Our Editors

Holly is an international bestselling author with three published novels to date.

Holly Seddon is the international bestselling author of Try Not to Breathe, which has been translated into nearly 20 languages and has sold around 300,000 copies in all formats across the world. Her follow up thriller Don’t Close Your Eyes was released in 2017 and became a number one audiobook. Love Will Tear Us Apart, Holly’s first women’s fiction novel, was published in 2018 and shortlisted for the Hearst Big Books Award, 2019.

Her fourth novel, thriller After Dark, will be published in early 2021 by Trapeze (Orion). Holly has particular interest in crime, thriller and literary women’s fiction. Alongside fellow author Gillian McAllister, Holly co-hosts the popular Honest Authors Podcast and has recently started her first solo podcast, The Second Act with Holly Seddon. She was previously a journalist and editor, specialising in feature writing with particular interest in parenting, fitness and lifestyle. Holly lives in Amsterdam with her husband, four children and two dogs.

An experienced teacher and mentor, over the years Sibyl has helped many writers realise their ambitions. Artists she has worked with have gone on to win literary prizes and awards.

After studying English at Cambridge, Sibyl Ruth went on to publish two small press collections of poetry and win the Mslexia Poetry Competition. Her poems have been widely anthologised and broadcast. She has also scripted and presented two features for Radio 4. Listen to Them Breathing was about Quaker poets while Terezin Dreams considered the poetry written by her German-Jewish great aunt Rose Scooler, while she was in a concentration camp. She lives in Birmingham and has been the city’s Poet Laureate.

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.

Emily spent five years working closely with primary agents as part of the Translation Rights team at a prestigious London based literary agency.

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.

Victoria has a First Class Honours Degree in Media Writing and has worked in the publishing industry for 14 years.

She spent 5 of those years in senior editorial roles at Macmillan Education and Pearson, bringing English Language Teaching courses to worldwide publication in both print and digital format. Working closely with authors and teachers during the development process, she also managed and edited the list of Macmillan graded Readers – both fiction and non-fiction – writing supplementary material to support teachers and learners of the English language. She is a qualified EL teacher and has taught in Oxford schools and colleges. She holds copy-editing and proofreading certificates from the London School of Publishing.

Anastasia has an MA in English Literature from Oxford and has lived in London, Venice and Cairo. She has worked as a temp, a nursery teacher and most recently a defence lawyers’ secretary.

Anastasia Parkes is an Oxford educated 50-something wife and mother of three living in Hampshire . She has two creative personae: as Anastasia she writes ‘human interest’ articles for The Times, The Daily Mail, The Lady and The Tablet where her schtick is to tackle, with humour and honesty, intensely personal topics such as single motherhood, older parenthood, living with multiple sclerosis, and life as a young English teacher in 1980s Cairo.  Many of these are explored in her short story collection Stabbing the Rain and two novels (written under the pseudonym Maria Lucas) Daddy’s Girl and Loved Ones which are all available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

Primula Bond is her alter ego and the successful author of the classy and explosive erotic romance trilogy The Silver Chain, The Golden Locket and The Diamond Ring, published by Harper Collins. Primula has delivered workshops at the York Festival of Writing and Eroticon in Bristol on how to write sex scenes and Anastasia has taught general short story techniques.

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.

Nicola Mostyn has twenty years experience in working with creativity, as an arts journalist, columnist, editor, writing coach and the author of two novels and one non-fiction title.

Nicola’s debut The Gods of Love was shortlisted for The Writers’ Guild Best First Novel award, became an I-news top ten debut, a NetGalley top read and an Amazon bestseller. The sequel, The Love Delusion, followed in 2019.

Nicola’s non-fiction title, Seven Creative Gremlins, was written in conjunction with a Life Coach and is aimed at helping writers combat common psychological blocks. She runs the website TheUnstoppableAuthor.com, offering support, inspiration and tough love to aspiring and established writers. Nicola has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from The University of Manchester and a certificate in Teaching Creative Writing Workshops from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Liz Monument specialised in adult education and taught in the creative arts field for 22 years before becoming a full-time novelist and editor.

Liz 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, and a paperback in 2015. Liz’s second novel ‘Iteration’, a composite SF story, 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.

Haydn Middleton has been an author and tutor for almost forty years.

Haydn is probably unique in having published quite so many books on such a wide range of subjects – both fiction and non-fiction, for both adults and for children – although some of them are really very short indeed! Many have been translated into foreign languages. Details can be found on his website www.haydnmiddleton.com. The Observer said of his most recent novel for adults, The Ballad Of Syd & Morgan (Propolis, 2018), ‘Haydn Middleton brilliantly imagines a meeting between Syd Barrett and E M Forster’. His next adult novel, The Actual Whole of Music, is to be published in May 2021.

His latest work of fiction for children The Girl Who Said No to the Nazis (Pushkin, 2020) tells the true story of the 1942-43 White Rose plot against Hitler & Co. A historian by training, and a lifelong devotee of fantasy/SF, he has worked as an editor at Oxford University Press, taught creative writing around the world from England to America to Greece and Australia, and he currently tutors students from Stanford University USA on the Bing Overseas Studies Program.

Lesley is the author of fiction and non-fiction as well as short stories and is a literary critic for The Herald.

Lesley McDowell is the author of two novels (The Picnic, 2007 and Unfashioned Creatures, 2013) and a work of non-fiction (Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers, 2010). She has a PhD from the University of Glasgow on the work of James Joyce, and for two years was Teaching/Research Fellow at the School of English, University of St Andrews.

After leaving academia, she carved out a new career for herself as a literary critic, reviewing and writing for such publications as The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Herald, The Scotsman, and The Independent. During that time, she won two Creative Scotland writing awards, and in 2014 was Writer-in-Residence at Gladstone’s Library. Her own work has been reviewed in The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, The New York Times Review of Books, and she has been shortlisted for the Scottish Book of the Year.

She is currently signed to Ian Drury, literary agent at Sheil Land, London, and has completed her third novel, A Peck of Dust, about a Victorian woman accused of murder.

Morwenna has nearly a decade’s experience as a commissioning editor at HarperCollins and Penguin Random House.

Morwenna’s worked with globally bestselling and award-winning authors such as Hilary Mantel, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Brené Brown, Marie Kondo, Tim Ferriss, Edward de Bono, Nigel Slater and Max Hastings.

Her focus is predominantly on non-fiction – ranging across personal development, memoir, business and cookery to psychology and true-crime – as well as some literary fiction, thrown in for good measure. Morwenna is also a literary agent and regularly participates in ‘Agent’s Table’ discussions, giving one-to-one manuscript feedback to authors.

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.

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 (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.

In a career spanning more than thirty years Brian has written nineteen children’s novels for a variety of age ranges.

Published in the UK by OUP, Barrington Stoke, Heinemann, Orchard and Hachette Children’s Books, his books have been translated into twenty foreign languages and sold all over the world. His fantasy trilogy The Promises of Dr Sigmundus was acquired by Random House in the USA for a six figure sum and film rights have recently been optioned by Goodcountry Pictures.

His first book for adults, The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire, a historical novel set in the early nineteenth century, was published by Holland House in 2016. For a number of years Brian worked in theatre. His plays for young people, performed widely in the UK and Europe, were published by Stanley Thornes Ltd.  He has also written over thirty educational books. He taught Creative Writing on the summer programme of Pembroke & Kings Colleges Cambridge. He has been Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London College of Fashion and Goldsmith’s College London.

Sam Jordison is a co-director at Galley Beggar Press, the award winning indy press.

He has extensive editorial experience and knowledge of the book world – and has also been on the other side of the fence, having written several best selling works of non-fiction, including the notorious Crap Towns series, the best-selling I Spy for adults series, a book about Literary London (co-authored with Eloise Millar), political books like Enemies Of The People and The 10 Worst Of Everything.

As a journalist, he mainly writes for The Guardian, and mainly about books. He runs the Not The Booker Prize, and the Guardian’s online book club, The Reading Group. He has also taught about publishing on several Creative Writing university courses, as well as teaching a course on publishing at Greenwich University and journalism at UEA.

Becky has over five years’ experience in publishing, at both Penguin Random House (Transworld) and Hachette (Headline). Part of the PR team, she has worked across a variety of genres.

Becky has successfully launched many debut authors, as well as regularly attending pitch and acquisitions meetings and taking part in women’s fiction, crime & literary focus groups. Campaign highlights include debuts The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena and The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton, brand authors such as Jo Thomas, Cathy Bramley and Harriet Evans, and launching Rachel Abbott’s first traditionally published book, And So It Begins. She previously read for the Bent Literary Agency, grading and passing the more promising submissions through to agents. She currently works freelance in publishing, in both an editorial and PR capacity.

Caroline Hulse is a writer of book club fiction with offbeat humour. Her work has been published in fourteen languages and optioned for television.

Caroline is the author of The Adults (2018) and Like A House On Fire (2020), both published to significant critical acclaim and attracting glowing press reviews. Her upcoming novel, All The Fun Of The Fair, will be published by Orion in the UK/Commonwealth in 2021. Her work’s themes are best exemplified by the phrase, ‘the road to (comedy) hell is paved with good intentions.’

Caroline has a degree in English Literature from the University of Sheffield. She worked in Human Resources for seventeen years, writing books in the evenings and weekends, before becoming a professional writer. Caroline lives in Manchester, UK, with her husband and a small controlling dog.

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.

Charlotte is an editorial professional with over five years’ experience in the publishing industry, three of which were spent in the Fiction Editorial team at HarperCollins.

Having specialised in creative writing as part of Charlotte’s English Literature degree, she went on to edit for the fiction and non-fiction creative writing journal Route 57, where she developed her love of collaborating with writers.

At HarperCollins, she worked with the J. R. R. Tolkien and Agatha Christie estates, on women’s fiction and romance titles such as Debbie Johnson’s Summer at the Comfort Food Café, and on unique non-fiction publications, including the Fantastic Beasts movie tie-ins.

As a freelance editor, she has worked one-on-one with every type of writer, from first-time to published authors, and her ability to coach clients through the writing and editing process with clear, constructive feedback has led to several successful publications and a five-star Reedsy review rating.

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 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.

Rosie has worked as a novelist and as writer, mentor and editor in theatre, television, magazines, advertising, comedy and the corporate market for more than 30 years.

Rosie Fiore was born and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is a teacher of creative writing, effective business writing and English. She has also studied playwriting with the National Theatre. Her most recent dramatic project was a stage adaptation of Dracula.

Rosie’s has had eight novels published. She is published by Struik, Quercus and Allen & Unwin under her own name. This Year’s Black and Babies in Waiting were both longlisted for the South African Sunday Times Literary Award. Rosie is also published by Orion as Cass Hunter. The After Wife was translated into nine languages and optioned for a film in China.

Susan Davis is an award-winning short story writer and novelist with over twenty years’ experience as a fiction editor, mentor and tutor.

Her published fiction includes the Y/A trilogy: The Henry Game, Delilah and the Dark Stuff, Mad, Bad and Totally Dangerous – Pengun Books (Corgi).

Writing under the pseudonym Sarah Vincent, she also published a psychological thriller in 2014: The Testament of Vida Tremayne – Three Hares Publishing.

The Gingerbread Wife is an anthology of her slipstream short fiction, a mixture of magic-realism and the traditional ghost story.

Susan’s short fiction has been short-listed for the Asham Award, and won many other prizes. Stories have appeared in magazines such as Mslexia, Raconteur, Momaya Review, Staple, Metropolitan, Chapman, Panurge and appeared in anthologies such as Best New Horror. They have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Aside from her editing work at Jericho Writers, Susan has tutored Arvon Courses, taken part in several mentoring programmes, and acted as a Literary Adviser to West Midlands Arts.

Tanya Byrne is an award-winning author of four contemporary YA novels, the first of which earned her a nomination for New Writer of the Year at the National Book Awards.

Her books have been published around the world and have been translated into Spanish, German, Italian and Polish. She has also contributed to several short story anthologies, including A Change is Gonna Come, which won the YA Book Prize and was the Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week. Last year, she wrote Floored, a collaborative novel with Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Non Pratt, Melinda Salisbury, Lisa Williamson and Eleanor Wood. Her agent, Claire Wilson at Rogers, Coleridge & White, represents some of the best children’s and YA authors in the country, including Katherine Rundell and Sally Green. A regular at festivals like YALC, Hay and the Edinburgh Festival, Tanya is passionate about diversity in publishing and encouraging writers from marginalised backgrounds to tell their stories.

Megan Collins is the author of the psychological thrillers The Winter Sister (2019), Behind the Red Door (2020), and The Family Plot (2021), all published by Atria/Simon & Schuster.

Megan holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University, and she taught creative writing for twelve years. Throughout her teaching career, she guided many of her students through the process of writing and revising work that then went on to win prestigious regional, state, and national writing competitions. Many of her former students have since had their work published. Megan is also the managing editor of 3Elements Review, a prompt-based literary magazine, where one of her duties is to provide extensive feedback (on the developmental and line-edit levels) to submitters who pay for such services.

Wes Brown is a writer, editor and researcher with a background in the publishing industry and many years’ experience of teaching creative writing.

Wes was the founding editor of Dead Ink Books, young writer’s co-ordinator at the National Association of Writers in Education and has worked freelance for many literature organisations. He’s published novels, short stories, reviews and poems, and is currently writing an auto-fiction about his time as a pro-wrestler.

Wes has taught Creative Writing at the University of Kent, the University of East London and the City Lit and he’s also been awarded a CHASE PhD scholarship to research Narrative Non-Fiction. He is currently undertaking research at the University of East Anglia as part of a collaborative project investigating the future of literature and the written word.

Wes strongly believes in working with authors to achieve their own artistic ideals rather than project his own. Wes loves non-fiction narratives, memoirs, contemporary fiction and YA.

Described by acclaimed short story writer and novelist Dan Rhodes as ‘one of my favourites’, Richard is the author of Hound Dog (Jonathan Cape), the story of a depraved Elvis impersonator on the run.

Mixing dark humour with scenarios both banal and fantastic, Richard Blandford has walked the line between the comic and the horrifying since 2004. He is the author of the Elvis impersonator novel Hound Dog (‘Squalid, raucous and wildly entertaining’ – Dan Rhodes), the coming-of-age tale Flying Saucer Rock & Roll (‘He has captured everything’ – John Higgs), and Whatever You Are Is Beautiful, a new eBook about an illness that turns people into superheroes. He is also the author of the short story collections The Shuffle and Erotic Nightmares.

His art survey London in the Company of Painters was published by Laurence King in 2017 and was listed by Martin Gayford as one of the art books of the year in The Spectator, and a London book of the year in the Evening Standard. A comic strip horror story, ‘The Fixer’, appeared in David Lloyd’s online comics anthology Aces Weekly in 2019. He has written articles for the Guardian website and the art periodicals Frieze and Elephant, and has been a literary consultant since 2007.

Natasha is an author, PhD researcher and creative writing teacher. Her debut psychological thriller, His Perfect Wife, was published by Penguin in 2018 and her second novel, This Nowhere Place, is due out in early 2021.

She’s also published short stories, memoir and creative non-fiction.

Stylist labelled His Perfect Wife ‘2018’s most gripping psychological thriller,’ The Guardian called it ‘an astutely written, complex debut,’ and Publisher’s Weekly awarded it a starred review.

Natasha holds an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths and is currently working on a practice-led PhD in autofiction. She teaches introductory and novel-writing courses at City Lit, mentors for The Riff Raff, and previously worked as a sub-editor at The Press Association.

She loves narrative in all forms, but has a particular passion for psychological suspense, women’s fiction and stories that blur the line between truth and fiction.

She’s lived in the US and the UK, and currently resides in south-east London.

Anna Barrett (née Hogarty) is a book editor and former literary agent with the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.

With more than ten years’ experience in the publishing industry, Anna mentors writers at The Writers Space, and edits on a freelance basis for a variety of publishing houses, literary agencies, writers and brands from around the world.

As in-house editor for the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, Anna worked with writers such as Gail Honeyman, Fiona Barton, Elizabeth Kay and Elizabeth Macneil on their novels ahead of their publishing deals. Previous to this, Anna worked in the editorial departments of John Murray, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline and Atlantic Books, where she saw a variety of titles through from acquisition to print, from bestselling fiction to illustrated books.

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.