Novelist Keshava Guha to become Aevitas UK's first literary agent in India
thebookseller.com – Friday April 25, 2025
Novelist, journalist and publisher Keshava Guha is joining Aevitas Creative Management UK (ACM UK) as a literary agent, effective immediately. Guha will be based in India, where he will build an international list of clients, primarily in non-fiction – across history, biography, social science, psychology, music and sport – but with select fiction projects.
He was previously a senior editor at Juggernaut Books and is the author of Accidental Magic (HarperCollins Publishers India) and The Tiger’s Share (John Murray). As a journalist and essayist, he writes about politics, culture and sport.
Top literary agent and businessman Esmond Harmsworth dies at 57
dailymail.co.uk – Tuesday April 15, 2025
Esmond Harmsworth, one of North America's leading literary agents for business, entrepreneurship and management books, has died while on holiday in Mauritius. He was 57.
A half uncle of the 4th Viscount Rothermere, chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust plc, Esmond lived in Boston in the US, where he had a hugely successful business representing authors from across the publishing spectrum.
His clients included the New York Times bestseller and the number one Wall Street Journal business bestseller Breakthrough: Secrets of America's Fastest Growing Companies by Keith McFarland; Amanda Ripley's New York Times bestseller The Smartest Kids in the World – And How They Got That Way; and Michelle Hoover's acclaimed 2016 literary novel Bottomland.
New £10k writing prize launched at Sherborne Travel Writing Festival
thebookseller.com – Monday April 14, 2025
A new £10,000 prize for travel writing was unveiled at the Sherborne Travel Writing Festival on Sunday 13th April.
The annual prize will be awarded to a published British or European author whose work “encourages understanding between peoples and across societies, countering the division and isolation of the present day”.
Moreover, “as well as the boldness of the author’s ambition and the quality of writing, emphasis will be placed on books that enable readers to cross borders and so to draw together – on the page at least – our divided worlds”.
Any full-length, non-fiction (including creative non-fiction) travel book written by a British or EU national and published in English in 2024 or 2025 is eligible for the award; entries must be made by the author’s publisher or literary agent.
9 Companies Hiring Remote Freelance Writers In 2025
forbes.com – Sunday April 13, 2025
It’s no secret that one of the easiest side hustles or full-time freelance businesses to pursue, with minimal setup costs or time to launch, is freelance writing.
Freelance writing can be started even if you have minimal experience, and one of its other appeals is that you can get paid top dollar by the world’s leading B2B SaaS companies, all while working from the comfort of your home, as a digital nomad in Bali, or from the beach in the beautiful white sands of the Caribbean islands.
The freelance writing industry is experiencing a boom. Content marketing is a multi-billion-dollar sector, with more companies allocating this highly effective outreach method as part of their marketing budgets. Statista projects that global content marketing spend will almost double in the years between 2022 and 2026, reaching an eye-watering $107 billion next year.
So if you’re skilled in writing long-form content, providing detailed explanations, and contributing subject matter expertise instead of merely writing as a traditional journalist or generalist, then there is plenty of scope for you to build a thriving freelance writing business.
A look ahead to the 2025 Bournemouth Writing Festival
greatbritishlife.co.uk – Friday April 11, 2025
In the heart of Bournemouth, an award-winning festival is quietly changing lives. More than a celebration of storytelling, the Bournemouth Writing Festival is a movement - one that champions unheard voices, nurtures creativity, and makes writing accessible to all. Returning for its third year, April 25-27, the festival offers three days of 100 inspiring talks, workshops, literary agent 1-2-1s and networking events to inspire all writers to write. But beyond the bestselling authors and industry experts, its true impact lies in the community it serves.
This year’s Bournemouth Writing Festival includes free workshops for adults with additional needs as well as those facing homelessness or financial hardship. ‘Pay what you can’ sessions, alongside showcasing underrepresented writers, also ensures that everyone - regardless of background - has a chance to be heard. This includes The Outsiders Project, supporting ex-prisoners and recovering addicts, which helps participants find their voice through writing and performance.
Young people are also at the heart of the festival. In partnership with the RNLI and Hengistbury Head Writers Group, a competition for schools and home-educated children is encouraging children to craft thrilling water-based adventures while learning about water safety. Teaching resources were created to help them shape their stories including a video and educator resources. Free drop-in sessions (April 26) are at the co-working space Patch Bournemouth in the former Bobbys in The Square.
Johnson & Alcock and New Writing North unveil new award for debut writers
thebookseller.com – Thursday April 10, 2025
Johnson & Alcock, in partnership with New Writing North, has unveiled the Great Northern Read Award for debut writers based in the North of England, with a writer to be awarded the prize each year from 2026 to 2028.
The award, which will become part of the Northern Writers’ Awards, will cover the spectrum of commercial, genre and book club fiction, with an emphasis on gripping, immersive storytelling. It will be open to genres including, but not limited to, crime, mystery, historical, romance, fantasy, SF and book-club fiction.
The winner will receive £2,500, bespoke mentoring from the Johnson & Alcock team and access to New Writing North support including membership to the Society of Authors, networking events and one-to-one support from the talent development team.
Writing festival to host first naked workshop
bbc.co.uk – Thursday April 10, 2025
Aspiring writers are being urged to "strip off to get inspired", following in the footsteps of authors like Victor Hugo, Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming.
Bournemouth Writing Festival, which runs from 25 to 27 April, has announced it will be offering its first naked writing workshop.
The ticket-only event was organised in partnership with British Naturism and will take place on 23 April at Springbourne Library.
Festival director Dominic Wong said: "Obviously some people may be shy at first but once you're in the swing of it everyone wants to be involved."
The writing festival will feature authors, TV and film screenwriters, journalists, editors, writing coaches and literary agents.
Mr Wong said: "Whilst this session will be a first for the festival, naked writing certainly isn't new in literary circles.
The AI Romance Factory
bloomberg.com – Monday April 7, 2025
Genre fiction publisher Inkitt has influential backers and a vision for infinitely customizable A.I.-driven content. What would be left for the human creators?
Manjari Sharma hadn’t written much when she decided to start a novel. She’d graduated from university during the Covid-19 pandemic and was reading romance stories to quell her restlessness while locked down in her parents’ house in Lucknow, India. One day she settled into bed and started typing one of her own.
Sometimes in the months that followed, her parents would drift into the yellow-walled bedroom where she liked to work, and she’d scoot over so they could get on the bed and watch the epic series Mahabharat on TV. They knew she was writing but didn’t know the details. Sharma—whose pleasure reading had made her an expert on American romance—was drafting a novel that started with an overweight, insecure American high schooler named Keily being tormented by a hot football player. (“‘You’re fat and dumb,’ James had said with a condescending smirk, ‘like a pig. I should call you Piggy.’”) It would end with them falling in love.
Sharma started publishing installments of the novel on Wattpad’s free platform, titling it Fat Keily; after it was done, seven months later, she also put it on another free platform called Inkitt, based in Berlin. In both places, the novel attracted lots of readers and rapturous comments—“Punctuation be damned! I absolutely love this story!”—and before long, Inkitt was proposing that she move the novel from its free platform to its premium subscription-based platform, Galatea, where Sharma would receive a share of sales. She agreed, and her novel, renamed Keily, took off again. In early 2024 she learned Inkitt wanted to turn it into a series.
This time there was a catch. Sharma recalls being told that she was welcome to write the next books if she could get them done within a few weeks. Otherwise, Inkitt would hire a ghostwriter to do it, though her name would still be on the cover and she’d still get royalty payments.
Sharma had no real choice; her contract with Inkitt gave it the right to do just about anything it wanted with Keily, including come up with sequels. Plus, her life had gotten busy in the years since she first drafted the novel. She’d gotten a master’s degree in mathematics and started an internship in artificial intelligence at the Royal Bank of Scotland. She accepted the ghostwriting offer.
The Laurie Lee Prize for Writing: submissions now open
stroudtimes.com – Wednesday April 2, 2025
Stroud Book Festival is delighted to announce that The Laurie Lee Prize for Writing 2025 is now open for entries, writes Caroline Sanderson.
Free to enter, the Laurie Lee Prize for Writing was created in 2022 to acknowledge and honour the work of Stroud’s most famous son, Laurie Lee (1914-1997). It was established under the umbrella of Stroud Book Festival with the blessing of Laurie Lee’s family, and his literary estate. The 2024 winners were Laura Kinnear and Estella Jones.
The Prize is open to unpublished writers currently resident in Gloucestershire, and to those who were born in the county. The criteria also now permit entries from anyone studying at school or university or working in Gloucestershire.
The theme for this year’s prize is JOURNEYS, and submitted writing on that theme can be fiction, non-fiction or poetry.
Scandal-hit creative writing website NaNoWriMo to close after 20 years
theguardian.com – Wednesday April 2, 2025
The US nonprofit, whose online community encouraged members to write a novel in a month, has been rocked by controversy in recent years
NaNoWriMo, the US-based nonprofit organisation that challenged people to write a novel in a month, has announced it is closing down after 20 years.
NaNoWriMo – an abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month – fostered an online community of participants aiming to write 50,000 words of fiction in November. It began informally in 1999 before becoming a nonprofit in 2006. Each year, tens of thousands signed up to the organisation’s flagship programme.
On Monday, NaNoWriMo announced its closure to community members via email. A 27-minute YouTube video posted the same day by the organisation’s interim executive director Kilby Blades explained that it had to close due to ongoing financial problems, which were compounded by reputational damage.
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