Editors for Books, Novels and Children's Fiction
Editors A to K
Alma Alexander
It might have been Alma's poet grandfather who first kindled her passion for language when she was still a toddler, but she has pursued her passion and has been in love with words all her life. She has written short stories, non-fiction (an autobiography based on her childhood in Africa), and a number of novels.
The Secrets of Jin Shei, nominated for the Orange Prize and a finalist in the Washington State Book awards in 2005, is currently published in thirteen languages worldwide; her other novels include Embers of Heaven, The Hidden Queen, Changer of Days, and the YA Worldweavers trilogy (Gift of the Unmage, 2007; Spellspam, 2008; Cybermage, 2009) which includes Nikola Tesla as one of its major characters.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, with her husband, two cats, and assorted visiting wildlife.
Kate Allan
Kate knew from early on that she wanted to be a novelist. Her first book was Fateful Deception, a historical romance shortlisted for the RNA New Writers Award (2005).
She has since published both Perfidy & Perfection, a romantic comedy based in Jane Austen's England (and based on the adventures of a Jane Austen-like character), and The Restless Heart
She also co-writes historical fiction with Michelle Styles, writing as Jennifer Lyndsay. Their first book is The Lady Soldier. Kate also somehow manages to find the time to handle PR for Myrmidon Publishers. She lives in Hertfordshire.
Debi Alper
Debi is the author of six novels, the first two of which Nirvana Bites and Trading Tatiana, were published by Orion to critical acclaim.
Her books are contemporary urban thrillers set among the sub-cultures and she expounds her themes with generosity of spirit and dark humour. Over the years, she has worked as a charity finance officer, a photographer, farm labourer, life model and wig maker. She wrote her first novel as a direct result of being in a local writers' group and still writes in long hand lying on the settee.
An unexpected result of giving up her day job to concentrate on writing is that she spends a lot of time concentrating on helping other writers to perfect their novels through critiques, mentoring, Book Doctor sessions and creative writing workshops. Debi edits in all genres and several authors that she has worked with have been signed up with agents and gone on to see their books published.
She lives in South London with her partner and two teenage sons. She sometimes feels like a tiny island of oestrogen afloat in a sea of testosterone and smelly socks.
Sophia Bartleet
Sophia has been the Tutor in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University School of Publishing for the last five years, teaching courses in children's fiction and crime fiction, with workshops on plotting, character development, research, drafting, sense of place, and avoiding clichés.
Writing as Sophia Creswell, she has published two novels with Sceptre. Her first, Sam Golod, 1996, was set in the anarchic underbelly of modern Russia. The Observer wrote "Sophia Creswell has caught well both Russia's atmosphere of seedy violence and the mild hysteria of its artistic coteries."
Her second book, Red Tape, 1998, charts a love affair doomed to failure by the pressures of the asylum and immigration system. In 1997 she won the Southern Arts Literary Award. She is current writing a novel about the historical Dick Whittington.
Tony Black
Tony was born in Australia and grew up in Scotland and Ireland.
Based in Edinburgh he is an award-winning journalist as well as an editor and author of the Guy Dury series of Crime Novels.
He writes for the national press and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of publications as well as on the internet.
His latest thiller is 'Truth Lies Bleeding'.
He occasionally blogs for the Writers' Workshop crime blog, Mean Streets, and is a keen fan of the new wave of 'Brit Noir'.
Richard Blandford
Richard is the author of Hound Dog (Jonathan Cape), described as “’Phoenix Nights’ meets American Psycho in Cambridge’". Hound Dog is a novel of redemption and rock’n’roll, masturbation and morality.
The Observer has described it as “Slick, efficient and faintly nasty, this novel croons indie Brit-flick.”
The TV rights to Hound Dog have been sold to GRD Productions.
Richard's second novel Flying Saucer Rock and Roll, came out with Cape, 2008.
Richard lives in Worthing and is currently completing a Young Adult novel.
Rebecca Connell
Rebecca lives in south London.
She has published two literary novels, THE ART OF LOSING (2009) and TOLD IN SILENCE (2010), with Fourth Estate (HarperCollins), and is currently working on a literary crime novel.
Rebecca graduated from Oxford University, where she read English Language and Literature, in 2001.
She has worked as an agent's assistant, an assistant producer developing programme ideas for major television production companies, and a market researcher.
Dean Vincent Carter
Dean has written two novels for young adults. He began writing short stories at the age of fourteen.
After graduating from Thames Valley University with a degree in English and Media Studies, he worked in sales and as a bookseller before getting a job in the facilities department at Transworld Publishers and Random House Children's Books. His writing talent was spotted by his editor after she read his company-wide emails. (Which shows that some editors still have what it takes to spot a winner!)
His first novel, 'The Hand of the Devil' was published in 2006 to great critical acclaim. He has followed up with 'The Hunting Season' and 'Blood Water', both with the same publisher.
He lives in Hounslow, Middlesex.
Emma Darwin
Emma’s debut novel 'The Mathematics of Love' was published in 2006. The Times described it as: “that rare thing, a book that works on every conceivable level. A real achievement”, and it was was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers and Goss First Novel awards, longlisted for the Prince Maurice Prize and the RNA Novel of the Year, and has been translated into many languages.
Emma’s bestselling second novel, 'A Secret Alchemy', was published in 2008; the Daily Mail acclaimed it as “powerful and utterly convincing”, and The Times as one of their 50 Best Paperbacks of 2009.
Emma is an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing with the Open University and has a PhD in Creative Writing, in which she explored the writing of historical fiction. Her short fiction has been published and broadcast, and she teaches workshops and one-day courses, in addition to her work as an editor.
Emma was born in London and still lives there, after interludes in Manhattan and Brussels.
Susan Davis
Susan was seven when she wrote her first novel, which was lovingly illustrated and bound with scarlet knitting wool.
Since then, she’s upped her game. Her debut novel, 'The Henry Game' (Random House 2002, and an Ottakars Book of the Month) tells the story of three girls who accidentally summon up the spirit of Henry VIII. The sequel, 'Delilah and the Dark Stuff', came out in 2003. 'Mad, Bad and Totally Dangerous' came out in 2005.
Susan's short fiction has been short-listed for the Asham Award and won many other prizes.
She has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Susan is an Arvon tutor and literary mentor.
Helena Drysdale
Helena is the author of five works of 'creative non-fiction': Alone through China and Tibet (Constable 1986), Dancing with the Dead (Hamish Hamilton 1991), Looking for George, (Picador, 1996), and Mother Tongues (Picador, 2001). Her most recent book, Strangerland, was published by Picador in 2006.
Looking for George was shortlisted for both the Esquire/Waterstones/Apple Non-fiction award (1995) and the PEN/JRAckerley Award for Autobiography in the same year. Helena has also written and presented a documentary, Dancing with the Dead, for Granada TV. She makes regular appearances as a broadcaster and lecturer.
She is a course tutor for the Arvon Foundation, and a Royal Literary Fellow teaching writing skills at Exeter University.
Helena is married to painter Richard Pomeroy and they live in Somerset with their two daughters.
Hal Duncan
Hal has over twenty years critiquing experience as a member of the Glasgow SF Writers Circle, and a half dozen years writing for a living, mainly fiction and peotry but also a considerable amount of literary criticism and commentary via his regular 'Notes from New Sodom' column for BSC Review. He's also made forays beyond print , writing a queer rock musical which debuted as a student production in Chicago last year, and lyrics for a collaboration with Scottish band Aereogramme on /Ballads of the Book/ album from Chemikal Underground.
A blend of pulp and postmodernism, his first novel, VELLUM, was described by Lucius Shepard as 'the Guernica of genre fiction', and shared awards shortlists with everyone from Neil Gaiman (BFS Award) to Brett Easton Ellis and Haruki Murakami (World Fantasy Award).
It won the Spectrum Award (for LGBT science-fiction/fantasy), the Kurd-Lasswitz-Preis and Tuehtivaeltaja (for the German and Finnish translations respectively) and was nominated for the Crawford, the Locus and (for the French translation) the Prix Europeen Utopiales.
Edward Fenton
Edward has worked as a writer and editor for over 20 years.
His novel Scorched Earth won the Sinclair Prize for Fiction (judged by a panel of five Booker judges), and he has also written for BBC Radio (Radios 1, 3 and 4) and Chrysalis TV.
As a script consultant and editor, he has worked on adult and children’s fiction, as well as on the libretto of an opera performed at the BBC Proms.
He is currently the editor of ‘The Oxford Writer’, and runs an independent publishing company, whose titles have featured in the ‘Books of the Year’ lists of novelists Iain Sinclair and Martin Amis (among others) in several national newspapers and magazines.
He lives in Oxfordshire where his small publishing company is also based.
Jocelyn Ferguson
Jocelyn began her career writing for the theatre and enjoyed significant success in the field before taking up fiction.
Her first novel, Rope Tricks, was published by Virago to critical acclaim.
Her second novel, Tree of Sails, was published in 1996, and brought her an Arts Council Writer’s Award.
She has taught Creative Writing for at Warwick and Keele Universities, Literature at Stafford University, as well as English Literature and Drama in schools and colleges. She is currently working in Belfast, and loving it.
She is currently devoting her time to fiction.
Jill Foulston
Jill has been a commissioning editor at Virago, Little Brown and Penguin and has worked with some of the most exciting names in contemporary fiction - among them Sarah Waters, Michelle Lovric and Heidi Julavits - as well as classic authors such as Paul Bowles and Muriel Spark.
Jill was also responsbile for co-founding the independent publisher Arcadia, voted Sunday Times Small Publisher of the Year. Her two anthologies for Virago Press, The Joy of Eating and The Virago Book of the Joy of Shopping have been described as 'sensual, funny and captivating, with plenty to beguile and astonish'.
She has been an invited speaker on the creative writing course at Bath Spa University and has written short stories, reviews and features, contributing to the Times Literary Supplement, Slightly Foxed and Waitrose Food Illustrated as well as various other magazines. In 2008 she received an award from the Authors' Foundation.
Elizabeth Garner
Liz was born in Cheshire, grew up in the north of England and now lives in Oxford, where she works as a script editor. She is the winner of a Betty Trask Award, as well as having been shortlisted for a couple of other significant awards.
As a script editor, Liz has worked extensively in the industry. She has been on the scriptreading board of Miramax and advised them on potential novel adaptations. She was also formerly head of development at Gorgeous, an independent film company. She now works as a script editor for a number of UK-based companies.
Liz is also a successful novelist, and understands the creative process well. Her first novel 'Nightdancing' (from Hodder Headline) was short-listed for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and also for the Pendleton May First Novel Award. Her second novel, 'Edgar Jones', was recently released by the same publishers.
Gary Gibson
Gary is the author of four science fiction novels (all published by Pan Macmillan / Tor UK), with several more in the pipeline.
Amongst his work is the well-regarded Shoal Sequence, including Stealing Light, Nova War and the forthcoming Empire of Light. His work fits comfortably into the 'new space opera' mould.
Occasional explorations into other media over the years have seen him publish and edit small-press comics, and he has also written a short-short comedy drama for the BBC.
Although a native of Glasgow, Scotland, he currently lives in Taipei in the Far East.
Claire Gillman
Claire is an experienced journalist, writer, editor and broadcaster.
She is the Contributing Editor to Kindred Spirit, the UK's leading mind/body/spirit magazine, as well as contributing to many other leading women's magazines and national newspapers. She has also been editor of a number of consumer and specialist women’s magazines including Health & Fitness magazine and Girl About Town.
She has written over a dozen non-fiction books for adults and a series of creative non-fiction titles for children under the pen-name, Rory Storm. Her most recent book is How to Write Fantastic Non-Fiction and Get Published as part of the Hodder Teach Yourself series.
Claire is married with two teenage sons and lives on the edge of the West Pennines with her family and dog.
Julia Hamilton
Julia is the author of six novels, most recently Forbidden Fruits and Other People's Rules, both from HarperCollins.
Before those, Julia published with Penguin (A Pillar of Society, The Good Catholic, and After Flora) and Collins / Flamingo (The Idle Hill of Summer).
Other People's Rules was described by Rosamunde Pilcher as "A clever story, a really good read."
Julia grew up in Scotland, and now divides her time between London and Oxfordshire, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
Geraldine Harris
Geraldine is the author of five fantasy novels: 'White Cranes Castle' and the internationally acclaimed 'Seven Citadels' quartet.
A new edition of this classic series has just come out.
Until recently, Geraldine worked as a Egyptologist at Oxford University. She has drawn on her deep knowledge of the ancient world to publish retellings of Egyptian myth, academic works on magic and religion in the ancient world, as well as a number of educational books for children.
She is both a contributor to and an entry in ' The Cambridge Guide to Children's Book in English'.
Tania Hershman
Tania's two loves are short stories and science. A former science journalist, originally from London and now living in Bristol, Tania was commended by the judges of the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers for her first short story collection, The White Road and Other Stories published by Salt Modern Fiction. Half of the stories in the collection are inspired by articles from New Scientist magazine, and the other half are "flash fiction", under 1000 words long.
Tania's short stories, flash fiction and prose poems have been published in print and online in publications including PANK magazine, Litro, Metazen, Contrary, elimae, Smokelong Quarterly, Nature, Riptide, the London Magazine, and Cafe Irreal. She has had three stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
Tania is the European regional winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Broadcasting Association's short story competition and winner of the 2009 Binnacle Ultra-Short Competition. Tania's passion for sh ort stories led her to founding The Short Review, an online journal dedicated to reviewing short story collections and anthologies. For more information about Tania, please visit her website.
Rebecca Horsfall
Rebecca is the author of Dancing on Thorns, a character driven page turner published by Random House, centering on the world of ballet. Elle Magazine have described her as “The new Jilly Cooper.”
She worked, on and off, for more than a decade for a West End producer as a script supervisor and assistant producer before writing what The Bookseller described as “736 unputdownable pages of pure delight”.
She has done office work, theatre directing, teaching, theatrical management — as well as working in a microbiology lab.
She has been happily married for fifteen years.
Jamie Ivey
Jamie is the author of three books about the south of France.
He lives near the village of Lourmarin in the Luberon with his wife and young daughters. As well as editing a local lifestyle magazine, he is working on a fourth book about training a truffle dog to be published in 2011.
Jamie's books have been published in the UK, the USA, Holland and China.
The New York Times described Jamie's debut travelogue Extremely Pale Rosé as "Great fun to read...particularly if you enjoy sticking your nose into little known corners of France" and the Daily Mail described Jamie as “a younger Peter Mayle with a similar turn of phrase.”
Jane Jakeman
Jane is the author of The Malfine trilogy, three atmospheric crime novels set in the early nineteenth-century. The books are Let There Be Blood, The Egyptian Coffin and Fool's Gold.
She's also the author of four other novels, also crime fiction set in the past. She's also edited a lavishly illustrated eighteenth century recipe book, Kidder's Receipts.
Jane is the author of numerous articles and reviews in British journals and newspapers, such as The New Statesman, Independent and The Sunday Times. She regularly reviews crime fiction for the Independent.
She has a doctorate in Art History from Oxford, where she now lives with her husband and two cats.
Sam Jordison
Sam was born in Alnwick Northumberland and now lives in Norfolk.
After studying Classics at Cambridge he spent some time in the Ardeche region of France where he was a goatherd. He has been earning a living as a writer since the year 2000. He is the author of five books (including the best-selling Crap Towns and Sod That!: 103 Things Not To Do Before You Die ).
He also writes features and articles regularly for the Guardian - and has written for most other national papers in the UK. He is also a part-time film reviewer.
He is currently interested in the middle classes and has a website investigating their strange habits at organicpeasandorderlyqueues.com He is quite middle class himself and lives in Norwich with his partner, who is also a writer.
Sheena Joughin
Sheena has won several prizes for her short stories, but now concentrates on longer fiction and has published two novels.
Fay Weldon said of Things to do Indoors (2003) “She writes like an angel and thinks like the devil”, and Julie Burchill wrote “I love this book”. Her successful debut was followed by Swimming Underwater in 2005, which was widely reviewed and admired. (“Both philosophical and a pleasure”, said The Guardian).
Sheena has also written The Hamlyn History of Twentieth Century Fiction, and reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, The Independent and The New Statesman. She has taught poetry and fiction workshops in London for the past five years, and is a lecturer on the Creative Writing course at Bath Spa University.
In 2007, she started The Life-Writing Project in West London.
Daren King
Daren has written since he was old enough to pick up a pen without putting it in his mouth.
His first children's novel, Mouse Noses on Toast, won first prize in the 6-8 age category of the Nestle Children's Book Prize, and his debut adult novel, Boxy an Star, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize.
His books have been published around the world, including Canada and the US, and have been translated into Italian, German and Russian.
Daren also offers a Complete Novel Writing Course through the Writers' Workshop - and welcomes any potential new students who want to be mentored through the entire novel writing cycle: from first sentence to final full stop. More details here. Author photo credited to Rankin.
Sophie King / Jane Bidder
Sophie King is the pen name for journalist Jane Bidder. Sophie has had five novels published in the last five years by Hodder & Stoughton. She describes them as ‘funny but serious’ domestic dramas, covering divorce through to truculent teens and grannies. Her current novel THE WEDDING PARTY was recently short listed for Love Story of the Year.
Sophie’s non-fiction books include HOW TO WRITE YOUR FIRST NOVEL and HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES AND GET PUBLISHED. She has won various awards including the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy and was also runner up for the Harry Bowling Award in 2004.
As a journalist, Sophie/Jane has written for most national newspapers and magazines so can help writers make the transition from journalist-speak to fiction. She has also had several short stories published in women’s magazines. Sophie lectures in creative writing at Oxford University and at Skyros. She also gives regular workshops at festivals. www.sophieking.info.
William Kowalski
William is a novelist, screenwriter, and book reviewer for the Globe and Mail. The New York Times has called him 'exuberant' and 'a talented stylist'. His first book, the internationally best-selling Eddie's Bastard (1999), won South Africa's Exclusive Books Ama-Boeke (Book Lover's) Award in 2001, and was twice named to Booksense 76. Of his second novel, Somewhere Out of Here (2001), the New York Times said, '[this book] has all the bravado of a bar stool reminiscence... Kowalski's characters could be escapees from a Kerouac novel.'
His third novel, The Adventures of Flash Jackson, was an alternate selection of the Literary Guild Book of the Month Club in 2003. The Scottish Daily Record said of his fourth novel, The Good Neighbour (2004): 'Atmospheric, emotional and beautifully eloquent, Kowalski weaves an engrossing story.' William's fiction has been translated into fifteen languages. He is also the author of three books for reluctant adult readers: The Barrio Kings (2010), The Way it Works (2010) and the forthcoming Something Noble (2011), all published by Orca Book Publishers
William was born in Ohio and has lived on both the East and West coasts of the United States. A graduate of the Great Books program of St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM, William now lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with his wife and children.
