#250 Editorial critique of a cover letter and the first 30 pages of a novel from C&W Literary Agent Emma Finn

An amazing opportunity to have your work read by a leading London literary agent.

About Emma:

I am actively building my list of exciting new writers of both fiction and narrative non-fiction. On the fiction side, I read widely so don't like to be too prescriptive, but I do love novels that explore those moments that define our lives and collective experience: falling in or out of love; dealing with loss; navigating frailty, friendship, dysfunction or loneliness. And I'm drawn to novels about families, relationships of all kinds, that are sharply observed with a clever psychology.

For what it’s worth, a few novelists who I think do this wonderfully are Maggie O’Farrell, Celeste Ng, Katherine Heiny, Kate Atkinson, Sally Rooney, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Anne Tyler, Sarah Waters, Zadie Smith and Elizabeth Strout. Above all I’m drawn to a strong voice, characters I want to drop everything to spend time with and beautiful, confident writing that grabs you by the hand from the first page and pulls you headlong into a memorable story. I’m not particularly led by genre but I am broadly on the lookout for accessible literary, upmarket commercial and book group fiction, high concept novels and character-driven crime (a la Tana French), thrillers and suspense. I'm afraid I don't represent children's books or YA.

In non-fiction I'd love to see big ideas books that help us to think about the world today, alternative histories, psychology, anthropology and popular science, memoir, great food writing (I especially adore Nigel Slater) and genre-blending narrative non-fiction that fuses the author's interests and expertise. 

Editorial work is one of my favourite parts of the job so I'm absolutely committed to helping debut writers get their work into the best possible shape to share with publishers. I'm very happy to hear from authors with any initial queries so just drop me a line, and you can submit to me directly via email.

Emma represents a range of authors including Ellery Lloyd, Jax Miller, Karamo Brown, Chloe Ashby and many more.

About C&W

C&W are a leading literary agency in London, home to some of the world's biggest authors including Dolly Alderton, Booker winner Douglas Stuart and Lemn Sissay. You can read more about them on their website.