Author Interviews Posts

Jane Porter is an award-winning picture book author and illustrator. Her books include titles such as The Boy Who Loved Everyone (written by Jane Porter, illustrated by Maisie Paradise Shearring), So You Want To Be An Owl (written by Jane Porter, illustrated by Maddie Frost), Pink Lion, King Otter, and most recently Tiny Penguins and the New Baby. Jane also gives […]

We’re delighted to announce the winner and runner-up of the inaugural Discoveries Prize, selected by our judging panel from the 2,300+ unpublished women that submitted their works of fiction. The winner of the prize is Emma van Straaten, her novel-in-progress Heartstring takes inspiration from her time working as a cleaner within her own London block […]

Recently, our students were treated to a very special webinar with Claire Fuller, bestselling author of four novels, including Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize in 2015, and Unsettled Ground, which is shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021. These webinars are an exclusive component of our Writing Your Novel courses, […]

Heather Darwent has studied on two of our online courses; our six-week Edit & Pitch Your Novel course and our selective three-month Writing Your Novel course. We were excited to hear the recent news of her book deal, her debut thriller The Things We Do to Our Friends is to be published by Viking in 2023. […]

Simon Ings is an author, editor and regular tutor of our online courses. He has written eight acclaimed books including The Weight of Numbers and Dead Water as well as the science fiction novels Hot Head and The Smoke. We’re thrilled that Simon is the co-tutor on our upcoming six-month online Writing Your Novel course (apply by 9 May). We […]

Sue Divin was a student on our six-week online Edit & Pitch Your Novel course back in 2018. The novel she worked on during the course – Guard Your Heart – is out now from Macmillan. We caught up with Sue to find out more about her time on the course, her approach to writing […]

Claire Alexander wrote her debut novel Meredith, Alone during our six-week online How to Write Your Novel course series (Starting to Write Your Novel, Write to the End of Your Novel and Edit & Pitch Your Novel). The book was recently pre-empted by Michael Joseph in a major six-figure deal and rights have also been […]

Christina Sweeney-Baird is an author and freelance journalist. She is represented by Curtis Brown literary agent Felicity Blunt. Her highly anticipated debut novel The End of Men is to be published by Borough Press 29 April 2021. The End of Men is a compelling dystopian novel, when a mysterious illness sweeps through a hospital at […]

Damhnait Monaghan studied on our six-month online Writing Your Novel course back in 2014. Her debut novel New Girl in Little Cove is out now in Canada (HarperCollins) and will be published in the UK and US next month. We caught up with Damhnait to talk about the writing community she met on our course, […]

Emilia Hart was a student on our three-month Writing Your Novel course in 2020. After the course she gained representation from Curtis Brown’s Felicity Blunt. Felicity sold Emilia’s debut Weyward to Borough Press in an exciting 48-hour pre-empt deal, it will be published in spring 2023. We’re thrilled to say that Emilia is now our 125th former […]