Meet Elliot Sweeney, our latest HW Fisher Scholarship winner
BY Katie Smart
23rd Nov 2018
We’re delighted to announce that Elliot Sweeney has been awarded the HW Fisher Scholarship for his novel-in-progress Brown Eyed Girl. Elliot has won a fully-funded place on our 3-month novel-writing course taught by Charlotte Mendelson in London. Elliot is the sixth talented writer of limited financial means to study on one of our selective entry London-based creative writing courses with fee fully-paid by HW Fisher & Company Chartered Accountants. Brown Eyed Girl is a stylish crime noir with a distinctive, first-person narrative voice: When the suicide of a troubled young woman eerily re-enacts the death of his daughter five years prior, the circumstances are too close to the bone for troubled ex-copper Kasper. So begins this tale of vice, blackmail, and entrenched familial denial as he seeks redemption, not only for the young woman, but also for himself. At CBC we were impressed by Elliot’s vibrant writing and his unique take on crime noir (of which he's a fan, particularly of hard-boiled investigative writing). We're delighted that he's joined our Autumn novel-writing course. Elliot is psychiatric nurse and is using this knowledge to inform his plot and characters. Since the birth of his son, Elliot has had less time for writing. He told us: 'I was drawn to Curtis Brown Creative for the unique blend of innovative teaching and industry insights your courses offer. I’m so looking forward to being able to interrogate my draft over the next three months and make Brown Eyed Girl the best novel it can be. A big thank you to HW Fisher and CBC for entrusting me with this sought-after place.' The CBC team would like to thank HW Fisher for their ongoing support of our courses through this scholarship program, which has been running since Autumn 2015. The HW Fisher sponsorship of CBC started when Andrew Subramanium, a partner in HW Fisher’s media group, working with an impressive roll-call of writers, musicians and artists, got talking to CBC’s MD Anna Davis. That first conversation, over three years ago, quickly led to the development of a scholarship programme that has funded two students per year ever since. Andrew had this to say about the HW Fisher novel-writing scholarship: 'It’s so important that people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to grow their talents as writers. The creative arts are essential to the UK’s future development. At HW Fisher we’ve been advising and guiding authors for many years and believe it is crucial to support the young writing community. With that in mind, we’re delighted to sponsor two Curtis Brown Creative Scholarships each year.' Earlier this year our fifth HW Fisher scholar, Kiare Ladner, landed a major book deal for her scholarship-winning novel Nightshift. Her debut was snapped up by Picador in a deal agented by Curtis Brown’s Cathryn Summerhayes whilst she was studying with us. Since her course, Kiare’s career has gone from strength-to-strength and she was recently shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2018 for her short story ‘Van Rensburg’s Card’, which you can listen to on BBC Radio 4. We are dedicated to finding talented writers and helping them to get the best out of their novels. We are keen to find writers through scholarship programmes who would not otherwise have been able to take our courses. Keep an eye on our scholarships page for details of new writing scholarships that will be running in the New Year. If you’re currently working on a novel, take a look at our selective entry novel-writing courses. Our spring 2019 courses are currently open for applications: Six-Month Online Novel-Writing Course with Lisa O’Donnell or Six-Month Novel-Writing Course in London with Laura Barnett. Or, if you’re writing YA or children’s fiction why not take a look at our dedicated selective entry online course for Writing YA and Children’s Fiction with Catherine Johnson.We also run three short online courses at budget-price designed to help writers at different stages of their novel-writing journey: Starting to Write Your Novel, Write to the End of Your Novel and Edit & Pitch Your Novel – all starting in January 2019.