Abby Davies is the author of Mother Loves Me (2020) and The Cult (2021), both published by HarperCollins, and Arrietty (2023) by Apple Loft Press.

Abby has an incredible eye for pace and tension, both on a sentence-by-sentence level and across the entirety of your manuscript. She’ll tease out what needs to be done to make a manuscript work, whilst telling you what you’re already doing well.

Claire is an experienced journalist, writer and editor. She has been coaching and mentoring writers for nearly 15 years.

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.

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. Clare is a published author of two novels, Definitions (2015) and We Are of Dust (2018).

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.

Jon Curzon is a literary agent at Artellus Ltd., where he represents writers across fiction and non-fiction. Client’s he has represented have been published in the UK, US, Germany, France, India, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Greece.

In addition to his agenting work, Jon has also worked as a freelance editor for literary consultancies and creative writing courses since 2015. His perspective as an agent allows him to precisely identify what’s working in your manuscript and what needs tweaking in order to take your work to the next level.

Lesley is the author of fiction and non-fiction as well as short stories and was a literary critic for major newspapers. 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.

Lesley’s knowledge of the market and publishing as a business shines in every report she does, as does her enthusiasm for the art of storytelling.

Dexter Petley is an experienced editor, acclaimed literary novelist, memoirist and translator. As a long serving editor with Jericho Writers, (since 2005) many of Dexter’s clients have achieved considerable success in finding agents and publishers.

Dexter does not shy away from complex themes or influences. His expertise spans entire genres, from commercial book club to war fiction. He takes everything in his stride, turning his fastidious, but fair, eye to anything at hand – making you a better writer for it.

Holly is an international bestselling author with six published novels to date. She is also a mentor and tutor on our Ultimate Novel Writing Course.

Holly is endlessly supportive and encouraging of every writer we send her way. We love her concise and on-point editorial style.

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.

A former bookseller, Russel McLean is an author, editor, and teacher. He has worked for publishers of various sizes as a developmental editor, including work on one book that was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish Crime Fiction at the Bloody Scotland Festival. He has also run masterclasses in fiction writing for festivals, universities and creative writing groups, as well as advising MLitt students on the fiction element of their dissertations for the University of Dundee’s crime writing and forensics course.

Philip is the author of The Other Book and The Liberators (Bloomsbury). The Liberators was a Children’s Book of the Year for 2010. He teaches Creative Writing to BA and MA students at London University, and has been a literary critic for nearly twenty years, as well as a freelance journalist for a variety of national newspapers and magazines.

Philip is known for his honest and well-informed editorial reports – particularly those he does for children’s authors and sci-fi and fantasy writers. Philip is also a Tutor on our Ultimate Novel Writing Course.

Cecile Shanahan is an experienced editor and proofreader who adores helping writers to make their words shine. She has a special interest in children’s and young adult literature and educational publishing, but often works on general fiction and non-fiction titles too.

Since joining Jericho Writers she has assisted more than 20 authors to progress their writing projects through agent submission pack assessments, manuscript assessments, developmental edits, copy edits, line edits, proofreading and post-editorial support.

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.

Deirdre brings a keen editorial eye and in-depth knowledge of the market, and spends more time reading children’s fiction than anything else.

Naomi has over eight years’ experience working in children’s publishing. She began her career at Puffin (Penguin Random House) before moving to Orion and then Hachette Children’s Group. Her previous experience as a Rights Manager brings invaluable insight into maximising a book’s sales potential and she has worked closely with both UK and international editors to develop a good knowledge of global publishing markets and trends.

Naomi has a BA (Hons) in English Studies from the University of Nottingham and is a keen reader and writer. Naomi has been working as a freelance editor and mentor helping other children’s writers to develop their manuscripts and craft for over four years.

Pippa began her children’s book career as a bookseller and advisor to publishers before beginning to write books herself. She’s had over a hundred titles published, some of them award-winning.

For the last quarter century, Pippa has combined writing her own books with teaching and critiquing to develop writing for children skills in others.

To date, Pippa has had over 140 picture books, early readers, and MG novels published.

Victoria’s wide experience of writing and editing includes children’s picture books through to teen fiction, education and teachers’ books, academic writing, and general fiction and non-fiction. She has worked for publishing houses, universities and individuals. She advises and mentors authors, sometimes over many years.  Children’s books, especially picture books, remain her passion.

Even though her editing background is in traditional publishing, Victoria is very interested in the self-publishing route as it provides opportunities to ‘do things differently’. She is also keen on writing for the pure joy of it.

Teresa has worked in children’s publishing for 27 years. She’s an editor and an award-winning author, with 11 picture books and 80 educational books published.

Teresa worked in-house as a Commissioning Editor for Heinemann and Oxford University Press before going freelance, and now combines editorial work with writing picture books and books for young readers.

Love of family history was the start point for Vee Walker’s unique début novel Major Tom’s War (Kashi House), which evolved from a narrative non-fiction account of an unlikely WWI courtship into gripping historical fiction.

Vee writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels are so closely based on archive material that they can be used as academic source texts.

Vee honed her writing/editing skills as a heritage consultant for 20+ years, working with museums and natural/cultural/historic sites throughout the UK. Her poetry and descriptive writing can be found within unusual interpretive installations on mountains, in forests and along the coast.