Novel Studio applications and City Writes fiction competition closing soon

It's a busy week in the City short courses calendar. City's year-long flagship Novel Studio programme, the course that inspired Hannah Begbie, Harriet Tyce, Deepa Anappara and Kiare Ladner, to name but a few, at the start of their careers, closes for 2018 applications on June 15. For more information head over here. And to read about the growing list of published alumni visit.

And City Writes, City's termly writing competiton, open to all past and present City short course students, closes its doors for submissions on 15 June. For a chance to take to the stage and read alongside short course alumna and rising star, C.G. Menon, visit and for tickets visit.

Happy submitting!

Author of most anticipated UK novel of 2018 is star billing at next City Writes

Very excited to announce that Imogen Hermes Gowar, a former City short course student, will be star billing at the next City Writes event in March. Imogen's debut novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock has been picked as the 'most anticipated book of 2018' by. amongst others, Vogue, Sunday Times, Observer, The Times, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, BBC Arts, Red Magazine, Stylist, The Pool, Emerald Street, Independent, The Herald, Irish Times, Irish Tatler, The Journal and Irish Independent. The novel sparked a bidding war with ten publishers, a war finally won by Harville Secker for a six figure sum. 

Imogen was inspired with the idea for the novel while working at the British Museum as a Gallery Assistant. In the evenings she attended creative writing classes at City, taking Novel Writing and Longer Works and then Writers’ Workshop, both taught by Katy Darby. She went on to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, for which she received a distinction and won the Curtis Brown award for her year.

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is due out later this month and has been chosen as Harville Secker’s lead debut fiction title for 2018. Congratulations, Imogen!

Boom year for indie publishers

It's not all doom and gloom out there. 2017 is turning out to be a bumper year for Indie publishers. According to Inpress, a distributor for 60 of the smallest independent publishers, sales are up by 79% this year. One of those authors helping to buck the trend for indie presses is Monique Roffey who signed with Dodo Ink for her latest novel, The Tryst, after Simon & Schuster pulled out. What began as a gamble is fast becoming a shrewd move on Roffey's part. The Tryst is climbing high on the bestseller list and has garnered some great reviews from the heavyweights, The Guardian calling it 'perfectly judged', The TLS “occasionally terrifying.” Not content with writing books for a living, Monique can also be found teaching at Manchester Met, Skryos and City, University of London.

Hannah Begbie sells 'brilliant dark debut novel' to HarperFiction

So thrilled to hear that the phenomenally talented Hannah Begbie has sold her debut novel to HarperFiction. Hannah was a star student on the Novel Studio where she also won the new writing competition. Her novel, Mother, developed while on the course, is a brilliant, and brutal, exploration of motherhood in the most complicated of circumstances. Her agent, Veronique Baxter has said that Mother “is a book you don’t forget in a hurry: unflinching, dark and deeply compelling, it moved me profoundly”. Very proud of you, Hannah, and cannot wait to read the finished book! 

City Writes Fiction Competition

This autumn City Writes opens its doors once again with a writing competition open to all past and present City Writing Short Course Students. Submit by 17 November to win a chance to read alongside City short course alumnus Greg Keen, whose debut crime novel, Soho Dead, came out in July. Set up and run by The Book Edit's very own Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, the next City Writes event will be held on 13 December and is well worth attending, even if you don't win the competition! Tickets available here.