Simons and Heathfield launch Greenstone Literary Agency
thebookseller.com – Saturday June 22, 2024
Tanera Simons and Laura Heathfield, both previously of Darley Anderson and Associates, have launched Greenstone Literary Agency.
Greenstone Literary will specialise in commercial fiction including romance, rom-com, crime & thriller, and book club fiction, as well as select non-fiction. The name Greenstone is inspired by Greenstone Point, a place of personal connection to Tanera that also reflects the agency’s ethos of providing a strong and constant foundation for authors while remaining dynamic and adaptive to the changing market.
Greenstone launches with 15 authors including Sunday Times bestsellers Beth O’Leary and Sally Page and Radio 2 Bookclub pick, Tammye Huf. Sophie White, Mandy Baggot, Emma Steele, Ally Zetterberg, Claire McCauley, Kate Smith and Claire Frost also join Simons and Heathfield at their new venture.
Bloody Scotland reveals full line-up for its 13th Festival ... beginning Friday 13th!
stirling.gov.uk – Thursday June 20, 2024
Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival, which launched in 2012, will be one of the cornerstones of Stirling's 900th anniversary celebrations when it takes place in September.
The 13th festival begins, appropriately, on Friday 13th and has a stellar line-up of international crime writers and fun events including Friday 13th Fright Night, The Wickedest Link, Karaoke at the Coo and The True Crime Walking Tour.
The opening reception at The Golden Lion Hotel will include the presentation of two major literary prizes – The McIlvanney Prize and The Bloody Scotland Debut Prize - with Bloody Scotland cocktails courtesy of Stirling Distillery and, afterwards, the Stirling & District Schools Pipe Band will lead a procession from the Golden Lion to the Albert Halls.
Last week Bloody Scotland revealed five headliners appearing at the festival in their inaugural ‘sneaky peek’ and today the rest of the programme has been revealed as audiences also get the opportunity to mark the establishment of Stirling as a Royal Burgh in 1124.
Lucy Holland to lead Curtis Brown Creative's new Writing Fantasy course
thebookseller.com – Friday June 14, 2024
Curtis Brown Creative (CBC) has launched its new Writing Fantasy course, taught by author Lucy Holland. It is the latest in CBC’s growing range of online courses, and follows the increased interest in fantasy novels.
Applications are now open for the nine-week course, which will run from 8th October to 3rd December. The programme will give 15 students the opportunity to take online teaching classes, workshops and one-to-one tutorials, as well as a Zoom masterclass with Fathomfolk author Eliza Chan (Orbit), and her C&W literary agent Alexander Cochran.
"We’ll be looking at worldbuilding on a character level, as well as ways in which fantasy can challenge us to write outside our direct experience," Holland said. "I’m also excited to cover popular subgenres like myth retellings and romantasy, and how to harness tropes to tell a compelling story."
Ursula K. Le Guin's home will become a writers residency
independent.co.uk – Monday June 10, 2024
Theo Downes-Le Guin, son of the late author Ursula K. Le Guin, remembers well the second-floor room where his mother worked on some of her most famous novels.
Or at least how it seemed from the outside.
“She was very present and accessible as a parent,” he says. "She was very intent on not burdening her children with her career. ... But the times when she was in there to do her writing, we knew that we needed to let her have her privacy.”
Downes-Le Guin, who also serves as his mother's literary executor, now hopes to give contemporary authors access to her old writing space. Literary Arts, a community nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon, announced Monday that Le Guin's family had donated their three-story house for what will become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency.
Le Guin, who died in 2018 at age 88, was a Berkeley, California, native who in her early 30s moved to Portland with her husband, Charles. Le Guin wrote such classics as “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Dispossessed” in her home, mostly in a corner space that evolved from a nursery for her three children to a writing studio.
Writers’ Guild of Great Britain demands fair pay for writers ahead of general election
thebookseller.com – Thursday June 6, 2024
The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) has called on the next government to “enshrine protections for writers” in its manifesto recommendations ahead of the forthcoming general election.
The trade union representing writers wants the next government to implement its recommendations around fair pay, fair treatment, sustainability, and copyright and AI.
Ellie Peers, general secretary of WGGB, said: “Writing is a highly skilled job and everything starts with the writer – without them there would be no feature films, TV or audio dramas, no plays, no books, poems or videogames.
“They provide the fuel that fires our creative industries, which in turn makes a major contribution to the UK economy.”
Jo Unwin to leave publishing for new career
thebookseller.com – Wednesday May 29, 2024
Literary agent Jo Unwin is leaving the Jo Unwin Literary Agency (JULA) and starting a new career outside publishing.
Unwin, who founded JULA in 2013, has discovered and championed new voices throughout her career. She has helped establish prizewinners such as Candice Carty-Williams and Kit de Waal, and to have worked with Booker Prize nominees Gabriel Krauze and Stephen Kelman, as well as bestsellers such as Emma Flint, A J Pearce and Jenny Colgan.
Her non-fiction authors range from Charlie Brooker and Philomena Cunk to Richard Ayoade, the poet Brian Bilston along with children’s authors such as Sarah Moore Fitzgerald and Nadia Shireen.
How to find a literary agent: A masterclass with Juliet Mushens
uk.news.yahoo.com – Friday May 17, 2024
As an aspiring author, the journey to getting your book into print can seem like a daunting maze. But what if you had an insider's guide to navigating the publishing world and capturing the attention of a top-tier literary agent?
This unique masterclass with leading agent Juliet Mushens will demystify the process and reveal what it takes to make your submission stand out from the slush pile.
What will you learn?
In his comprehensive masterclass, you'll gain invaluable insights into how the publishing industry works and the role of a literary agent, including:
-
Expert tips on editing your novel to make it submission-ready
-
How to research and identify the best agents for your work
-
What agents look for in submissions, from manuscripts to cover letters
-
Crafting a killer pitch and blurb that hooks agents from the first line
-
Practical pitching exercises, with opportunities for feedback
Expand your mind with a new magazine of psychedelic art and literature
lithub.com – Monday May 13, 2024
Are you ready to take a trip?
Elastic, a biannual print magazine of psychedelic art and literature that will debut in spring 2025, aims to publish art and writing that’s “immersive, dreamlike, daring, genre- and time-bending, and that acts to expand the mind and the vast possibilities of narrative.”
Founding editor-in-chief Hillary Brenhouse was previously the editorial director of Bold Type Books and editor-in-chief of Guernica magazine. She’ll be joined by editor Meara Sharma, formerly the editor-in-chief of Adi magazine, and a body of contributing editors and artists that includes Jaquira Diaz, Amanda Gunn, Laura van den Berg, Jia Sung, Amber Sparks, and Darian Longmire. The magazine is being supported in part by grants from UC Berkeley and Harvard as part of their Psychedelics in Society and Culture initiative.
WME Acquires Ross Yoon Agency in Expansion of Literary Talent Portfolio
msn.com – Monday May 13, 2024
Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.’s WME announced today it has acquired Ross Yoon Agency.
The Washington D.C.-based agency, Ross Yoon, specializes in literary and commercial nonfiction including memoir, biography, history, popular science, business and psychology. In addition, the literary agency’s president Gail Ross and principal Howard Yoon will join WME as partners.
The current Ross Yoon clients will join WME’s roster — the new clientele will include Ross Yoon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and authors, business, non-profit leaders, doctors, scientists, academics, politicians and media personalities.
Ross Yoon joins WME’s 40-year-old book department, which includes a clientele of best-selling and award-winning fiction and nonfiction authors. Most recently in 2022, WME had over 50 New York Times bestsellers and closed nearly 1,000 international publishing deals.
“This acquisition is a natural evolution of WME’s long history of representing best-selling authors and helping bring their visions to life across platforms,” said WME co-chairmen Christian Muirhead and Richard Weitz. “We are proud that after so many hugely successful independent years Gail and Howard chose WME as their partner in this next phase of growth.”
UK audiobook downloads up 17% last year, Publishers Association data shows
theguardian.com – Wednesday May 8, 2024
The number of UK audiobook downloads increased by 17% between 2022 and 2023, according to new data from the Publishers Association (PA).
Revenue from audiobooks rose 24% across the same period to £206m in 2023, reflecting an increase in the number of audiobook downloads from 50m to 59m, the trade body said.
Over five years, UK audiobook revenue has more than doubled. “It’s fair to say that audio is now a really serious part of the publishing portfolio,” said the PA’s chief executive, Dan Conway. “Audiobooks have established themselves as a major route to market for consumers of books in this country”.
These figures reflect the way the audiobook market has evolved. Spotify made audiobooks available to its Premium subscribers in October, while Audible has expanded from single-narrator audiobooks to those with large, starry casts and sound effects. Sam Mendes-produced audiobooks of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist featuring Ncuti Gatwa, Helena Bonham Carter and Nicola Coughlan were released in the past two years, and there are plans to release new audiobooks of all seven Harry Potter titles, voiced by a cast of more than 100 performers.
Get the free newsletter | Submit a news item or article | Get Writers' News for your website
