My Path to Publication
RELATED COURSES
BY Maya Fernandes
18th Mar 2025
CBC has been running creative writing courses since 2011. Since then, over 250 of our former students have gone on to land major publishing deals. To celebrate this landmark moment, we hosted a webinar for aspiring writers, giving ticket holders the chance to put their questions to the expert panel.
Chaired by our Founder and Managing Director, Anna Davis, the webinar featured former Writing Your Novel student Manish Chauhan (our 250th student with a book deal), alongside his Curtis Brown agent, Gordon Wise. Also joining us were Lucy Rose, CBC alumna from our Breakthrough Mentoring for LGBTQIA+ Writers and author of the Sunday Times bestselling debut The Lamb, with her publisher Alexa von Hirschberg, Publishing Director at W&N.
Read on to learn more about what agents and editors are really looking for, and how to overcome the fear of failure when writing. Plus, we’ve included a link to watch the full event recording for free.
MANISH CHAUHAN AND LUCY ROSE ON STUDYING WITH US
Manish Chauhan: I actually wrote the novel that is now going to be published for the purposes of my application for the three-month Writing Your Novel course. So, my journey with this novel has been with CBC from the very beginning.
Lucy Rose: I’ve always wanted to do something with Curtis Brown Creative. When the Breakthrough Mentorship for LGBTQIA+ Writers came up and I saw that Kirsty Logan was a mentor, I knew I had to apply. I’m probably Kirsty’s biggest fan, and she knows this now after working with me!
HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED WHEN WRITING
MC: I've found that being part of a writing group is really helpful. It’s so important to be critiqued and for writers to receive feedback on their work. I think that if you reach out for feedback each time you do a round of your draft, there's a new energy to the work. And I think that's a good way of building or maintaining the playfulness in your writing.
LR: I think I'm still figuring it out. It changes every day. At the minute, if I'm having a wobble with my writing, I just try to remind myself of how lucky I am that I can write. The access to language and storytelling is the biggest privilege and it's so magical that we get to connect with people in that way. Also, I'm constantly going back to my favourite books to reread different passages that inspire me and things that have sparked inspiration in the past.
ON WORKING WITH AGENTS AND EDITORS
MC: I think it's really important for writers to know that your novel remains your novel, but various people come in and can look at it in different ways in order to help you to make it the best version of itself. In my eyes, your novel should be complete before reaching out to an agent because then the soul of the novel is set out. If someone buys it, they're buying the soul of it and the changes they make will be in the peripheries of that, but the soul stays the same.
Alexa von Hirschberg: I love the way you put that, Manish, looking for the soul of a novel. That's such a lovely way of putting it. I think that's absolutely right. I am looking for a project that has a really clear vision and a clear sense of itself.
WHAT AGENTS & EDITORS ARE LOOKING FOR
Gordon Wise: A book has got to interest you, so you want the cover letter to be interesting. At the same time, you don't want to come in and say something completely ridiculous. I want to get a slight sense of the person's personality. I mean, presumably, if you're a writer, you read books, you look at the sorts of blurbs that are put on the back of books. What are the three or four sentences that hook you? The great thing about a submission is that it has several ways of saying the same thing. So the cover letter can be short and punchy, and if it was still printed, it would be one page. You’ve then got your synopsis of your overview, which can be a bit longer. And then you’ve got a good chunk of the book. They've each got their own purpose.
AVH: If I turn down your novel, it's not necessarily because I don't think it's brilliant. It could just be because we have another literary horror coming that year. So, the first thing to say is it needs to feel distinctive from everything else that's happening. I tend to be drawn to novels that are rooted in the landscape, stories that are powered by big ideas that are about social change or politics or history. I love it when authors are grappling with a big idea. I get very excited by writers who are pushing the form or pushing me, challenging me in some way.
ON THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
LR: It's interesting because social media is such a two-sided thing. There's some really negative things about social media but for me, I've used it as a way to connect with people. Especially as an author based in the North, I'm so siloed off from the literary world that having that space to reach people who I wouldn't be able to reach normally is so invaluable.
AVH: Social media is not essential as an author. The work is essential. It's really as simple as that. I didn't know Lucy was so brilliant at connecting with readers on social media when we first started working together. I connected to the characters, I connected to the setting, I connected to the work. But of course, it is immensely helpful when you have an author who understands these different mediums and who is very natural when speaking to their audience.
ON PREDICTING PUBLISHING TRENDS
GW: It's very hard to predict trends. Romantasy couldn't be predicted and actually most trends and genres are out there continuously and then they suddenly rise to prominence. You have to write super quick if you're going to write to trends. If I sold a book to Alexa now, she wouldn't publish it until 2027. So, what's going to be big in 27? Who knows? Is it a good story? That's the real question.
HOW TO OVERCOME THE FEAR OF FAILURE
LR: I actually don't think failure is a bad thing. I love failure. I've failed so many times. I think the thing that makes us all special is our ability to keep going, even when you fail. I hate that there's this culture of shame around not succeeding at something because actually, those experiences are always the most valuable. My advice is don't be scared of failure, be friends with it. One of the most beautiful things is when you face failure head-on and learn everything you can from it.
This special event is part of our celebrations to mark the landmark moment of 250+ former students getting major publishing deals.
The Lamb by Lucy Rose is out now!
Manish's debut novel Belgrave Road is slated for publication with Faber in spring 2026. In the meantime, check out his short story 'Pieces' which was shortlisted for the 2024 BBC National Short Story Award!
The books linked in this blog can be found on our Bookshop.org shop front. Curtis Brown Creative receive 10% whenever someone buys from our bookshop.org page.