Author Interviews Posts

Nikki Smith took not one but three Curtis Brown Creative writing courses back in 2017, starting with two of our 6-week online courses before applying to and then securing a place on our 3-month online novel-writing course. Nikki initially ‘met’ her agent – C& W’s Sophie Lambert – during an online agent feedback session on this longer course and decided to […]

Louise McCreesh was awarded the HW Fisher Scholarship in 2016, giving her a fully-paid place on our 3-month novel-writing course in London. Her novel stood out to the CBC team for its unique narrative voice, which powerfully expressed the mental frailty and anxiety suffered by many of us – and which deployed that voice in […]

Eleni Kyriacou is our fifty-fifth former student to get a commercial publishing deal. Eleni’s historical novel, Five Days in December, was acquired by Hachette following their first ever open submissions scheme: The Future Bookshelf. Eleni’s debut tells the story of Dina, a Greek Cypriot immigrant newly arrived in London in the 1950s, who is enticed into new dangers while trying to better […]

Our London-based novel-writing courses all feature sessions where the literary agents from Curtis Brown and C&W come in as visiting speakers with their author-clients or leading publishers. These evening events give our students a great chance to find out about the reality of publishing and pick up some insider knowledge on writing and pitching. There’s […]

Welcome to the first in a series of Curtis Brown 120 blog posts that will be hosted in the CBC blog across the year, celebrating Curtis Brown’s 120th birthday. These blogs will include exclusive interviews with authors, agents and publishers; writing tips; industry insights – and much more besides (you can meet the team behind […]

Karl Newson is a professional children’s book writer and illustrator – and he gives editorial feedback to the students on our new children’s picture book courses. Karl is the author of A Bear is a Bear (except when he’s not), Here Comes the Sun, Fum and Little Grey’s Birthday Surprise. He’s also illustrated children’s picture books such as Superchimp by Giles Paley-Phillips […]

Karen Cole was a student on our Writing YA and Children’s Fiction course taught by Catherine Johnson, but it was during her time studying with us that she discovered her talent for writing thrillers. Here she tells us more …

It’s always an exciting moment when we welcome a new tutor onto the CBC roster. We’ve been huge fans of Laura Barnett since her wonderful debut The Versions of Us came out in 2015, so we’re pretty chuffed to have her join the teaching team. She’s just finished a guest teaching stint on our current six-month course, […]

Ella Dove studied on our 3-month London-based novel-writing course, back in the Spring of 2015. She was a lively, funny, self-deprecating student – very sociable and always smiling. She was also a very talented writer, though I think she won’t mind my telling you that she hadn’t yet settled into the right novel at that […]

Clare Pooley is the author The Sober Diaries, a memoir based on her experience of getting sober and overcoming breast cancer. She took a 3-month novel-writing course in London with us earlier this year, taught by Charlotte Mendelson, in order to turn her talent for writing towards fiction. Now her debut novel The Authenticity Project has been auctioned […]