The National Creative Writing Industry Day 2025

About the event

Are you a writer hoping to have your work published? Would you like the opportunity to meet agents and editors - to learn how the industry works from its experts and sharpen the skills needed to enter it?

Comma Press invites you to attend the eleventh edition of the National Creative Writing Industry Day, in partnership with Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Key Information

Date: Saturday 15th November 2025 Time: 9.30AM-5.30PM

Location: Manchester Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University

The National Creative Writing Industry Day 2025 is a full day of events for aspiring writers to gain insight into the publishing industry and advice on how to excel in their practice. This special event is committed to providing participants with a unique introduction to the publishing industry and its professionals.

Featuring

A keynote speech by Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night
Two panel discussions: ‘Working with an Agent' and ‘Building Your Literary Community’
A choice of four fabulous workshops
Two one-to-one meetings with literary agents or editors to get advice on your pitching technique and work-in-progress*
The opportunity to casually network with fellow writers and publishers both during and after the event.
The day will begin with an introduction and a keynote speech, followed by two panels and a selection of workshops tailored to the needs of those looking to enter the writing industry. In the afternoon, you can meet one-to-one with two literary agents or editors to discuss your works in progress and refine your pitching technique with expert advice from industry professionals.

If you have any questions, contact isabella.barber[at]commapress.co.uk

*Please note that while we are holding agent sessions in person this year, occasionally due to unforeseen circumstances agents have to join us virtually. In these cases we will set up all the tech and you do not have to make any extra preparations for your virtual session. We are not able to offer refunds if you are offered a virtual agent session.

Choose From Four Fabulous Workshops

1. Synopsising Your Novel

2. Marketing Yourself as a Writer

3. Poetics of the Haunted

4. Writing Intimacy and Relationships

Sponsored & Discounted Tickets

We have a number of discounted places available for underrepresented writers, MMU students and residents of Greater Manchester. Please email isabella.barber[at]commapress.co.uk to enquire.

About the Speakers

Claire Daverley (Keynote) was born in 1991 and has been writing stories ever since she was six years old, inspired by art and film and her many trips to the library. After graduating with a degree in Fine Art from The University of Oxford, she began a career in publishing, writing about books by day but penning her own by night, on trains, and in the light of the early mornings. She has spent most of her life in Hertfordshire but currently lives in Scotland with her husband and spaniel. Her debut novel, Talking at Night, was snapped up by Penguin Michael Joseph in the UK and Pamela Dorman Books in the US, as well as twenty-two languages to date. It has been shortlisted for Book of the Year in the Debut Fiction category at The British Book Awards 2024. Talking at Night was the 8th biggest selling debut paperback in 2024.

WORKING WITH AN AGENT 

Anna Davis is the MD of the Curtis Brown Creative writing school, which runs courses online and in London, and has seen over 300 of its students become commercially published authors. Anna is the author of five acclaimed novels, and has been a journalist and Guardian columnist, as well as a Curtis Brown literary agent. She taught creative writing at the University of Manchester and in many other settings before founding Curtis Brown Creative in 2011.

Tom Benn is an award-winning author, screenwriter and associate professor from Stockport. His essays and fiction have appeared in Granta and The Paris Review. He won the BFI’s iWrite scheme for emerging screenwriters, and his first film, REAL GODS REQUIRE BLOOD, premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the BFI London Film Festival. His fourth novel, OXBLOOD (Bloomsbury), was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the CWA Gold Dagger, and won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award.

Natalie Jerome has worked as a Publisher and Acquiring Editor for some of the UK’s most prominent publishing houses, including Penguin Random House, Pan Macmillan and HarperCollins. She specialises in commercial Non-Fiction and has published books by a host of high-profile names and Sunday Times bestsellers, including the multi-million copy selling One Direction titles. She made the move across to literary agenting in 2020, and in her first 12 months as an agent, she was shortlisted as Literary Agent of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards. One of the few black Publishers in the UK, Natalie has worked to improve diversity within the industry. She is the former Deputy Chair of Literature Wales, and in November 2021, helped secure a £5m investment from the Welsh government for books for schools in Wales. She is a founding trustee and board member for Creative Access, a mentoring and graduate trainee scheme for black and minority ethnic candidates looking for paid internships across the media sector. In 2016, Natalie was highly commended for her work at the National Business in the Community Race Equality Awards. She founded Originate Literary Agency in 2023, the first literary agency to open in Wales.

BUILDING YOUR LITERARY COMMUNITY

Cara Thompson is a writer, facilitator and artivist, and Nottingham's first Nature Poet Laureate. A proud descendant of Jamaican migrants who came to Britain as part of the pioneering 'Windrush generation', Cara's poetry has been featured and commissioned by Penguin Random House, Huffpost, Oxfam, the NHS Leadership Academy, UNESCO, Simon and Schuster and more. Cara is an Assistant Producer of the Nottingham spoken word collective GOBS, a Director of Nottingham Poetry Festival, and a co-founder of the Nottingham Black Creatives Network. In 2021, Cara won UNESCO Cities of Literature's international competition Slamovision with her poem 'Island Screams’'.

Emma Claire Sweeney co-directs the Ruppin Agency, offering reading and writing retreats in the Little Goat Barn in North Wales and literary mentorships nationwide. Emma’s novel, Owl Song at Dawn (Legend, 2016) won a Nudge Book of the Year prize. Her non-fiction debut, A Secret Sisterhood: The hidden friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf (Aurum, 2017), was co-written with Emily Midorikawa and Margaret Atwood supplied the foreword, describing it as a great ‘service to literary history’. Emma has won Society of Authors and Royal Literary Fund awards and has written for the likes of The Paris Review and TIME.

Alex Noble is a writer living in south-east London. He co-runs the writers’ collective Page of Wands. Established in 2023, the group facilitates a roster of open, free weekly workshops - including prompt sessions, independent writing and peer feedback. It also publishes an annual zine of work by members. Entirely volunteer-run, sessions focus on building an environment where attendees feel comfortable playing with language, regardless of writing experience. Recent projects include a collaboration with Speaking Volumes through their ACE funded, Breaking Ground Ireland programme - hosting two Dublin-based authors to facilitate guest workshops. 

SYNOPSISING YOUR NOVEL 

Joe Sedgwick has supported writers professionally for ten years. He began work at The Literary Consultancy as a paid intern in 2015 and now works running their editorial service division as Head of Writing Services. He has a Publishing MA from Kingston University and is on the Board of Trustees at Spread the Word. He began work as a Literary Agent at Seventh Agency in 2024 and is actively looking for non-fiction and literary fiction from global voices and writers who are under-represented in the UK publishing industry.

MARKETING YOURSELF AS A WRITER

Callie Kazumi is author of Cuckoo and Greedy, published by Penguin in both UK and USA. Previously she worked as a marketer for over a decade at international brands and publishing houses. Based in London, she uses her marketing skills to promote herself as an author, freelances on creative campaign work, and blogs in her spare time at Feral Girl Reads, her Substack hub exploring identity, neurodivergence, and the publishing world!

POETICS OF THE HAUNTED

Charlotte Shevchenko Knight’s debut poetry collection Food for the Dead was published by Jonathan Cape in 2024, for which she was the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, a Somerset Maugham Award, and the Laurel Prize for Best First Collection. Shevchenko Knight is currently completing her AHRC-funded PhD at Manchester Writing School and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Hull.

WRITING INTIMACY AND RELATIONSHIPS 

Rozie Kelly is a novelist based in West Yorkshire. After reading English Literature and Creative Writing she moved to Hebden Bridge, where she works for the Arvon Foundation, hosting creative writing courses. She was shortlisted for the PFD Queer Fiction Prize 2023 and was one of the eight participants in the inaugural Prototype Development Programme 2024. She won the 2024 NorthBound Book Award for Kingfisher, her debut novel.

We thank the following agencies and publishers for their support: Aevitas Creative, Marjacq, Curtis Brown Creative, Eve White, Liverpool Literary Agency, Greene & Heaton, Northodox Press, David Higham Associates, Zeno Agency, Felicity Bryan Associates, PEW Literary, Big Thinking Publishing, Originate Literary, Andrew Nurnberg Associates, Written Off Publishing and Janklow and Nesbit.