Links With Agents and Publishers and the Film & TV world
Although the MA in Creative Writing is not primarily commercial in outlook, we maintain close contacts with literary agents, publishers, and the professional theatre and film world, and the record of publications and prizes achieved by our alumni is unparalleled. For most, publication begins with our annual anthology of student work, which this year is entitled ‘Cheque Enclosed’.
Our association with the David Higham and Curtis Brown literary agencies is especially longstanding and both are generous in their support of our students. David Higham Associates provides a substantial annual bursary, while Curtis Brown awards an annual prize for the best prose fiction dissertation. In addition we host a series of visits towards the end of each academic year by literary agents and publishers of both fiction and poetry, and in 2007 we are launching a mentoring scheme that will match each of our prose fiction students with a literary agent for a period of six months after graduation. In 2005 the scriptwriting strand of the MA was industry-accredited by Skillset, the Sector Skills Training Council for the UK film industry.
THE DAVID HIGHAM AWARD
David Higham Associates was established in 1935 and represents novelists, historians, biographers, screenwriters, playwrights, and children’s writers and illustrators. The agency handles all rights in a client’s work, including film and television, and is represented in all foreign markets. Among the more recent UEA alumni to be represented by the agency are Naomi Alderman, Julia Bell, Ryan Gattis, Clare George, Edward Hogan and Tiffany Murray. Naomi Alderman was the first recipient of the David Higham Award in 2002 and has been succeeded by Edward Hogan, Lauren Frankel, Alex Sheal, Katy Darby, Martha Schabas, Gabrielle Barnes, Philip Langeskov and Rob Magnusson Smith. The bursary is worth £5,000 and is awarded annually at the start of the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) to a student chosen by a panel of David Higham agents. All students accepted for a place on the course are automatically eligible for consideration, and the agents’ decision is based on the material originally submitted by students in their application portfolio.
THE CURTIS BROWN PRIZE
Curtis Brown was established in 1899 and is one of the oldest literary agencies in Europe, representing a wide variety of best-selling and prize-winning authors, including some of the most acclaimed writers of the last century as well as many prominent contemporary authors. The agency handles translation rights in over thirty territories, and has a dedicated book-to-film section. Among the UEA alumni to be represented by the agency are Martyn Bedford, Tracy Chevalier, Susan Fletcher, Jane Harris, Jeremy Page and D. W. Wilson. The Curtis Brown Prize was established by the agency in memory of their colleague Giles Gordon and then inaugural award went to Joe Dunthorne in 2006 for his novel Submarine. Tamara Britten won the prize in 2007 for her novel-in-progress Flame of the Forest. Daniel Timms was the recipient in 2008 and Lauren Owen in 2009. The award is worth £1,500 and is made annually to the best student on the prose fiction MA, as chosen by a panel of Curtis Brown agents from a shortlist comprising those students who achieve a distinction in their dissertation.
SPRING SEMESTER PROGRAMME OF VISITS
Towards the end of each academic year we host a series of visits by literary agents and publishers to which students on all strands of the Creative Writing MA and the PhD in Creative & Critical Writing are invited. In addition to the annual presentations by David Higham Associates and Curtis Brown, agents and editors from the following agencies and publishers have been represented in recent years: Aitken Alexander Associates, A.M. Heath, Annette Green, A.P.Watt, Canongate, Conville & Walsh, David Godwin Associates, Faber & Faber, HarperCollins, ICM, Jonathan Cape, The McKernan Agency, PFD, The Rialto, Rochelle Stevens & Co, Salt Publishing and the Wylie Agency. A dossier of each year’s students is distributed to these visitors and to a range of other agencies and publishers, along with copies of the annual anthology of student work, and many of our students go on to find representation as a result.
AGENT MENTORING SCHEME
In 2007 UEA launched a mentoring scheme for students on the Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) MA that will match each student with a literary agent for a period of six months (January – June) following graduation. Conceived by Martin Pick, sponsor of UEA’s Charles Pick Writing Fellowship, and Kevin Conroy Scott of the literary agency Tibor Jones & Associates, the scheme is administered jointly by UEA and Kerry Glencorse of the literary agency Susanna Lea Associates and is intended to give students an insight into the practicalities of the publishing business. One agent from each of the following eight agencies is currently participating: AM Heath, AP Watt, Blake Friedmann, David Higham Associates, Johnson & Alcock, the Marsh Agency, Susanna Lea Associates, United Agents. The agents will select three students each and will offer them editorial and career advice, the possibility of a short internship at the agency, and a report on the student’s writing at the end of the six-month period. An offer of representation may be made at any time during the scheme, though this is not guaranteed, and the student is of course free to accept an alternative offer from another agency before, during or after the scheme.
ANNUAL ANTHOLOGIES
Each year under the auspices of the UEA Centre for Creative and Performing Arts we publish an anthology of work by students graduating from the MA in Creative Writing. Published in October and launched in Norwich and London, the anthology is compiled, edited and designed by the students themselves and represents for many their first appearance in print. The first volume, Unthank, appeared in 1990 and featured an introduction by Malcolm Bradbury, with stories by all ten students on that year’s MA. Over the years the anthologies (pictured right) have been introduced by a number of other writers with a strong connection to UEA, including Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain, Adam Mars-Jones, Andrew Motion, Patricia Duncker, Michele Roberts, George Szirtes, Val Taylor, Richard Holmes, Andrew Cowan, Trezza Azzopardi, Denise Riley and Kathryn Hughes. The first drama scripts appeared in the 1994 anthology, Matrix, the first poems in the 1997 anthology, Catapult, and the first pieces of lifewriting in the 2004 anthology, Concertina. This year’s anthology (pictured above) again features work by students on all four MA writing strands and contains a foreword by UEA graduate and Man Booker Prizewinner, Anne Enright. Copies can be bought direct from Egg Box Publishing. In 2007 a new series of anthologies was inaugurated with the publication of Workshop, a collection of UEA undergraduate writing, again initiated, compiled, edited and designed by the students themselves, and supported by the Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Trust.
SKILLSET
In 2005 the scriptwriting strand of the creative writing MA was industry-accredited by Skillset, the Sector Skills Training Council for the UK Audio Visual Industries (broadcast, film, video, interactive media and photo imaging). Accreditation enables the MA to offer a Screenwriting Bursary and further fosters links between the UK film and television industries and UEA scriptwriting students which will help to equip them for a professional writing career.
