Writer’s Handbook Live - Speakers

Barry Turner, Editor of The Writer’s Handbook; and Chair of the National Academy of Writing. About Barry

Will Atkins, Macmillan New Writing. Macmillan New Writing was launched in 2006 with the aim of discovering superb new novelists writing in all genres. It publishes one novel per month and welcomes submissions from unpublished novelists.

Maggie Dana grew up in England and, in her early twenties, moved to the States, where she raised a family, rode horses, and learned to ski with her three children. A freelance book designer, Maggie lives on the Connecticut shoreline. Her debut novel, Beachcombing, has been described by Katie Fforde as ‘a wonderfully uplifting story about a woman on her way to fulfilment’ and by Elizabeth Buchan as ‘a sparklingly attractive novel written with humour, brio and a refreshing unsentimentality’. More information about Maggie and Beachcombing can be found on her website, www.maggiedana.com

Michael Alcock, Literary Agent from Johnson and Alcock. Michael Alcock began his publishing career at Oxford University Press, and was publishing director at Macmillan, Aurum Press and Boxtree before founding his own literary agency in 1997. Michael’s client list covers general fiction, and non-fiction mainly in the fields of history and biography, current affairs, memoir, journalism, lifestyle and culture.

Sarah Nundy is a chief at Andrew Nurnberg Associates and agents for rights in Spain, Portugal and Italy

Peggy Vance, Commissioning Editor for Adult Lifestyle books at Dorling Kindersley

Jenny Parrott, Commissioning Editor for Fiction at Little Brown Book Group

Eric Akoto, Publisher of Litro Magazine, a free monthly literary magazine which publishes new, original short fiction.

Nick Harkaway, Author of his successful debut novel, The Gone-Away World (published by Random House, 2008), Nick began writing movie scripts before turning his pen to work on his debut novel. http://www.nickharkaway.com/

Simon Rae is a poet, broadcaster, biographer and playwright who runs the Top Edge Productions theatre company. He won the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition in 1999 and his play Grass won a Fringe Highlight award in 2002.

Lucy Beresford is a psychotherapist and broadcaster and published her first novel, Something I’m Not (Duckworth) in February 2008. She is also a well-known book reviewer of contemporary fiction and reviews regularly for The Spectator, Literary Review and The Sunday Telegraph and has been published in the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Times Literary Supplement. She has worked as a script advisor on a number of Bollywood films and is on the board of Developing Artists. She is also a regular expert guest on radio and television in particular BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

Craig Batty is Senior Lecturer in Media Writing at the University of Portsmouth. He is co-author (with Zara Waldeback) of the book Writing for the Screen: Creative and Critical Approaches (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), and, with Sandra Cain, the forthcoming book Media Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). He has written extensively about screenwriting in publications such as ScriptWriter magazine and Writing in Education, continues professional practice as a writer and script consultant, and is completing a PhD in Screenwriting.

Peter North, Independent Publisher Coordinator for Waterstone's. Peter offers help and advice to new, small and independent publishers, including the self-published, on all aspects of publishing, and on selling to Waterstone's in particular. He also works as part of the Waterstone's Fiction buying department.

Anna Lewis is the co-founder of CompletelyNovel.com and a social media specialist. Launched in February 2009, CompletelyNovel.com is an online hub where writers, readers and everyone from the book industry can interact. On CompletelyNovel, writers have free access to self publishing tools such as print-on-demand printing, and direct links to an online community of readers who can read, review and buy their books. CompletelyNovel enables aspiring writers to prove that their book has a market and use that as a basis to approach agents and publishers.

Ursula Hurley teaches Creative Writing at the University of Salford. She publishes poetry, short stories and articles widely and is currently completing her first novel.