Author Interviews Posts

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 […]

Julia Armfield was one of the VERY talented bunch of students on our second-ever London-based novel-writing course in 2011 – along with Kate Hamer, James Hannah, Annabelle Thorpe and Tim Glencross, to name just a few (there will be more deals from that group yet, mark my words). Julia was the youngest on the course […]

It’s been quite a year for Struan Murray, who took our London-based novel-writing course way back in 2013. For Struan – as for many of our students, the path to publication has been long and started out bumpy: he finished a novel and gained an agent soon after his CBC course, but not a publisher.

Ann-Marie Howell is our 50th former novel-writing student to get a major publishing deal. Her debut middle grade novel, The Garden of Found and Lost, will be published by Usborne in 2019. Ann-Marie was a student on our online Writing YA and Children’s Fiction course back in 2015 (check out this blog about her time on the course). Here we […]

David O’Connell, is an author-illustrator and he leads our new Writing a Children’s Picture Book course. His first illustrated children’s chapter book, Monster & Chips, came out in 2013, and he worked with Sarah McIntyre (who leads the Illustrating a Children’s Picture Book course) on the children’s picture book Jampires. He has also collaborated with Sam Watkins, Francesca Gambatesa and Tom Nicoll. His latest children’s chapter book […]

We caught up with author-illustrator Sarah McIntyre who is one of the tutors on our brand new online children’s picture book courses. Sarah leads our Illustrating a Children’s Picture Book course, her solo picture books include There’s a Shark in the Bath, Dinosaur Firefighters, and The New Neighbours. She has also worked with writers like David O’Connell (who leads our new […]

Angela Chadwick was a student on our 6-month online novel-writing course in 2015. Angela’s debut novel XX was one of Sharmaine Lovegroves’ first acquisitions for the new Little, Brown imprint, Dialogue Books, and will be published in hardback and ebook this October. XX follows a lesbian couple who take part in the first trial of ovum to ovum fertilisation. […]

Rae 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 […]

Rachel 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, The […]