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

Bidding ended
Winning bid
£755

About this item

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.

Update at 1:13pm, 11 May 2021

*Please note, as stated on the main page this auction is UK shipping only for the physical prizes - Zoom calls and mentoring plus online critiques are open internationally*

Update at 7:53pm, 20 May 2021

The bid increment was changed from £1 to £20.

Bidding ended: 11:59pm, 21 May 202111:59pm, Friday 21 May 2021Europe/London

Bidding

Bidder Time Bid
Matt Williams 11:23pm 21 May 2021 £755
DD writing 5:29pm 21 May 2021 £395
SA 2:39pm 21 May 2021 £375
NugNovel 9:45am 21 May 2021 £355
Carolina Varga 7:16pm 20 May 2021 £335
DD writing 3:42pm 19 May 2021 £325
louise m. 4:22pm 18 May 2021 £320
mary_2 3:39pm 18 May 2021 £300
louise m. 3:25pm 12 May 2021 £270
paulbcarr 10:53pm 11 May 2021 £250
gbrtaylor 5:25pm 10 May 2021 £200