Your Novel: What Next? Webinar
Thank you for entering Discoveries 2023. Our team of expert readers are busy diving into your compelling entries – and the longlist, decided by our brilliant panel of judges, will be announced in early May.
In the meantime, we're delighted to invite all entrants to attend our Your Novel: What Next? webinar. Discoveries is not just about the prize it's a development programme full of free support and practical guidance to help aspiring authors. Whether or not you make it to the longlist stage of Discoveries 2023 we want to help you put your best foot forward as you continue on your writing journey!
Now that you've written at least 10,000 words of you novel and you have a working draft of a synopsis, you might be wondering 'What next?'...
Join us for this free Your Novel: What Next? webinar on Tues 21 March, 7.00pm-8.30pm, to learn about the ins and outs of submitting to literary agents and working with publishers, as well as to get some advice on how to keep up the writing momentum you’ve established.
This online event will be chaired by Joanna Lee, commissioning editor at Atlantic Books, who will be joined by a panel of expert speakers: Chibundu Onuzo (author and Discoveries 2023 judge), Jennifer Kerslake (Head of Courses at Curtis Brown Creative) and Rosie Pierce (Associate Agent at Curtis Brown associate, and Mia Colleran (Assistant Editor at 4th Estate).
The panel will offer advice on what to do now you’ve written and submitted your opening 10,000 words – including a discussion on how to submit to literary agents and the publishing process.
We're inviting webinar attendees to submit one question to the speakers ahead of time. We'll curate the most frequently asked and interesting questions to put forward to the panel.
We’ll have capacity for 500 attendees on the night. If you miss out on a spot for the live webinar, don’t worry! You can still watch it, as we’ll be sharing a private link to a subtitled recording of the webinar hosted on our YouTube channel (Curtis Brown Creative) for everyone who registers. This will be available to all Discoveries 2023 entrants for a limited time after the event.
Please email discoveriesprize@curtisbrown.co.uk with any queries concerning the webinar.
Panel speakers
Joanna Lee
Joanna Lee is a Commissioning Editor at Atlantic Books. Joanna previously worked at Curtis Brown as a literary agent’s assistant and prior to this she worked at Faber. She is also critic on the Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics scheme, and has reviewed poetry for many publications including the Guardian, The White Review and The Poetry Review.
Chibundu Onuzo
Chibundu Onuzo started writing novels and short stories at the age of ten and less than a decade later became the youngest woman ever signed by Faber. Her debut novel, The Spider King’s Daughter shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and won a Betty Trask Award. Her most recent novel, Sankofa, was published in June 2021 and was an October 2021 pick for the Reese Witherspoon Book Club. Chibundu was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. The short film Dolapo Is Fine, which Chibundu co-wrote and co-produced won the 2020 American Black Film Festival, HBO Short Film Competition and was longlisted for a BAFTA. The film was adapted from Chibundu's short story Sunita.
Jennifer Kerslake
Jennifer is Head of Courses / Editor at Curtis Brown Creative. She was previously an editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, the literary imprint of the Orion Publishing Group. In her time there, she worked with authors including Costa-shortlisted Elisa Lodato, Stella Prize-winning Heather Rose, Leila Aboulela, Francesca Jakobi, Chloë Mayer, Shannon Leone Fowler and Haleh Agar. She is passionate about nurturing new voices and enjoys working closely with writers to get their work into the best possible shape to share with publishers.
Rosie Pierce
Rosie joined Curtis Brown in 2018, after a couple of years in editorial at an independent publisher in Edinburgh. She works alongside Felicity Blunt on her list of talented authors, and is an associate agent building her own list. She is looking for both literary and commercial fiction and loves family dramas, ghost and horror stories, psychological suspense, murder mysteries, gripping thrillers, and big-hearted romantic comedies.
Mia Colleran
Mia Colleran is an Assistant Editor at 4th Estate. She previously worked as an award-winning bookseller and book critic in Ireland, as an arts critic in France and as an assistant at ICM Partners in New York. She is on the founding committee of the Dingle Literary Festival in Ireland and has interviewed authors at a variety of festivals in Ireland and the UK. She is also an award-winning writer and has written for a range of publications including The Paris Review, Guardian, and The Irish Times.