From the Agents Posts

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, Love […]

Who’s laughing? … Apparently not the 2018 judges of The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction, as they have announced that the prize will not be awarded this year. We asked Curtis Brown literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes for her views on what this means for the comic novel – and which books are making her laugh this […]

The laws around email communication and data protection are changing on 25th May to give you more control over your personal data. We’ve updated our privacy policy and are asking our newsletter subscribers to re-opt in. If you’re already a subscriber, don’t forget to re-opt in on the email you will have received from us on May 9th. […]

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 really good tips on writing and pitching. There’s […]

Uber-Agent Jonny Geller has been a strong supporter of Curtis Brown Creative, since its conception, and has come in as a visiting speaker to more of our creative writing courses than anyone else.  Here he talks to us about how he got started as an agent, what he’s looking for now, and what makes him […]

Curtis Brown agent Sheila Crowley represents a brilliant list of clients, including the likes of Jojo Moyes, Clare Mackintosh and Santa Montefiore. She was recently shortlisted for Literary Agent of The Year at The British Book Awards. She’s incredibly passionate about the authors she represents, and here she offers some of her insights on new publishing trends, and the ‘bumps in the road’ […]

The UK weather for this Easter bank holiday is not looking great – but there’s nothing like a good novel to brighten up a rainy Easter weekend. We asked the literary agents from Curtis Brown and C+W  to tell us what books they’ll be curling up with whilst munching their chocolate eggs and hot cross buns, and […]

Lisa Babalis has worked editorially with the Curtis Brown literary agent team and their clients for some time. Now she’s building her own list of YA and children’s fiction. We asked her to tell us more …  Hi Lisa, What you do at CB and what you did before you came to the agency? I work […]

In the excitement of typing ‘The End’ on your completed first draft, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re all set to start sending your work out to literary agents (many students on our creative writing courses have fallen into this trap). But I would always recommend you go the extra mile (or indeed the […]

Whether you’re preparing your application for our next set of three month courses (in London and online), or getting ready to formally submit to an agent, nailing those first few chapters is absolutely crucial. So what can you do to make those 3,000-word openings as strong as possible? Here’s what a few of the agents from CB […]