Launched in 2018, SYP London mentorship scheme is back for 2025!
SYP London runs two streams: SYPInto, designed to support those who are new to the industry and/or are just starting out in their careers, and SYPAhead, dedicated to junior professionals already employed in a publishing role and wanting to progress in their careers.
Applications open on 19 May 2025 at 09:00, and will close on 8 June 2025 at 23:59. Please apply via the links below:
To find out more about mentee applications, click here. If you have any questions about the mentorship scheme, please refer to the FAQ page here or contact us at mentorship@thesyp.org.uk (for general mentorship enquiries) or syp.london.mentorship@gmail.com (for branch-specific enquiries).
SYP London 2025 Mentors
We have over 50 SYP London mentors and they come from a wide and diverse range of publishing departments and professional backgrounds, so we are excited to pair them with this year’s successful applicants. Please do take a look at their profiles below.
SYP London Into Mentors
Lucy Ashworth
She/Her
Publishing Assistant at LSE Press
Lucy is a Publishing Assistant at LSE Press. She was previously a Marketing Executive at Facet Publishing, where she managed all marketing activities, as well as assisted with the Carnegie Book Awards and CILIP events. Prior to this, she completed multiple internships, including Boldwood Books and Watkins. She is also the Communications Executive for The FLIP (Female Leadership in Publishing).
Grace Barber
She/Her
Editor at Gollancz
Grace is currently an Editor at Gollancz. She started her career in publishing at Tor, Pan Macmillan, working as an Editorial Assistant and on books from Carissa Broadbent, Olivie Blake, Freya Marske, Travis Baldree and more. One day soon, she might find herself buried beneath her ever-growing collection of special editions.
Jack Bartlett
He/Him
Marketing & Publishing Assistant at Kogan Page
Jack is currently a Marketing & Publishing Assistant at Kogan Page, where he helps to smooth the workflow for the Marketing & and Editorial teams. Before his role, he was a postgraduate at Kingston University, where he learned about the industry whilst working part-time in retail. He also holds a BA honours in Creative Writing with an interest in stories with an important and diverse voice.
Hannah Beeson
She/Her
Senior Paid Advertising Manager at Hachette UK
Hannah is currently a Senior Paid Advertising Manager at Hachette UK, where she manages Amazon Advertising for a number of trade divisions. Prior to this, she was working at Hodder Education as Senior Marketing Executive, but she started her career at a small magazine working across editorial and marketing. She has also been the Events Lead for the Gender Balance Network at Hachette since Jan 2022, and was previously on the SYP London committee for two years from 2020-2021.
Ellie Bye
She/Her
Publishing Coordinator at Wiley
Originally from Bristol, Ellie’s academic journey led her to the University of Edinburgh, where she graduated in the summer of 2023 with a first-class degree in French and English Literature. Following my studies, she spent a year working in France before securing her first role in research publishing at Wiley in Oxford.
Amy Byrne
She/Her
Publisher Relations Executive at Publishers’ Licensing Services
Amy is a Publisher Relations Executive at Publishers’ Licensing Services and has worked in the publishing industry since 2019. She has previous experience across B2B and licensed magazines, with roles spanning editorial, production, and operations – giving her a broad understanding of the publishing process.
She first studied English at Manchester Metropolitan University before completing an MA in Contemporary Literature and Culture at Birkbeck, University of London, which she studied part-time while working. In her current role within the rights and licensing sector, she supports publishers across the industry and contributes to the development of collective licensing solutions. Alongside this, she regularly represents PLS at the Frankfurt and London Book Fairs, as well as at industry conferences and trade association events throughout the year.
Helen Chapman
She/Her
Helen has been working in Kids Publishing for over 15 years working across a huge range of books across pretty much all genres! She is very passionate about publishing and making it accessible to everyone.
Kimberley Chen
She/Her
Designer at Little Tiger Press
Kimberley is a Designer at Little Tiger Press. She’s worked at the company since 2019 where she’s had the exciting opportunity to work on a variety of book cover and interior designs like the atmospheric YA romance If You Still Recognise Me written by Cynthia So which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, Mike Falls Up which was shortlisted for the Academy of British Cover Design Award, and the action adventure series Guardians of the New Moon.
Additionally, she illustrated The Girl with the Louding Voice book for Hodder & Stoughton which was shortlisted for the Fiction Debut Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, chosen as Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month, featured on Sky Arts Book Club Live hosted by Andi Oliver and Elizabeth Day, and shown on BBC Two Between the Covers presented by Sara Cox.
Maya Conway
She/Her
Publicity Executive at Bluebird and One Boat
In her role, Maya plans and executes impactful, year-long PR campaigns across both the Bluebird and One Boat lists; securing press, organising events and working with authors to ensure their work reaches as many people as possible. Before joining Pan Macmillan, she worked at Hodder & Stoughton and as a bookseller in North London.
Georgina Dent
She/Her
Literary Agent’s Assistant at Simon Trewin Creative
Georgina is a literary agent’s assistant at Simon Trewin Creative, where she has worked for the last 3 years. She studied her MA in Publishing at Kingston University in 2021, then briefly worked in publicity and marketing before falling upon agenting and never looking back. She helps to look after authors such as John Boyne, Paul Lynch, and Sam Blake, and her role includes anything and everything that you could imagine; from reading submissions and contracts (as you may expect) to booking flights for authors and celebrating Booker Prize wins.
Liza DeBlock
She/Her
Literary Agent at Mushens Entertainment
Liza started in publishing at the literary scouting agency, Eccles Fisher Associates before moving to work as an assistant to Juliet Mushens, working alongside her as she developed multiple Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling authors. In 2022 Liza was chosen as one of The Bookseller’s Rising Stars in the publishing industry. Liza also works with Black Girl Writers, and Jericho Writers, assessing submissions and mentoring authors, and has started developing her own list of authors including Natalie Chandler, Pim Wangtechawat, Stacey Thomas, and Sally Abé. You can follow her on Twitter as @lizadeblock or on Instagram at @lizathelitagent.
Tasha Drewett
She/Her
Editorial Assistant at Bonnier Books
Natasha started her career working for two years in the sales department of a leading independent publisher. In 2024 she moved to the editorial department of Bonnier Books, where she works as an editorial assistant across their literary nonfiction publishing.
Lauren Fairgrieve
She/Her
Editor at Nosy Crow
Lauren is a children’s book writer and editor who grew up in rural East Lothian, Scotland, and now lives in North London. She can often be found roaming Hampstead Heath or exploring a new part of the city, and is very proud and grateful to be able to edit and write fascinating children’s non-fiction for a living.
Ellie Freedman
She/Her
Assistant Editor at Tinder Press
Ellie joined Tinder Press, Headline’s literary imprint, as assistant editor in June 2022, where she works with authors such as Maggie O’Farrell, Kit de Waal, Nathan Harris, Amy Twigg and Francesca Reece. Before that, she spent three years at Orion, working across Weidenfeld & Nicolson and White Rabbit.
Tara Ghias
She/Her
Non-Trade Sales Executive at Simon & Schuster
Tara is working in the UK Sales Team at Simon & Schuster and before that was in the UK Sales Team at Bloomsbury. A Londoner born and bred, Tara loves spending her weekends exploring the city and finding new places to discover. An avid reader of fantasy, some of her favourite authors are Brandon Sanderson, Robin Hobb and Richard Swann. She says working in sales in Publishing has been so much fun and wants more people to know about it.
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Elizabeth Guess
She/Her
Translation Rights Executive at Intercontinental Literary Agency
Elizabeth is currently Translation Rights Executive at Intercontinental Literary Agency, a specialist literary agency handling translation rights for all languages except English. They work with a range of agencies across the UK and US, and handle translation rights for many bestselling authors, like Suzanne Collins and Karen M. McManus. She started in June 2021 as an assistant and in November 2022 was promoted to the Children’s and YA list, where she handle rights for a range of territories across the world, like Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, as well as across Asia like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Emma Jennings
She/Her
Art Director at Caterpillar Books
Emma Jennings is Art Director at Caterpillar Books, an imprint of Little Tiger Press. She leads a team of talented designers who create innovative novelty board books, engaging non-fiction titles and concept-driven picture books. With over a decade of experience including design roles at Nosy Crow and Priddy Books, she really enjoys bringing fresh ideas to life and showcasing them at book fairs.
Emma Kiesling
She/Her
Audio Editor at Bonnier Books UK
At Bonnier Books UK, Emma is currently creating bestselling audiobooks and overseeing Bonnier’s digital audio sales and accounts. She is a 2023 UCL Masters in Publishing postgraduate with experience in audio publishing, digital sales, and marketing. She is particularly passionate about anything in the audio format, bringing her list of Children’s, YA, and crossover audio titles from acquisitions through to publication and post-publication promotion. An insatiable audiobook and podcast listener, she is always on the lookout for compelling new voices. In her spare time, she cohosts the podcast Uncovering Publishing, reads a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and indiscriminately watches whatever sports are in season.
Devon Lee
She/Her
Translation Rights Assistant at CAA
Devon works in translation rights at Creative Artists Agency since joining in 2022. Before that, she worked at Waterstones, starting at Hatchards in 2019 and moving to deputy ACS at Foyles Charing Cross in 2021. She studied French and Russian at the University of St. Andrews and then completed a Masters at Durham in Translation Studies.
Misha Manani
She/Her
Assistant Editor at Simon and Schuster UK
Misha is an Assistant Editor at Simon and Schuster UK where she works on commercial titles in the adult fiction team. Before this, she was an Editorial Assistant at Bonnier Books UK, Editorial and Production Trainee at Hachette UK and a Publishing Intern at Neem Tree Press. Misha graduated from the Columbia Publishing Course in New York.
Rosie Pinder
She/Her
Rights Executive at Penguin Random House Children’s
Rosie is a Rights Assistant in the Penguin Random House Children’s Team. She’s been in this role just over two years and it’s her first job in publishing after graduating. She previously volunteered for the Publishing Post and Derby Book Festival, and had an SYP Into mentor herself!
Polly Peraza-Brown
She/Her
Children’s International Rights Executive at Curtis Brown Group
Polly joined the Curtis Brown Group in January 2023, as the Rights Assistant for C&W, before moving to the children’s team at Curtis Brown last year. Since then, she has had the good fortune of supporting a wide variety of authors reach readers worldwide. In the last year, she joined forces with Curtis Brown International and have been co-agenting on behalf of East Asian agencies and publishers, negotiating in the UK, US and abroad. She’s originally from the Northwest of England and, prior to joining the company, she completed a master’s degree in Publishing Media from Oxford Brookes University and worked for three years at a literary consultancy. In her spare time you’ll find her planning her next foreign adventure or tucking into Japanese translations and a packet of crisps.
Zara Petranova,
She/Her
Associate Rights Executive at David Higham Associates
Zara is an Associate Rights Executive for the Adult Translation team at David Higham Associates. Previously, she was the International Rights Assistant at Peters Fraser + Dunlop, and before that a Bookseller at Daunt Books, Oxford.
Meg Prudden
She/Her
Senior Production Controller at Little Tiger Press
Meg is a Senior Production Controller at Little Tiger Press. After studying Fine Art at university, Meg started her career working for an independent art book publisher before joining Little Tiger Press in 2020. She works on a variety of wacky and wonderful picture books, board books and novelty titles, and insists there’s never a dull day when you work in Production!
Bleu Simpson
She/Her
Rights Sales Executive at Kogan Page
Bleu is a Rights Sales Executive at Kogan Page and lives in London. She has a bachelors in English Literature from Canterbury Christ Church University and an MA in Digital Publishing from Oxford Brookes. Before working in publishing, she gained experience across many roles from managing a restaurant to working in a bookshop, tutoring in schools and working in a cash office. She can make a great flat white, is a qualified yoga teacher and loves to travel and meet new people.
Jack Solloway
He/Him
Marketing Manager at Bloomsbury
Jack is a Marketing Manager for Bloomsbury Publishing’s academic division. A former Online Editor of The London Magazine, his writing has appeared in The Times, TLS and Aesthetica Magazine among others. His poetry book SERIOUSLY is out now with Broken Sleep Books.
Laura Swift
She/They
Editorial Co-ordinator at Manchester University Press
Laura has been part of the Editorial team at MUP since 2021, following a PhD in early modern English literature and critical theory at the University of Manchester. Having started out as an Editorial Assistant, she is currently Editorial Co-ordinator; she also commissions books on Higher Education, with a focus on activism and critical university studies.
Izzy Toner
Sher/Her
Editorial Assistant at the Quarto Group
Izzy works at a publishing company that specialises in illustrated non-fiction, across a variety of imprints. She began my publishing journey with internships, at first in marketing whilst she was a student, and then editorial. She’s worked as an Editorial Assistant for about a year and a half and absolutely loves it.
Zoe Willis
She/Her
Translation Rights Coordinator at CAA
Zoe started her career in translation rights at Curtis Brown Group, before moving to Creative Artists Agency in 2022. She studied Modern Languages and English at the University of Birmingham and has also worked at Tongue Literary Scouting.
SYP London Into/Ahead Mentors
Meredith Adams
She/Her
Head of Social Impact at Penguin Random House UK
Meredith is Head of Social Impact at Penguin Random House UK. She has almost a decade of experience in corporate social responsibility roles that focus on building corporate-charity partnerships that create social value and tackle complex issues. Her current role involves, alongside the wider social impact team, delivering programmes that remove barriers to reading, develop readers of the future, and create access routes for writers into the publishing industry. This includes the Lit in Colour campaign which aims to diversify the teaching of English Literature in schools and Libraries for Primaries, co-founded with the National Literacy Trust, which works to secure a library for all UK primary schools. Prior to publishing, Meredith held similar roles in the finance sector.
Alice Aldous
She/Her
Senior Head of Product at McGraw Hill
Alice Aldous is Senior Head of Product at McGraw Hill, where she has spent a decade in editorial roles. She is an expert in Higher Education publishing, with a focus on digital. She has navigated the continuing transformation of the HE market and is passionate about building products that improve and enrich student outcomes. She started out her career at Routledge, as an editorial assistant working on the built environment list. Currently leading a team of editors, she is dedicated to developing talent and helping colleagues to flourish.
Alexa Allen-Batifoulier
She/Her
Alexa is a Senior Commissioning Editor at Del Rey
Alexa is a Senior Commissioning Editor at Del Rey, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy imprint at Penguin Random House. Previously, she commissioned at Dialogue Books, where she published authors Hazel McBride, Chip Pons, Geneva Lee and more.
Alexa began her career as an Editorial Assistant HarperCollins in New York before making the leap across the pond to Virago, a historically feminist imprint of Little, Brown. Throughout her career, she has focused on uplifting and platforming marginalised communities.
Alice Bidetti
She/Her
Senior Consultant at Inspired Selection
Alice is a Senior Consultant at Inspired Selection, the specialist publishing recruitment agency. She studied English Literature in Rome and then moved to London to complete a Masters in Publishing at UCL. Before joining Inspired Selection in 2019, Alice interned with the Welbeck Group and Simon & Schuster, and then worked in an account management role for a digital B2B publication. At Inspired Selection, Alice specialises in placing candidates in role within the Academic publishing sector, working on a mix of permanent, contract and temporary assignments for clients within the scholarly, STM and academic fields.
Hope Butler
She/Her
Marketing Manager at 4th Estate
Hope is a Marketing Manager for 4th Estate and William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins. She works across both lists with William Collins specialising in non-fiction and 4th Estate specialising in literary fiction. She’s been in her current role for 7 months, having previously worked for Cornerstone, a division of Penguin Random House, for 4 ½ years. Through both her roles she has worked across a wide range of genres including non-fiction, romance, fantasy, literary fiction, crime/thriller and worked with a range of brand authors such as Katie Fforde. She won a Book Marketing Society Award for her work on The Extra Mile by Kevin Sinfield and been Highly Commended at the Book Marketing Society Awards for her Non-Fiction campaign for Eve by Cat Bohannon and This Christmas by Emma Heatherington.
Originally from the North of England she is extremely passionate about creating UK-wide marketing campaigns and campaigns that reach diverse communities, particularly those from different socio-economic backgrounds.
Hannah Chukwu
She/Her
Publishing Director at Dialogue Books
Hannah is a multi-award-winning Publishing Director at Dialogue Books, where she leads the literary team publishing across fiction, non-fiction, poetry and classics, with a focus on publishing underrepresented voices. Authors she publishes include bell hooks, Bora Chung and Yoko Tawada. Prior to joining Dialogue, she commissioned at Hamish Hamilton, PRH, where she also edited Five Dials magazine, founded the Black Britain: Writing Back series with Bernardine Evaristo, and was the Policy and Campaign Consultant for the curriculum change project Lit in Colour, in collaboration with the Runnymede Trust. She is a Trustee for the education charity The Brilliant Club.
Sophie Davies
She/Her
International Sales Manager at Hachette UK & US
Sophie started working in the publishing industry in May 2021, just before graduating from her English Lit degree from the University of Exeter, and she gained my first role as the International Sales Assistant at Bloomsbury. She has since moved to Hachette, where she now works as an International Sales Manager, solely responsible for managing the sales of English-language books from across the company into Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Iceland. She has now worked in publishing for 4 years and is absolutely loving it! Highlights have included travelling abroad to many cities, from Oslo, to Paris, to meet with my customers, getting to sell authors such as Rebecca Yarros, Ali Hazelwood, and Sarah J. Maas, and in 2021 she was part of the team awarded Export Team of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Laura Dolan
She/Her
Accounts Director at CPI & UKAAF Large Print Lead
Laura has enjoyed eight years of experience in book manufacturing, 5 of which in a sales role, and is passionate about large print and accessible publishing, dedicated to making content inclusive for all readers. Outside of work, Laura enjoys walking and is an advocate for Kidney Care UK, inspired by her experience as a living donor.
Perry Emerson
He/Him
Commissioning Editor at Little Tiger Press
Perry is a Commissioning Editor at Little Tiger Press, where he works in the picture book studio making books for the youngest of readers. When he’s not making books, he spends his time playing music and discovering new restaurants. Perry lives in London with his wife and their much-too-fluffy cat.
Rosanna Forte
She/Her
Editorial Director at Sphere
Rosanna is Editorial Director for fiction at Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown, where she commissions a range of fiction, from crime and thriller to literary-commercial crossover historical novels.
She began my career in publishing seven years ago on Penguin Random House’s entry level recruitment programme, The Scheme, and then worked at Viking for three years on their commercial and literary fiction lists before joining Sphere.
Rachel Goldblatt
She/Her
Associate Agent at Curtis Brown
Rachel joined Curtis Brown in 2022 and became an Associate Agent at the beginning of the year. She is now building her list, focussing on literary fiction and narrative non-fiction, while working alongside Jonathan Lloyd. Prior to joining Curtis Brown, she worked at Bloomsbury and CHEERIO Publishing. Born and raised in Hackney, she has lived and studied in Edinburgh, Montpellier, Cambridge and Lyon.
Emily Goulding
She/Her
Senior Press Officer at Pushkin Press
Emily is a publicist at Pushkin Press, and the creator behind Instagram page @thingsthativeread. In 2024 she was part of the shadow judging panel for Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and worked with nb. magazine as an interviewer for the Nota Bene Prize, who she still regularly reviews books for. She has previously held positions at HarperFiction and Hodder, and has a particular interest in literary and translated fiction by women!
Chelsea Graham
She/Her
Senior Editor (Audio) at Bonnier Books UK
Chelsea is the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Publishing Post. The magazine offers publishing hopefuls both information for free, and the opportunity to gain experience within the publishing environment. Day to day she also works as a Senior Editor across the Fiction Audio list at Bonnier Books, having previously worked at Bloomsbury, and was named a London Book Fair Rising Star of 2023. She also has experience of the entry-level hiring process, having hired for roles twice in her career so far.
Demet Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik
She/Her
Senior Production Controller at Little Tiger Press
Born in Berlin, Demet came to London in 2015 for her master’s in children’s literature and stayed to work in publishing.
She previously worked for Imago Publishing as a Sales and Production Controller working with clients all over Europe.
Before moving to Little Tiger three years ago, where she is now a Senior Production Controller and works on a variety of products from picture books and plush to middle grade and YA fiction.
Dredheza Maloku
She/Her
Editor at Daunt Books Publishing
Dredheza is Editor at Daunt Books Publishing, working across literary fiction, non-fiction and translated fiction. Recently, she has reissued I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti and The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick as well as adding to the Daunt Books anthology series with By the River and Freewheeling. Later this year she will publish two debut novels, Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje and Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga. She was previously at Vintage, as Assistant Editor, and prior to that she was Editorial Assistant at Transworld. Dredheza has also written for Vittles and published poetry in Partners Zine and Balkanism
Charlie Moyler
She/Her
Art Director at Little Tiger Press
Charlie has been the Fiction Studio’s Art Director at Little Tiger since 2020. Here she manages a team of 4 designers, supervising the art direction of interior illustrations, art directing covers and keeping a design eye over marketing and publicity materials. She also designs projects of her own which range from YA covers through to picture books, and collaborates with the Editorial Director, Lauren Ace and the rest of the fiction editorial team to develop the list.
Before Little Tiger, Charlie was a Senior Designer at Walker Books where she designed and developed the international hit Post series by Emma Yarlett (Dragon Post, Monster Post, Santa Post…). She also art directed Klaus Flugg longlisted RSPB non-fiction book Magnificent Birds illustrated by Narisa Togo and the shortlisted picture book My Red Hat by Rachel Stubbs.
At this stage Charlie has made books in every genre and category in children’s publishing. She has designed board book formats, has a knack for paper-engineering, and loves exploring the parameters of the book form. Coming from a family who experienced homelessness and with a migrant parent, she is also passionate about diversity and representation in publishing.
In 2023 her debut authored picture book, The Tree Next Door, was published (illustrated by Martin Stanev). In 2023 she was a hive.co.uk Rising Writer and is represented by Davinia Andrew-Lynch for her writing.
Federica Trogu
She/Her
Press Officer at Headline Publishing Group
Federica is a Press Officer at Headline, Hachette. Previously, she worked at Penguin General as Communications Assistant and as Campaigns Executive at Penguin Audio. She is passionate about good storytelling, and what stories can we tell around the books we read.
Ella Whiddett
She/Her
Senior Commissioning Editor at Piccadilly Press and Hot Key Books
Ella is a senior commissioning editor at Piccadilly Press and Hot Key Books, imprints of Bonnier Books UK, where she works on children’s fiction, from young fiction through to middle grade, teen and YA. She was previously an editor at Little Tiger, and throughout her career has worked with many talented writers, including award-winning and Carnegie-shortlisted author Nathanael Lessore, YA Book Prize shortlisted author Cynthia So, and BBC zoologist and vet Jess French. She loves distinct voices, big concepts and characters you can root for. If a book makes her laugh or cry, it’s doing something right!
SYP London Ahead Mentors
Rebecca Fletcher
She/Her
Senior Marketing Executive at Cambridge University Press
Rebecca Fletcher is a Senior Marketing Executive in the Higher Education team at Cambridge University Press, where she is responsible for the creation and delivery of campaigns for their Engineering and Life Sciences textbooks.
Andrew James
He/Him
Director of Content & Publishing at Facet Publishing
Andrew joined Facet Publishing in 2024. He was previously Editorial Director at Jessica Kingsley Publishers and before that he worked in academic publishing at Palgrave Macmillan. Andrew has worked in publishing in editorial for over 15 years and he was selected as a Rising Star by The Bookseller in 2018.
Tilda Key
She/Her
Deputy Publisher at Sphere Fiction
Tilda is Deputy Publisher at Sphere Fiction (an imprint of Little, Brown). She mainly edits and publishes crime and thriller fiction, including global bestsellers Colleen Hoover, Patricia Cornwell and Sarah Pearse, as well as acquiring new voices who shine a light on stories we don’t often see represented in commercial fiction. She started her career in a small independent digital publisher and has since worked at Harlequin UK, Penguin Michael Joseph and Avon (HarperCollins), before joining Sphere in 2021.
Sophie Lambert
She/Her
Literary Agent at C&W Agency
After working as a bookseller and a book buyer on London’s Charing Cross Road for several years, Sophie moved to New York and spent three years there as an assistant at Janklow & Nesbit. She moved back to London and started her own list at Tibor Jones and Associates before joining C&W in 2013. She became a Director and later Managing Director, and was shortlisted for Agent of the Year in 2019. Alongside multiple Sunday Times bestselling authors, she represents authors who have been nominated for or won numerous prizes including the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize, the Baillie Gifford, the Costa Book of the Year, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Ondaatje Prize, the Wainwright Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the British Book of the Year Award.
Millie Lean
She/Her
Senior Agent at InterTalent
Millie Lean is a 2024 Broadcast Magazine Hot Shot agent and was a Branford Boase long-listed editor. Millie has been a Senior Agent at InterTalent since March 2025.
Prior to joining InterTalent, Millie was a Senior Talent Manager and literary agent at YMU, where she combined her skills in literary agenting with total career management for clients such as Francis Bourgeois, Poppy Cooks, and Jemma Solomon. She sold book projects for authors including Stephen Mulhern, Tom Daley and Lizzie Frainier.
Before entering the agent world, Millie started her career at Bloomsbury, working for Whitaker’s Almanac and Who’s Who. Millie then became an editor at Puffin, Penguin Random House, and worked with a number of authors including Jacqueline Wilson, Greg James and Chris Smith, Fearne Cotton and Lis Jardine.
Anna Steadman
She/Her
Editorial Director at Headline Home
Anna began her career at Lutyens & Rubinstein Literary Agency, before moving to Penguin in 2014, where alongside her boss Juliet Annan she acquired the Sunday Times bestseller Everything I Know about Love by Dolly Alderton. In 2017 she moved to be a non-fiction commissioning editor at Piatkus/Little, Brown, where she acquired a number of titles including Wabi Sabi by Beth Kempton (translated into 24 languages and over 300k copies sold). She moved to Headline at the end of 2018, and is now an Editorial Director, publishing all kinds of lifestyle non-fiction on the Headline Home list. The first book that she acquired at Headline, Mind the Gap by Dr Karen Gurney, remains a favourite of mine. Titles that she is publishing this year include Single by Nicola Slawson, The Narrowing by Dr Alexandra Shaker and Help! My Child’s Anxiety is Giving Me Anxiety by Saskia Joss.
Ed Wood
He/Him
Agent and Director of Fiction Development at The Blair Partnership
Ed is Agent and Director of Fiction Development at The Blair Partnership. Prior to this, he was Publishing Director for Sphere Fiction and IP Director for Little, Brown Book Group. He has over a decade of experience in commercial fiction, following earlier careers in literary magazine editing and TV. He has published numerous Sunday Times bestsellers and award-winning novels, specialising in crime and thriller. As IP Director, Ed led the development of IP strategy across Hachette, conceiving and publishing titles that together have yielded seven figures in rights sales, and supporting teams across the group in creating their own bestselling content. He has worked extensively with creative writing courses and initiatives including UEA, the Curtis Brown creative writing course, and the Daily Mail Prize.