21 June 2018
Rae DelBianco Rae DelBianco: At CBC I was judged by the quality of my writing, not my CV or pedigree
Author Interviews, From Our Students, Novels by CBC Alumni, Student SuccessesRae DelBianco was a student on our London novel-writing course in 2015 – in fact she came over from the US for six months specifically to study on our course! Her much anticipated debut Rough Animals was published by Arcade in the US earlier this month, and is currently being translated into French and Italian. We caught up with Rae to discuss […]
21 June 2018
Laura Marshall’s Three Little (Writing) Tips
From Our Students, Novels by CBC Alumni, Student Successes, Writing TipsRegular readers of this blog will already be familiar with Laura Marshall – whose psychological thriller Friend Request became an instant bestseller when it was published last year. Laura took one of our London-based creative writing courses, and rapidly went on to secure representation with Curtis Brown agent Felicity Blunt and UK publication with Sphere (part of Little Brown). A US publication deal with Grand […]
15 June 2018
How writer Rachel Marks hooked her agent, Alice Lutyens
Author Interviews, From Our Students, From the Agents, Student SuccessesRachel Marks took our 3-month online novel-writing course taught by Lisa O’Donnell back in 2016. Now her debut novel has been sold at auction to Michael Joseph (part of the Penguin Random House group) via Curtis Brown agent Alice Lutyens, who represents more former CBC students than any other literary agent – including Jane Harper, Kate Hamer and Catherine Bennetto. Rachel’s novel, Love […]
15 June 2018
Sam Eades on Write Your Own Love Story – a new competition
Events, Guest Blog, Writing TipseHarmony and Trapeze Books recently announced the launch of the Write Your Own Love Story competition – a creative writing competition for unpublished writers dedicated to finding the new great love story. The winner will be offered a publishing contract with Trapeze – worth £10,000 – as well as mentoring from Trapeze author Anna Stuart. One lucky […]
11 June 2018
Developing and writing crime series
From Our Students, Novels by CBC Alumni, Student Successes, Writing TipsGeoff Sanders worked on an early draft of his novel The Taken Girls on our 3-month London-based novel-writing course back in 2013. I remember intensive discussions with him about plotting – particularly the decision to split his original complex idea into two separate novels – and about the development of his series detective DI Ogborne […]
08 June 2018
Scholarship student gets major book deal: ‘I swear I slipped into another reality, someone else’s life.’
Author Interviews, From Our Students, Novels by CBC Alumni, Student SuccessesWe are utterly thrilled to say that Kiare Ladner, the current HW Fisher scholar on our London-based novel-writing course, has just landed a major book deal. Nightshift, the novel she was working on in class, has been snapped up by Picador in a deal agented by Curtis Brown’s Cathryn Summerhayes. We caught up with Kiare to […]
08 June 2018
From left, Rachel Marks and Lisa O'Donnell The road to success: One writer’s journey from first page to major publishing deal
Author Interviews, From Our Students, Novels by CBC Alumni, Student SuccessesRachel Marks took our 3-month online novel-writing course taught by Lisa O’Donnell back in 2016. Now her debut novel has been sold at auction to Michael Joseph (part of the Penguin Random House group) via Curtis Brown agent Alice Lutyens, who represents more former CBC students than any other literary agent – including Jane Harper, Kate Hamer […]
04 June 2018
Writing tip & task 7/7: Finding the right title for your novel
Events, Writing TipsDay 7: OK, so today is me – Anna Davis – back for more. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to have the last word in our 7th birthday 7-day writing challenge. We’re finishing up with titles. Sometimes they come to you unbidden and perfect, leading you into your story (utter joy!). At others you […]
03 June 2018
Photograph by Chris O'Donovan Writing tip & task 6/7: Creating a sense of place
Events, Writing TipsDay 6: It’s extremely lovely to be introducing Laura Barnett, number-one-best-selling author of The Versions of Us and Greatest Hits – and the newest member of the CBC teaching team. Laura joins our six-month London-based novel-writing course as a guest tutor this Autumn – teaching three sessions – so do take a look if you’re a […]
02 June 2018
Writing tip & task 5/7: Plotting a strong story arc
Events, Writing TipsDay 5: The next CBC tutor to take up the baton in our 7 days of writing tips and tasks is bestselling children’s-author Catherine Johnson, who teaches our 3-month online course on Writing YA and Children’s Fiction. Catherine’s a massively popular tutor, who has now taught more courses for CBC than anyone else, and who also writes […]
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