For three days in September, we commandeer the York University campus and fill it with aspiring writers, best-selling authors, book doctors, top agents and publishing legends. It’s a very special gathering filled with serious, professional advice on the craft of writing and how to finally get yourself published but it's also bursting with bonhomie. We’ve yet to run one which hasn’t resulted in at least several delegates landing themselves with agents and publishing deals, everyone else has gone away happy and energised. It really works.
Click on the events tabs below to find the programme and see who is speaking each day or you can click on the one-to-one feedback page to find out which agents and publishers are appearing at the festival.
Literary Agencies represented at this year's Festival will include:
Rogers, Coleridge & White, AM Heath, Conville & Walsh, Blake Friedmann, Andrew Lownie, The Marsh Agency, Lorella Belli Agency, DHH Literary Agency, Sheil Land Associates, The Blair Partnership, Lindsay Literary Agency, Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, Greenhouse Literary Agency, Wade & Doherty Literary Agency, Hardman & Swainson, Caroline Sheldon, Watson, Little Ltd, The Agency, Andrew Nurnberg Associates, Darley Anderson Literary Agency, Greene & Heaton Ltd, United Agents and PFD.
The Publishers. We're thrilled to welcome:
Donna Condon (senior fiction editor on the Piatkus list of Harlequin (UK) Ltd), Suzie Dooré (Editorial director at Hodder & Stoughton), Jenny Geras (Publishing Director of Arrow,/Random House), Alison Hennessey (senior crime editor at Harvill Secker/Random House), Jane Lawson (Editorial Director at Transworld/Random House), and Francesca Main (Editorial Director of Picador in the UK).
Visit out Competitions page to find out about our Best Opening Chapter comp, Sponsored by Random House.
Festival Welcome & Keynote Address with Adele Parks Adele always dreamed of being a writer and her first novel - Playing Away – was published in 2000; that year the Evening Standard identified her as one of London’s ‘Twenty Faces to Watch.’ She's gone on to publish eleven novels in eleven years, all of which have been Times Top Ten bestsellers. And she's been described as one of the most-loved and biggest-selling women’s fiction writers in the UK, with over two million copies of her work having been sold, and having been translated into 25 different languages.
Closing Keynote Address with S. J. Bolton SJ (Sharon) Bolton grew up in a cotton-mill town in Lancashire and had an eclectic early career which she is now rather embarrassed about. She gave it all up to become a mother and a writer. Her books have been shortlisted for several international awards, including the CWA Gold Dagger, the Theakston's Old Peculier prize for crime novel of the year, the International Thriller Writers' Best First Novel award and (four years running) the Mary Higgins Clark award for best thriller (Awakening actually won that one). Her latest book, Dead Scared, was published in April 2012.
Adele always dreamed of being a writer and her first novel - Playing Away – was published in 2000; that year the Evening Standard identified her as one of London’s ‘Twenty Faces to Watch.’ She's gone on to publish eleven novels in eleven years, all of which have been Times Top Ten bestsellers. And she's been described as one of the most-loved and biggest-selling women’s fiction writers in the UK, with over two million copies of her work having been sold, and having been translated into 25 different languages. 
SJ (Sharon) Bolton grew up in a cotton-mill town in Lancashire and had an eclectic early career which she is now rather embarrassed about. She gave it all up to become a mother and a writer. Her books have been shortlisted for several international awards, including the CWA Gold Dagger, the Theakston's Old Peculier prize for crime novel of the year, the International Thriller Writers' Best First Novel award and (four years running) the Mary Higgins Clark award for best thriller (Awakening actually won that one). Her latest book, Dead Scared, was published in April 2012.
