lecturer at Cambridge University’s ICE. You can find Holly on Twitter here: @Ecarylloh

Holly is an international bestselling author with five published novels to date. Holly is the international bestselling author of ‘Try Not to Breathe,’ ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes,’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’,  (Corvus) ‘The Hit List’ and ‘The Woman on the Bridge’ (Orion). After growing up in the English countryside obsessed with music and books, Holly worked in London as a journalist and editor. She now lives in South East England with her family. Alongside fellow author Gillian McAllister, Holly co-hosts the popular Honest Authors Podcast. Find her on Twitter here: @hollyseddon  

Janet has written three series of crime novels and is currently working on the third in a series set in Edwardian England with American Ursula Grandison as a private investigator. In her previous series, ten novels featured cordon bleu cook Darina Lisle, and three historical starred Italian painter Canaletto in mid-eighteenth Century London. Janet has also written contemporary women’s fiction as Julia Lisle, and food and cookery. She was included in a Times list of 100 masters of crime writing and has been a Writer in Residence at the University of Tasmania. She runs creative writing courses, particularly on writing crime novels (Writing Crime Fiction – Making Crime Pay, pub Aber). She is a past Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and is currently chair of the judging panel for the CWA International Dagger, awarded to both author and translator of the best crime novel of the year originally published in a foreign language. Janet loves encouraging novelists, and aims to stretch each writer’s abilities and encourage their ambitions.

Jenny Knight is a prize-winning writer of short story and memoir and a contributor to the celebrated Common People anthology, edited by Kit de Waal (Unbound, May 2019). An experienced editor, copy-writer, copy-editor and proofreader, she’s enjoyed 25 years’ successful freelancing for publishers including Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Routledge, and her writing on writing and the publishing world has appeared in Book Machine, National Writers’ Centre and Restless. Jenny was selected for PenguinRH WriteNow 2018, a 2019 Arts Council/TLC Award, is a NCW Case Study and has won or been shortlisted in competitions including Bridport, Fish, Arvon, ACE/Escalator, Yeovil, Riptide and SWWJ. She has a degree in English Literature and Drama, studied Creative Writing at UEA and is never happier than when writing, critiquing other writers or reading a diverse range of fiction and non-fiction. Find Jenny on Twitter here: @knightjennyk

As an experienced and exceptionally successful teacher of both English Language and Literature at A Level and additionally Theatre Studies, Jo’s particular strength is helping writers hone their skills and edit their work in order to achieve successful outcomes and realise their aims. She is also a well-qualified mentor of both adults and children. Jo has worked with ‘Daredevil Books’ who have re-published classics including Hillary’s ‘The Last Enemy’ and Birkin’s ‘Full Throttle’, proofreading scans and re-organising layout and punctuation. She edited ‘With a Little Help from My Lens’ by Tommy Hadley, a Beatles photographer, keeping the original voice but teasing out the sense of what was trying to be expressed. This year she interviewed Claire Fuller (shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction) focusing on her writing process, editing and creation of character and description. She runs sessions locally called ‘How to get more from Your Reading’.

Jon Curzon is a literary agent at Artellus Ltd., where he represents writers across fiction and non-fiction; from debut literary fiction (Kyra Wilder’s Little Bandaged Days and Ashleigh Bell Pedersen’s The Crocodile Bride) to titles in history and science (Christopher Othen’s The King of Nazi Paris and Lukasz Bednarski’s Lithium), and memoir (Emily Wells’s A Matter of Appearance). Books Jon has represented have been published in the UK, US, Germany, France, India, the Netherlands, South Korea, Greece – and have been reviewed and featured in the Guardian, The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Times, The TLS, and on Channel 4 News. Artellus Ltd. was established in 1986, and is best known for its work with Anthony Burgess. Recent highlights include the Booker-shortlisted Fiona Mozley (Elmet and Hot Stew) and Sunday Times-bestseller Rebecca Wilson (What Mummy Makes). In addition to his agenting work, Jon has also worked as a freelance editor for literary consultancies and creative writing courses since 2015.  

During a very successful teaching career spanning thirty-four years, Julie enhanced her editing skills while assisting students in reaching their goals before entering the publishing world. Her copy-editing and proofreading experience in publishing is wide and varied. She edits fiction in a broad range of genres from crime to romance, from fantasy to comedy, short stories, poetry collections and children’s books She has worked on non-fiction texts and case studies in the areas of psychology, self-help and autobiographies. She has also worked on educational publications such as a new reading scheme, KS1, 2 and 3 maths workbooks, student planners and teaching posters. Julie has written numerous book blurbs which have been complimented by the authors. She is a very conscientious worker, has a great eye for detail and always hits her deadlines. Julie is married with a grown-up son. She is a keen Masters’ swimmer, competing in events all around the country and abroad.

Juliet Mahony has over ten years experience in the industry, working as a rights manager, literary scout and agent. Her publishing upbringing was at Lutyens and Rubinstein where she started as an assistant, worked her way up to rights manager and finally took on clients of her own. During her time there, she worked with best-selling and award-winning writers like Mark Billingham, Claire Fuller and Hannah Richell. She still freelances for her former colleagues and helps prepare manuscripts for publication. Her clients have been published by leading houses, on lists such as Sphere, Scribner and Quercus. She’s worked for Jenny Darling & Associates in Melbourne with some of the biggest names in the Australian literary world and, most recently, as a literary scout. This breadth of experience has given her a unique and thorough understanding of the international literary appetite and what it takes for a book to stand out from the crowd.

Kate Rizzo works as a Rights Director at a London literary agency, and has worked at agencies her entire publishing career.  Her role in selling an author’s work abroad gives her a keen eye for what a manuscript needs to find a publishing home and captivate readers.  She has sold translation rights for writers like Laura Barnett, Lucy Clarke, Kate Davies, Joseph Knox, Maria Realf, Holly Seddon, Clare Swatman, and Sarah Waters, and has worked for a number of bestselling writers in genres as broad as crime/thriller, women’s fiction, literary, memoir, narrative non-fiction and the sciences.   Find Kate on Twitter here: @KateRizzz

Kathie is a screenplay, fiction, and nonfiction editor with more than 20 years of experience working with first-time writers to Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winners. At DreamWorks Pictures and The Mount/Kramer Company, she developed scripts for highly-acclaimed writers and directors, including Horton Foote, Sydney Lumet, Roman Polanski, William Friedkin, Philip Noyce, and others. She has vast experience mentoring both beginning and seasoned screenwriters and authors through all stages of the writing process, from concept to final draft. A former film editor, Kathie studied English literature at Northwestern University and screenwriting at Columbia University. Kathie’s own script, Loco Weda, was optioned by The Mount Company, and she is currently working on a novel and an oral history of homeless women, called Women Outside. She lives on Bainbridge Island, a ferry ride away from Seattle, Washington.

Katy was a journalist for 15 years before studying for an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University.  Her memoir, Are we home yet? (Jacaranda Books) was published in 2020 and praised by Bernardine Evaristo as ‘a gem’. It was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and the Portico Prize. In addition, her fiction and nonfiction has been widely anthologised, including Common People edited by Kit de Waal from Unbound, The Place for Me, published by Scholastic, and upcoming speculative collection Glimpse, from Peepal Tree Press. She has recently delivered her first novel, an unusual take on the crime genre, to her agent. It features Maureen, a hard-drinking but tender-hearted brothel-keeper in 1970s Leeds. She becomes unexpectedly drawn into the murder of a friend’s son, events which take place against the disturbing back drop of the Yorkshire Ripper’s murder spree.   Find Katy on twitter here: @TangledRoots1  

Kesia Lupo started her publishing career in 2013 as Editorial Services Assistant at Pan Macmillan London, working on copy-edits and proofreads largely for the SFF-focussed Tor list. In 2015 she was hired as Junior Editor at YA and MG fiction publisher Chicken House – over the following eight years she was promoted through Editor to Senior Editor, working with Costa Award-winning Jasbinder Bilan and Sunday Times-bestselling Pádraig Kenny among many other talented children’s writers. In 2023, she transitioned to the US and literary agenting, working at the Bindery Agency for a year which she represented adult and children’s fiction. Her clients included Marvellous Michael Anson (author of epic fantasy trilogy Firstborn of the Sun, launching with PRH in 2025) and Caroline Madden (author of darkly funny women’s fiction debut The Marriage Vendetta, publishing with Bonnier UK and HarperCollins US in 2025). Lastly, Kesia is a writer herself with three YA novels out with Bloomsbury UK – fantasies We Are Blood and Thunder and We Are Bound by Stars, and horror/thriller Let’s Play Murder.

Lesley is the author of fiction and non-fiction as well as short stories and was a literary critic for major newspapers.   Lesley is the author of two novels, The Picnic (Black & White Publishing), and Unfashioned Creatures (Saraband), with a third novel forthcoming 2023-24. She has also published non-fiction, Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers (Overlook Press), and for many years was a literary critic, reviewing regularly for The Independent on Sunday, The Sunday Herald, the Scotsman, The Times Literary Supplement, and others, before turning to full-time editorial consultancy. She is the recipient of three Creative Scotland awards, a Society of Authors grant, and was Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2014. She has been a judge for several literary awards, and chairs regularly at book festivals. Her agent is Ian Drury at Sheil Land Associates.   You can find her on Twitter @LesleyMcDowell1, or on Instagram at lesleywrites.

Liz Monument writes all kinds of fiction, including SF, historical, and horror. She believes that the mechanics of fiction are identical whether you’re writing literary, genre, or hybrids, and that the same principles can be applied to improve a manuscript regardless of its subject matter or style. Liz’s debut novel was short-listed for Mslexia Magazine’s unpublished novel competition in 2013, becoming a talking book in 2014 (Audible.co.uk), and a paperback in 2015 (Fahrenheit Press). Liz’s second novel ‘Iteration’ (Fahrenheit Press) was on the submissions list for the Arthur C Clarke Award, 2018. Her third novel, written for a PhD in Creative Writing, is a genre-bending fusion of dystopian, historical, SF and literary fiction.   Liz specialised in adult education and taught in the creative arts field for 22 years before becoming a full-time novelist and editor.   As of 2021, Liz is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Louise Tondeur writes fiction, poetry, plays and nonfiction and has supported countless numbers of writers with both written and verbal feedback. Before doing a Creative Writing MA at The University of East Anglia, she trained as a Drama teacher and brings her knowledge of the theatre into her conversations with emerging writers. In the noughties, she published two novels with Headline Review called The Water’s Edge and The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls, then she did a PhD at the Reading University, started a family, and became a Creative Writing lecturer, while publishing mainly poetry and nonfiction. In 2017, she left her full-time job to focus on writing. Her short story collection, Unusual Places (Cultured Llama), came out in 2018 and she is currently working on a series of crime novels set in Norfolk / Suffolk border country where her grandparents lived for 40 years. Louise now lives near Brighton with her wife, son, and two black cats and teaches on the Open University’s Creative Writing MA. She blogs at: www.louisetondeur.co.uk   Find Louise on Twitter here: @LouiseTondeur

Louise is an author, editor, mentor, and former indie publisher. She is the author of Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2014, and has self-published four further novels: A Life Between Us (2017), The Road to California (2018), The Hermit (2022), and We Are Family (2024). Louise Walters Books ran from 2017 to 2023, and published mainly literary novels and novellas. Louise was also the original publisher of fantasy author Laura Laakso’s Wilde Investigations novels, now published by Bloodhound Books. Louise continues to work as Laura’s editor on the series. Louise has a degree in Literature from the Open University, is an alumni of the Jericho Writers Self Edit Your Novel course (2013), and was a volunteer with the Womentoring Project. Find Louise on Twitter here: @LouiseWalters12

Margaret Kirk writes ‘Highland Noir’  – Scottish fiction with a gothic twist, set in and around her home city of Inverness. Her debut novel, Shadow Man (Orion), won the Good Housekeeping First Novel Competition in 2016. ‘A harrowing and horrific game of consequences’ according to Val McDermid. What Lies Buried, book 2 in the DI Lukas Mahler series, was described as ‘an absolute cracker’ by Caroline Green and ‘Tartan Noir at its very best’ by the Daily Mail. Book 3, In The Blood, was released in April 2021. Margaret is also the writer of several award-winning short stories. ‘Still Life’ was broadcast on Radio 4 as part of their ‘Scottish Shorts’ series, and ‘The Seal Singers’ (Das Lied der Seehunde) has been published in translation in Germany and Switzerland.   Find Margaret on Twitter here: @HighlandWriter

Mark is a manuscript assessor, editor and author who’s twice topped Blackwell’s bestseller list. He began his writing career taking advice and receiving manuscript assessments by professionals on his own debut novel, so he knows what it takes to become published and secure an agent. He’s the author of five books and an Associate Editor for Fledgling Press. Mark has produced detailed editorial reports, manuscript assessments and submission reviews for clients in the UK, EU and North America. He also provides expert advice on submission packs, and how to grab the reader from the first page of your novel. As an author, he is represented by literary agent Jon Wood at RCW. Mark has appeared at literary festivals in the UK, US and the EU, and also performs improv as part of the author touring group Four Blokes in Search of a Plot.

Martin is a writer, editor, teacher and musician. He has twenty years’ experience as a writer, reviewer, manuscript assessor, structural editor, writing teacher, line-editor, copy-editor and proofreader. His fiction has appeared in a range of world-renowned publications including Esquire, The London Magazine and New Writing (Picador). Martin has received numerous prizes for his work, including first- and final-year prizes for outstanding achievement in the School of English and American Studies (UEA BA), the Alumni Association prize for fiction (UEA MA), a Hawthornden Fellowship, two Arts Council writer’s awards, and a Wingate Scholarship in literature. He has taught widely, for the British Council, the Arts Council, at City, University of London, UEA, Holland Park School and elsewhere. He recently completed his novel Frugality with the generous support of Arts Council England.