From Our Students Posts

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.

We are thrilled to announce that Liz Xifaras is the winner of the Marian Keyes Novel-Writing Scholarship. Liz has joined the 6-month online novel-writing course, taught by Lisa O’Donnell, which kicked-off this week. We received over 200 applications, the most that we’ve ever had for a scholarship place, and competition was hot! We are immensely grateful to everyone who […]

Dawn Goodwin studied on the very first of our online writing courses in 2013 – alongside fellow novelists Alice Clark-Platts and Catherine Bennetto. Her debut novel The Accident a gripping psychological thriller was published last year by Head of Zeus imprint Aria. Here Dawn discusses how the CBC course helped her to finish that first novel and then go on to write her second thriller The Pupil  (published […]

Jo Jakeman studied on our six-month online novel-writing course in the spring of 2016, taught by CBC veteran Lisa O’Donnell. Her debut novel Stick and Stones was snapped up at auction by Harvill Secker in a high-profile deal, and came out in hardback on July 12th. Sticks and Stones is a thriller centered on three very different women all […]

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. […]

Catherine Bennetto was a student on our first ever online novel-writing course in autumn 2013, and after the course she gained representation from CB’s Alice Lutyens. Her debut novel How Not to Fall in Love, Actually was published as an e-book and then in paperback (S&S), and took a fresh, laugh-out-loud look at contemporary romance. Her second novel, Make Or Break, is out […]

Heidi Perks took our online novel-writing course back in 2013, and after impressively self-publishing her debut Beneath the Surface in 2016, her second psychological thriller, Now You See Her, was bought by Century in a major deal. Here she shares five important lessons she’s learnt about writing psychological thrillers … One of the very first things I remember my CBC tutor, Chris […]

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 […]

Regular 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 […]

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 […]