Tag: literary agent (page 1 of 4)

Writing Short Courses Summer News Roundup 2024

We hope you’re all having a great summer and continuing to write and create wonderful stories. Here’s our latest short writing course alumni and tutor news to spur you on…

The Novel Studio

Lara Haworth’s debut novel Monumenta was published earlier this month with Canongate and is already receiving rave reviews. You can read an interview with Lara on our blog here.

Jo Cunningham’s debut cosy crime novel Death by Numbers will be published in early August with Hachette. You can pre-order here.

Anna Mazzola’s latest novel, The Book of Secrets, was a Times Historical Novel of the Month in March. Anna’s previous novel, The House of Whispers, won the Historical Novel of the Year at the Fingerprint Awards 2024.

Marta Michalowska has a piece published in Strings Mag.

Darren Wimhurst, who has just graduated from The Novel Studio, was shortlisted for the Writers Rebel Flash Fiction competition 2024.

 

Other Writing Short Course Alumni

Caroline Green’s Crime Writing alumna Tania Tay has published her debut thriller, The Other Woman, with Headline Accent. You can buy a copy here.

Author Tania Tay

Tania is also the author of the Spellcasters middle grade series, in collaboration with Storymix Studio and has written a screenplay, developed with BBC Writersroom London Voices. You can read an interview with her on our blog here. And find out about the festival she’s organising in our opportunities section.

Katy Darby’s WW and SS writing alumni have been as prolific as ever. Bestselling alumna Natasha Brown’s second novel, Universality, has been sold to Faber in a six-way auction. The book will be published in 2025.

Peng Shepherd has published her fourth novel, All This And More, and has been on a whistle-stop book tour in the US appearing on national television. You can follow her travels here, and buy her book here.

Author Peng Shepherd

Fiona Keating’s debut Smoke and Silk has been sold to Mountain Leopard Press, an imprint of Headline Hachette. The hardback is scheduled for March 2025

 Han Smith published her debut novel Portraits at the Palace of Creativity & Wrecking with John Murray Originals this month. Richie Jones’s short story “Curriculum Vitae” was shortlisted and published in the Scratch Books Summer ’24 A4 Competition for 1000-word stories. Hugh Todd published his first book, a novel-in-stories/linked short story collection called It Happened in Clissold Park, in June 2024.

Peter Forbes’ Narrative Non Fiction alumnus Ed Morgan has sold his book: Chasing Mallory’s Dream – How 1930s British and German climbers competed to overcome the Himalayan Giants to Bodleian Library Publishing, due out in 2025. In a rather lovely virtuous circle, Ed’s editor will be Janet Phillips who was one of our Novel Studio graduates several years back. Another alumna Susanna Morton has been longlisted for the Observer/Burgess prize.

Holly Rigby’s Narrative Non Fiction  alumna Nicole Gleeson has had an article published in Shado Mag on the back of doing the course.

 

Martin Ouvry’s Novel Writing and Longer Works alumna Philippa Dunn has just signed a deal with children’s/YA super-agency Darley Anderson.

 

Jem Bartholomew’s Fact Based Storytelling student Pamela Welsh, was one of the winners of City Writes for a piece she wrote for the class.

 

Tutor News

Narrative Non Fiction  tutor Peter Forbes has a new book coming out in May called Thinking Small and Large: How Microbes Made and can Save our World, due to be published with Icon Books in May 2025.

Martin Ouvry’s article ‘How creative writing courses benefit a writer’ has been reprinted for a second time in the 2025 edition of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. (WAYB 2023, 2024, 2025)

 

One-day Courses

There are plenty of options for anyone keen on one-day writing courses: our ever-popular Introduction to Copywriting with Maggie Richards is available monthly; while our Writing the Memoir course is now taught by the brilliant Anna Wilson. And the dynamic duo of Anna Tsekouras and Pete Austin, aka Anon Agency, run our Intro to Branding course. Next term we will also introduce a brand new course, Content Writing, taught by the fabulous Tamsin Mackay.

 

Opportunities

Novel Studio alumna Flora Tonking has shared this opportunity for a writing residency in Paris which sounds amazing!

Our Writing for Social Impact course continues to offer a scholarship for one young student (18-25) from an underrepresented background and/or facing financial difficulty. Please contact the tutor, Ciaran Thapar, for more information on this opportunity.

All current students of Introduction to CopywritingWriting for Business and Narrative Non-Fiction courses are eligible to submit an idea for a blog post for short courses. If the idea is accepted, and the written piece meets our standards, it will be professionally edited and published on our blog.

Crime writing alumna Tania Tay is running an East and SE Asian author literature festival at SOAS on 14th September with some mentoring sessions and feedback sessions from agents and an editor. There is also a crowdfunding page for the festival for anyone who would like to support this great initiative.

Holly Rigby is running a writing retreat here with a 50% bursary for low income writers.

Open Evening

And finally, we are hosting a virtual open evening on Wednesday 11 September, 18:00 – 19:30 (BST) giving you the opportunity to take part in free taster sessions in writing courses such as:

Along with other sessions in other subject areas from business to computing, to graphic design and languages. You can register for the event here.

 

That’s all for now. Keep on writing and keep your stories coming into us. And huge congratulations to all our alumni and tutors.

 

Starry Night: The Novel Studio Showcase 2024

 

 

Alumna Anna Mazzola introducing the evening of readings

By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

There’s nothing like a Showcase reading event filled to the brim with new creative writing talent and this year’s Novel Studio 2024 Showcase was a scintillating night to remember. Who needs the excitement of the election when you can listen to fourteen authors, just graduated from the year-long Novel Studio course, reading from their novels-in-progress? What a treat.

We began by celebrating the fabulous talent of the Novel Studio’s alumni. From long-term course supporter and founder of the Novel Studio Scholarship, Harriet Tyce, through Novel Studio tutor, Karia Ladner, Deepa Anappara, Elizabeth Chakrabarty, Hannah Begbie, Attiya Khan, Katharine Light, Greg Keen, all the way to Lara Haworth whose debut, Monumenta, came out the same night as the Showcase and Jo Cunningham whose debut, Death By Numbers, comes out next month. This wonderful list keeps growing and we were lucky enough to hear from another alumna, Anna Mazzola next. Having published her fifth historical thriller, The Book of Secrets, earlier this year, Anna has her first legal thriller, Notes on a Drowning, out next year with Orion. She gave a wonderful endorsement for the course, not only for the craft skills it nurtures but for the importance of creating links with other writers who can share your journey and for the connections to the industry that events like the Showcase and the Anthology can bring. Anna always lights up a room, virtual or in-person, with her vibrant energy. It was a great message of realistic but enthusiastic well-wishing to the students in the early days of their writing careers.

Before we heard from the students, we wanted to thank City academic George Politis for taking on the Novel Studio Scholarship scheme for the next five years. Now known as The Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship after George’s late father who was a passionate supporter of education, the scholarship provides a fully funded place for one successful applicant to the course from a low-income household. Thank you, George!

With all this good will behind them, we began the readings with Darinka Aleksic who read from the opening of her novel, Afterglow, as her protagonist Kay, a forty-something mother of three, takes her first exploratory trip with psychedelic drugs in an effort to cure her depression. The wry voice of Kay with its compelling dark humour left us all eager to find out what would happen next.

NOVEL STUDIO CLASS OF 2024

We went from Islington to Notting Hill next, dabbling our toes into the romance of MJ Hershaw’s novel, Terms of Agreement. Sitting with Charlotte in her flat, we were stunned to hear her grouchy neighbour Aiden ring her bell and ask a very unexpected favour. Would she be his girlfriend? It was hard to pick up our jaws and move on but we went from one surprise request to a futuristic hook up next with Darren Wimhurst, reading to us from his novel, Business as Usual.

Darren took us into the not-so-distant future of a sexercise class with haptic suits and sex bots. The awkwardness of the encounter for his character, Kurt, wasn’t virtual at all. What a sharply affecting and darkly funny extract from a spell-binding and politically sharp speculative novel.

From the near future to an alternative present, we delved into Ani Bazil’s Young Adult novel, Unravelling Reality, next where humans are not quite what they seem. Ani tantalised us with a prologue in which a body is left for dead – though we see their finger twitch – and an opening chapter in which some kind of trick is about to take place, putting a group of letchy, rowdy men in their place.

Left wondering what was about to happen, we went from a London pub to a charity piano recital next as Amanda Bolt read from her novel, A Life in the Past Tense. We listened as Caroline’s dreams of restarting her pianist career were interrupted by the news of the death of her parents in a car crash.

From the hush of loss, to the excitement of a teenage girl released into the world after lockdown, we were taken to Harrogate next as Margaret Rogerson read from her novel, I Came of Age, Twice. Margaret took us into the heat and confusion of those early days when lockdown was lifted. Her protagonist Charlotte made it halfway down the road with her dad, waylaid by a neighbour cleaning his car, his family visible behind him lounging in a large paddling pool and passing round a spliff. Eventually, Charlotte manages to march on to the park, her dad stumbling back to the house, defeated by it all.

We took a turn back to Surrey in 1995 next with Lesley-Jane Easles-Reynolds who read from her novel, It Could Happen to You. We listened in on a conversation between Sam and her brother as they discussed the strangeness of their small inheritance from recently deceased cousins who had promised to leave them all their wealth. Burdened by debt, Sam is both desperate for the money and desperately upset at the deaths of her cousins. What has gone on?

From fishy, underhand, financial dealings to a ship on the Nile, we jetted off to Egypt next with S Ross and a moment of shipbound contemplation as she read from her novel, Emmy. Such a lyrical piece, her character Emmy sits listening to the call to prayer and contemplating her late marriage, suddenly ended when Emmy discovered John had been cheating on her for years. Could she still pray after all that had happened?

Taking a moment to soak up the emotional complexity, we went from the Nile to Reading with Joe Gallard as he read from his comic novel, Alan and the AI. Alan is late for work and despite being disarmed by the charm of his new neighbour Nat, who had inspired him to write poetry it was probably best he never shared, he struggles to say anything meaningful and heads out into the rain.

Giggling away, we were transported to fantasy land of magic and mayhem next with Deliliah Miller’s middle grade fantasy novel, Between Wind and Water. We listened as Atha’s magic was somehow released and enhanced to devastating effect by a book that falls from the shelf of a wonderful library in the land of Draoidheil. What evil has Atha unwittingly released?

Caught in the drama, we had to tear ourselves away from the magic of fantasy to a child’s fantastic interpretation of a nighttime car journey next as W H Marie read from his novel, My Shadow, My Brother. The motorway drive turns lamplight into starlight and the car into a rocket hurtling through space. Will’s reading was tender and heartfelt, the mother of the story a figure whose eyes flash different colours to reflect her mood.

We went up to Scotland next for some timely comedic relief with Emma Warrick’s novel, The Husband Freezer. Emma showed us a typical morning at the charity as her protagonist, Margaret went about cleaning the loos and contemplating the sorry state of her sex life. She couldn’t even find the time or place for a fiddle with her rampant rabbit.

Next up, Jill Craig took us to Northern Ireland with a reading from her novel, The Weight of the World. We were gripped by a painfully raw and intimate scene in which Jill’s characters, Rory and Camille argue over implications of bringing children into a flooding, burning world. Desire and anger, exhaustion and bitterness left both the characters and the audience in a state of longing.

Our emotions heightened we were off to France next with our last reader, Flora Tonking, reading from her mystery novel, Chosen Family. Set in a beautiful countryside chateau, Alex is woken on Christmas morning by a shriek coming from the bathroom. What has happened? Who is on the bathroom floor? As with all the wonderful novels of the evening, you’ll have to wait for the novel to be published to find out!

Ending on a hook was the perfect conclusion to an evening of fantastic readings. With some further words of thanks to the Novel Studio team, Emily Pedder and Kiare Ladner; to the wider City University staff, particularly Robert Lastman and Laura Bushell; to George Politis again for his support of the Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship; to brilliant Novel Studio students; and to the audience, we ended on a note of congratulation. Go Novel Studio 2024, we can’t wait to hear of your future success.

These students are writers to watch, but don’t just take my word for it, you can watch a recording of the night, here, and read the wonderful extracts in the Novel Studio Anthology 2024. Congratulations Novel Studio 2024 cohort on a wonderful evening!

Interview with City short course alumna and debut novelist Tania Tay

Tania Tay is the debut author of The Other Woman, published in May 2024 with Headline Accent.

Tania first wrote stories and plays on her mum’s old typewriter in the school holidays. She worked as an advertising copywriter in agencies from Singapore to London – which was great training in writing commercial fiction. One day at a job interview, she was asked if she was a “brave writer”. It triggered her join a short story class at the City Lit, with Leone Ross where she wrote a few weird, dark tales. Her writing explores female friendship, and the relationship between mothers and daughters. Occasionally there’s a supernatural twist. Tania is the author of the Spellcasters middle grade series, in collaboration with Storymix Studio. She has written a screenplay, developed with BBC Writersroom London Voices. Tania is second generation British Malaysian Chinese. She studied History of Art at the University of Edinburgh and lives with her family in East London.

  1. What inspired you to write your novel and how did the idea for the story come about?

 

The idea came from a writing exercise where I had to imagine if I lost everything in my life. At the time, my children were younger and I was a stay-at-home mum. I imagined what would have to happen for me to lose my husband and children.

 

  1. Why did you choose to write in the thriller genre? What is it about this genre that interests you most?

 

I’ve always enjoyed reading psychological thrillers where the suspense is more in the mind than in spilling blood and guts. The threat of danger to ordinary people going about their everyday lives is terrifying, as what if…. these things happened to me?

 

  1. When did you first think you wanted to be a writer?

 

I’m first and foremost a reader. I’ve always been a book worm and started writing plays as a child, inspired by fairy tales and stories I loved. I worked as a copywriter in advertising, but I never thought I could be a proper writer of fiction until I did a short story writing class at the City Lit.

 

  1. You took our Crime Writing short course at City, how helpful was it in the development of your debut thriller?

 

The course was invaluable. At the time I’d mainly been writing for children. Caroline Green was so inspiring with her personal journey about how she’d made the change from writing YA to writing adult crime. She introduced us to some brilliant crime fiction excerpts, many of which I’d never read. She set short writing exercises, and we teamed up with people in the class to discuss ideas. The course really got my imagination going. Soon after taking the course, I started writing the novel that’s now my debut.

 

  1. How important do you think feedback from writing groups and creative writing courses is?

 

Trusted feedback has been really important for me. I’ve been a member of various critique groups over the years. But I’m very careful about who I choose to trust to give me feedback. I only work with creative writing tutors and peers who enjoy reading and writing similar genres to my own. I don’t see my work as literary, but commercial so I surround myself by other writers who enjoy reading and writing commercial fiction. Before I signed up for Caroline Green’s course, I’d read her books and knew that I enjoyed her work and that she would be a great teacher for me.

 

  1. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced while writing your novel?

 

To keep going, even when I got stuck. I knew I needed some big twists but I didn’t know what they could be. I had to draft and redraft until I found them.

 

  1. What has the route to publication been like for you?

 

It’s taken me a LONG time… years! I had short stories published in 2002 but could never finish a whole novel. I kept trying different genres including children’s and YA. I queried my first YA novel in 2018 and had some nice rejections. My debut adult suspense novel was started in 2018. I worked on it for over a year with the help of a tutor. Then I re-drafted it again. In April 2022 I was shortlisted for an open submissions competition with Headline and had to finish another draft by August. In September, I won a publishing contract, and it was finally published May 2024.

 

  1. Which writers inspired you as a younger author, and who inspires you now?

 

I’ve always loved mysteries – As a child and teenager, I read Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, Georgette Heyer. I’ve always enjoyed psychological thrillers, like Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Damage by Josephine Hart, Ian McEwan and Margaret Atwood. Currently, my favourite authors are Lisa Jewell, Louise Candlish, Lucy Foley, Ellery Lloyd, Sabine Durrant, Lucie Whitehouse, Araminta Hall, Lauren North, BP Walter.

 

  1. What advice would you give to other aspiring writers who are thinking about publishing a novel?

 

Read a lot in the genre you enjoy, and analyse your favourites. Take a short course or do some writing workshops to inspire you. Surround yourself with writers and get involved in the writing community, whether on social media – Instagram and twitter – or by going to festivals. Be nice to people and tell other authors when you enjoy their work. Write them nice reviews! It’s a long and can be lonely path to publication, so you need to find your writing tribe to share the ups and downs with. When you’re finally agented and have a publishing deal, these will be the people who will happily give you endorsements, reviews and shout about your books to everyone.

 

  1. What are you working on now?

 

A destination thriller set on a luxury resort on a Malaysian island. A group of colleagues from an advertising agency re-unite for a party, but there are secrets from the past casting a toxic shade over the festivities. And then a dead body is found.

Thank you so much, Tania! We wish you every success with your debut novel and all the many novels to come. We can’t wait to read the book!

To order Tania’s novel, visit HERE.

For more information about Tania and her writing, visit HERE.

To sign up to an intensive week-long summer school version of the course Tania took at City, visit HERE.

For all information on our writing short courses, visit HERE. Or for all our other short courses, please visit HERE.

Interview with Lara Haworth, author of debut novel Monumenta

Author and artist, Lara Haworth

Lara Haworth is a writer, visual artist and filmmaker. In 2018 she was accepted onto City’s flagship year-long novel writing programme, The Novel Studio. She was also the winner that year of our Literary Agent Competition. Always tipped for success, last year Lara sold her debut novel, Monumenta, to Canongate. The novel will be published this summer. We caught up with Lara to find out more about her writing life and her journey to publication.

 

  1. Have you always written?

Yes. As soon as I was able. I wrote my first story aged four in a small notebook on my mother’s desk. Its protagonist was a knight who comes across three forking paths, and cannot decide which one to take. Goodness gracious, I wanted to him to say, as he realises the choice lying ahead. I spelt it goodness gracars.

2. Which book was the first to have a real impact on you as a reader, and which as a writer?

The first book I read that made me realise there was something other than just a story going on was The Great Gatsby. I was eleven. Much of it went over my head, the unrequited love, the critique of wealth, the disillusion. But I remember Fitzgerald describing the ‘silver pepper of the stars’ and looking up at the sky and actually gasping. So that’s what you can do, I realised. And maybe this, too, and this…

Fast forward twenty-three years, and my life is in some disarray. (This is an understatement.) I was visiting friends in Spain and started reading Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Want to Know. About three chapters in I felt an overwhelming pressure, as if a dam was breaking somewhere in my heart, or my throat, or my knees. I started to pace up and down and up and down this beach, gripping the book like it was a hand, pulling me up from a deep well. It gave me a kind of ferocious, blistering instruction to write, properly, seriously, now. It said, There is nothing else for you. When I got back from Spain, I applied to the Novel Studio. I still have the book. It has these white-knuckled dents in the cover.

3. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Don’t expect anyone to find you, and your writing, without telling them where you are or what you’re doing. Don’t imagine that this is something you can do on your own. Don’t be frightened. (You will also be frightened.)

4. Why do you write and what makes it so vital for you?

When I’m in the excavating, mining stage, it rolls on a scale between because I have to and because I want to. Sometimes, when the I want to is struggling, because I am tired, or frightened, or stuck, or distracted, the I have to engages more fiercely, as more of a grim-faced imperative, shaking its head and pulling me back to my desk, to my thoughts, my subconscious, until the I want to returns in equal measure, to provide a lift. At its best, they both work together, and that is when you’re flying.

When I’m redrafting and editing, things get bigger, wider. I picture the reader: their joy, their woe, their precious time. If I can illuminate something – a feeling, a place, the way a potato slices open in a ‘90s deli – that impresses on a reader a sense of recognition, and a slightly different way of seeing and thinking about the world, then that is also why I write. There’s politics there too. I write to smuggle in difficult histories, strange emotional realities, and I try to centre queer lives, so long obscured in the literary canon.

5. Do you think writing can be taught? And relatedly, can you tell us a bit about your experience of being on writing courses?

When I was a teenager, I was at a friend’s house, whose father worked in publishing. Over dinner, he went on an extended rant about how you couldn’t teach creative writing, how all his authors had always written, and that was the only thing that could possibly matter. Perhaps because I didn’t know anyone else that worked in publishing and I wanted to be a writer, I really took his words to heart. It was a bad decision. From that moment on I avoided creative writing classes, and chose instead to write alone, in secret, thinking: I’m writing, and this is what I’ve always done! Someone will find me and recognise my labour. They didn’t. And the longer I wrote in secret, the more my fear grew about sharing my work. Every now and then I would submit something to a ridiculously prestigious magazine or journal and then be crushed when I was (inevitably) rejected. A pretty sad cycle, that I thankfully managed, eventually, to break. I wish I had done it sooner.

While I do think that there needs to be some ineffable something to your writing to get the best out of a writing course, there are a whole host of things you simply cannot get on your own. Like, learning how to build a novel, which is architecture. Learning how to edit, how to build pace, when to cut, when to trust your reader, when to give them more. This you learn by submitting your work to be read by your peers. And you’re not ready. But then you become ready. And the readiness grows. And that expectation, that deadline, is generative. It makes you a better writer.

My time on the Novel Studio was completely transformative in this respect. Being read. It was such a relief. Even if the feedback was hard, I would still sometimes feel very emotional on the tube home, seeing all those different handwritings in the margins of my manuscripts. And it was a privilege to read my peers’ writing too – to lose myself in their worlds, and bring my sensibilities as a writer to their work. The course also taught me that books don’t live in a blank space. They’re deeply connected to the world, most pressingly, the publishing world. All of the things that I had so studiously avoided for so long: talking about my work, emailing agents, trying my luck, writing pitches – all had to be done. And it was so very helpful to be given the tools to do this, to knock on all those guarded doors.

6. Can you tell us a bit about your experience of getting a publishing deal? Has anything been surprising, in a good or bad way?!

During the Novel Studio, one of my tutors revealed that her first novel did not get picked up for publication. I remember so vividly the shock I felt, as if she’d reported her own death. I glimpsed how painful that must have been for her. Perhaps because it had been such hard work to even get to that point, it was something I hadn’t considered –– even though the evidence, should I need it, was all around me, told again and again by many of my favourite writers (Hilary Mantel!).

A year and a half later, I was telling the same story. I wasn’t so naive that I thought I would definitely get a publishing deal for my first novel, but it did seem like finishing the final draft and working through more rounds of rolling rejections to get an agent might mean I was finally there. I was, of course, wrong. My first novel was not picked up. It was an extremely painful experience. Loss. A kind of grief. By that point I had gone from extreme secrecy about my writing to extreme exposure – and, in the way of all worst nightmares, my failure was also happening on a very public scale. Everyone knew.

Full credit to my partner, who after watching me mooch around in my depression for a while, said, The only thing that’s going to help now is getting back to work. She was right. I had started writing Monumenta in the summer of 2020. I went back to it in autumn 2021, and within two months it was finished. The rejection had actually sharpened my writing, made me care less about failure. I was able to take more risks. I carved a chunk out of it and submitted it as a short story to the Bridport Prize, and actually won. Very unexpected. This was the catalyst for my agent to submit it to publishers.

I’m still surprised Monumenta got picked up. It doesn’t really conform to any of the silent rules of the industry. It’s short. It’s about monuments, and difficult European history. I couldn’t think of any other books to compare it to. In the end, we had two offers and went with Canongate, who have always been my dream publisher. Securing the deal took two extremely nerve-wracking weeks. Sometimes I still can’t believe it’s real. I think what I’m trying to say with this very long-winded answer is that risk and failure are not just part of the process, they are the process, they influence and change the work in rich and strange ways.

7. Which fiction writers inspire you currently?

Mariana Enriquez. Wendy Erskine. Olga Tokarczuk. Jenny Erpenbeck. Colson Whitehead. Deborah Levy. Kevin Barry. Christina Sharpe. Lan Samantha Chang. Anne Enright. Sebastian Barry.

8. Do you have a particular writing process? Favourite place or time of day to write? Any rituals?

I work best when I have dedicated chunks of time. I’m not, sadly, one of those writers that can write for fifteen minutes in the morning and then get on with their day. It’s a whole day / night thing. It’s all or nothing. I have chosen a more unsettling, unstable line of freelance money earning, so that I can work manically for periods and save up, and take time off to write. This functions in some senses, but during dark nights of the soul it can feel fundamentally unsensible and wrong. When I am writing, I have a target word count every day, and that can take anywhere between two hours and a whole day to achieve. I’m lucky to have my own little writing space in our house, which overlooks the street. So I still see a little bit of life, going by.

9. Are you someone who plans and plots before you write or do you write to discover the story? Or both?!

I start with at least one person (who’s already been talking to me in my head for a while), a place, a primary situation, and a sense of its undertows. But I write to discover. I feel quite strongly that that’s my job – to go to that weird place of half dream and subconscious. A dark, dark forest. It’s a constant tussle between being in control of my material and also letting my material have some control. To let it go. I think that plotting it all out at the start would essentially mean executing a plan, and that’s not really the point, for me. It’s not a report. It’s got to be deeper than that. About a third of the way through I start to see what’s happening, where the loops and patterns and connections are, what the characters are wanting to do, and not do, say, and not say.

10. And to finish, what are you working on now?

Lara’s debut novel, Monumenta

I’m halfway through my third novel, which is called Julie Needs Things. All my novels are different, but this one feels harder than the others. It takes place over a long period of time, it’s told in the first person, it’s set in the UK, it contains some autobiographical elements. Yet it is a work of fiction. I wrestle with telling stories from my own life. I feel, instinctively, that it might not be interesting.

Thank you so much, Lara! To pre-order Lara’s novel, visit HERE. And for more about Lara and her work, visit HERE.

For anyone inspired to join The Novel Studio, applications are now open with a 30 June deadline. Please email any questions to Emily.Pedder.1@city.ac.uk

For all our other short writing courses, please visit HERE.

Deadline for Novel Studio Applications Fast Approaching!

Calling all budding novelists…

  • Have you always wanted to write a novel?
  • Are you looking for support and guidance to help you develop your novel?
  • Would you like to understand more about the publishing industry and connect with literary agents?

City’s Novel Studio offers an intensive novel writing programme that supports 15 selected students to work on their novels for a year.

From researching your ideas and planning to writing, editing and understanding the publishing industry, the programme provides comprehensive guidance through the complexities of novel writing.

The course has been the starting point for many successful novelists. From bestselling crime writer Harriet Tyce, whose fourth novel, A Lesson in Cruelty, was published with Wildfire earlier this month—and who generously initiated and funded our Novel Studio scholarship for four years—to debut novelist Lara Haworth, whose first novel, Monumenta, will be published with Canongate this summer, the Novel Studio has become recognised as a place to develop and grow as a writer.

The course is taught by established writers and editors, and it includes opportunities to meet with literary agents and publishing professionals.

In addition, we offer a Literary Agent Competition for all successful applicants to the course, run in association with leading agent Lucy Luck at C&W Agency.

And for one talented writer from a low-income household, we have The Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship, providing full funding for the course.

Full details on all these opportunities and information on the course are available here.

Or you can apply directly with 2000 words of your fiction and a CV to Emily.Pedder.1@city.ac.uk

The deadline to apply is approaching quickly. If you’re ready to take your novel writing to the next level, consider applying to The Novel Studio.

Deadline 30th June 5pm.

We look forward to reading your applications!

Here’s a Novel Idea

Apply to the Novel Studio and join our growing list of published alumni.

The Novel Studio is City’s flagship novel writing programme which supports 15 selected students to work on their novels for a year.

The course has been the starting point for many successful novelists. From bestselling crime writer Harriet Tyce, whose fourth novel, A Lesson in Cruelty, was published with Wildfire earlier this month—and who generously initiated and funded our Novel Studio scholarship for four years—to debut novelist Lara Haworth, whose first novel, Monumenta, will be published with Canongate this summer, the Novel Studio has become recognised as a place to develop and grow as a writer.

From researching your ideas, plotting and planning to writing, editing and familiarising yourself with the publishing industry, the programme will guide you through the tricky terrain of novel writing.

Taught by established writers and editors, with opportunities to meet literary agents and publishing professionals, if you’re ready to take your novel writing to the next level, this course is for you.

As if that wasn’t enough, we offer a Literary Agent Competition for all successful applicants to the course, run in association with leading agent Lucy Luck at C&W Agency.

And for one talented writer from a low-income household, we have a fully-funded scholarship – The Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship.

Full details on all these opportunities and information on the course are available here.

Or you can apply directly with 2000 words of your fiction and a CV to Emily.Pedder.1@city.ac.uk

Deadline 30th June 5pm.

We look forward to reading your applications!

Novel Studio alumna Katharine Light’s path to the publication of her debut novel, Like Me

Katharine Light’s debut novel, Like Me

When I was a young girl, my dad used to make me little books of paper and I would love to write in them. In my teens these became stories I wrote for my younger sister about a girl who falls in love with the bass player of a pop group. Absolutely not based on John Taylor from Duran Duran.

Later on I tried my hand at writing a Mills & Boons. At around 50,000 words it was great practice, but not quite the right genre. When my children were small, I did a year long creative writing course with the Open University. Two years later I did the advanced version. Then, working full-time and a busy family life meant I kept writing only sporadically until 2018 when I started The Novel Studio at City, University of London. It was a brilliant year with excellent tutors in Emma Sweeney, Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and Kirstan Hawkins. Fourteen of us completed the course, meeting twice a week and sharing our lives through writing. They are a very supportive and talented bunch.

At the end of the year, I had interest from three agents, and signed with one at A M Heath. This is it, I (naively) thought, on my way to publication… Sadly, during lockdown, having worked on this first novel, Like Me, (her suggestions definitely improved it), she said she wasn’t the right person to take it forward. This was followed by a dispiriting lack of response from several agents she recommended as well as the two who had previously shown interest.

Throughout the pandemic, the Novel Studio cohort kept in touch, via a WhatsApp group. Before covid, about half of us carried on meeting in person, and carried over onto zoom. Laurence Kershook published The Broygus to Amazon in March 2022. Fellow alumna Lara Haworth’s book Monumenta will be published by Canongate in 2024.

On publication, I bought Laurence’s book in paperback and was very impressed. It’s a high quality, professionally produced book, as well as a terrific read, and I began to think maybe I could do that too. Independent publishing seeks to emulate the traditional publishing route, with a professional book edit from the wonderfully talented Emily Pedder at The Book Edit, and a great book cover from designer Simon Avery of Nice Graphic Design. Caroline Goldsmith of Goldsmith Publishing Consultancy ensured the manuscript was print and eBook ready, and Philippa Makepeace of Studio Makepeace created the website. My advice is to surround yourself with people who know that they’re doing!

There was one major hiccough. The book has always been on the long side, and when it was first uploaded to KDP Amazon, although author royalties sounded generous, the print costs on the paperback version were so high, they were almost entirely swallowed up. After a drastic re-think, I cut fifty pages of the book, and added those onto the beginning of book two, which has now become two books. The manuscript for book two has just gone to the editor. The hope is to publish both that and book three in 2024.

There was a point at which I began to feel that the traditional publishing route was becoming less and less likely. Now I’m in my 50s, I developed a sense of urgency, fostered by reading Harry Bingham, founder of Jericho Writers, who is enthusiastic about indy publishing. It has been wonderful to hold the actual book in my hand. We held in person launches where I live in London, and in Altrincham, the fictional Millingham of the series. Lots of kind and lovely people came. As the book is about a group of teenage friends who meet up again twenty years later in their late thirties, the events have been the perfect excuse to reconnect with old friends from the past. As we said, life is now imitating art. We’re doing the fictional reunion for real, just many years later…

Katharine Light took City’s Novel Studio course, a year-long programme for aspiring novelists.

Katharine’s debut novel, Like Me, is available HERE.

Author Katharine Light, photography by Alexandra Vanotti

For more on all City’s writing short courses, visit HERE.

 

 

Novel Studio Literary Agent Competition Winners 2023/24

Jill Craig

We are delighted to announce the winners of 2023/4’s Novel Studio Literary Agent Competition are Jill Craig, Shere Ross and Linda Wystemp.

The competition is a key feature of City’s flagship short course the Novel Studio, which offers a select group of 15 aspiring novelists the dedicated time and support to hone their craft. The competition is a rare opportunity to bypass the slush pile of manuscript submissions to literary agents, and is run in  conjunction with Lucy Luck, literary agent at C&W Agency.

Jill Craig works as a secondary English teacher in the North West where literature is a constant presence. She loves fiction which investigates and reflects dynamics which are often the foundation of our lives: romantic, friendship, familial. Although she’s studied and now teaches literature, actually writing it is a relatively new – daunting, but exciting- experience. 

Shere Ross is a writer of short stories and other works of fiction. Her work has been shortlisted for several prizes including the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She is a winner of the BlackInk New Writing Prize.

Linda Wystemp was born and raised in the heart of Germany’s Black Forest before crossing the Channel to study in Oxford and London. She enjoys writing screenplays and short stories and has dabbled in fencing and the violin. Linda is currently working on her contemporary literary fiction novel which explores the moral complexities of parent-child relationships.

Emily Pedder, Course Director of the Novel Studio said: “We were very excited by these three writers; their submissions were strong and distinctive, and we can’t wait to see their novels progress over this coming year. ”

The Novel Studio was established over a decade ago and has a very strong track record of published alumni. Recent bestselling and award-winning novels include Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Anna Mazzola’s  The Unseeing, The Story Keeper, The Clockwork Girl,  and The House of Whispers, and Harriet Tyce’s Blood Orange, The Lies You Told and It Ends At Midnight.

 

Congratulations to Jill, Shere and Linda! We can’t wait to see their novels develop over the coming year!

City Writes Autumn 2023 Open for Submissions

City Writes Autumn Deadline 10 November 2023

By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

With a new academic year comes more fantastic writing from the short courses at City with our showcase event, City Writes, this term on Wednesday 13th December at 7pm on Zoom. We are delighted to announce that our published author this time is the brilliant writer and tutor, Caroline Green. Not only does Caroline write fiction for young people and adults, she is also the much valued and acclaimed teacher of the Crime and Thriller Writing short course and Crime and Thriller Writing Summer School here at City. From YA, through psychological thriller, to supernatural detective fiction, Caroline Green is an inspirational powerhouse. Register here to save your spot for the night.

Crime writer and City Writes Autumn 2023 guest, Caroline Green

If you would like to read your work in front of a supportive audience and share the virtual stage with Caroline on the 13th December, all you need to do is submit your best 1,000 words of fiction or creative non-fiction (we accept YA but sadly NOT poetry, drama or children’s fiction) to rebekah.lattin-rawstrone.2@city.ac.uk by midnight on Friday 17th November. Please check the full submission details here.

 

Don’t forget to sign up for the event on the 13th December here.

 

We can’t wait to read your submissions! Good luck.

Novel Studio 2022/3 Literary Agent Competition Winners Announced

We are delighted to announce the winners of 2022/3’s Novel Studio Literary Agent Competition are Sonia Hope, Marc-Anthony Hurr and Charles Williams.

The competition is a key feature of City’s flagship short course the Novel Studio, which offers a select group of 15 aspiring novelists the dedicated time and support to hone their craft. The competition is a rare opportunity to bypass the slush pile of manuscript submissions to literary agents, and is run this year in  conjunction with Lucy Luck, literary agent at C&W Agency.

Sonia Hope’s stories have appeared in magazines, including Ambit and Ellipsis Zine, and in anthologies: Best British Short Stories 2020, and The Untangling: Jerwood/Arvon Anthology Volume Nine. She was a Jerwood/Arvon mentee (fiction) for 2019/20 and shortlisted for The Guardian 4th Estate Prize 2019. In 2022 she was the recipient of the Novel Studio scholarship. Sonia is an Art Librarian working on her first novel, The Archivist.

Born in New Zealand to a British father and French mother, Marc-Anthony Hurr has dedicated his professional career to assembling from scratch a large international financial services startup in white knuckle fashion. He was shortlisted in December 2022 by Liar’s League, and in May 2023 won their Heroes & Villains competition. Marc is developing his debut novel, The Millennials.

Charles Williams has been a professional writer for twenty years, covering every topic under the sun, from policing and international aid to body image and mental health. He’s published obituaries in The Times, written and directed a play about world mythology at the Edinburgh Fringe, and contributed a story to a Doctor Who audiobook. He lives in south London.

Emily Pedder, Course Director of the Novel Studio said: “The three winners are all writers with strong, distinctive voices and we’re incredibly excited to see how their writing careers progress from here.”

Alumna Hannah Begbie, an early winner of the agent competition, published award-winning novels Mother and Blurred Lines following her graduation, and fellow winner Louise Beere was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize.

The Novel Studio was established over a decade ago and has a very strong track record of published alumni. Recent bestselling and award-winning novels include Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Anna Mazzola’s  The Unseeing, The Story Keeper, The Clockwork Girl,  and The House of Whispers, and Harriet Tyce’s Blood Orange, The Lies You Told and It Ends At Midnight.

Sonia Hope

Marc-Anthony Hurr

Charles Williams

 

Older posts

© 2024 City Short Courses

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

Skip to toolbar