MANUSCRIPTS, MARKETING & MANY, MANY MEETINGS – the real life of an editor.

Harper North have recently opened an office in Manchester and one if the first things they did was have a meeting with the Squad. They are looking for northern writers, northern voices, what exactly does that mean?

This is our chance to find out with Harper North’s Publishing Director and their Editor at Large. We will discover what kinds of writers and what kinds of work they are looking for, as well as explore the relationship between editors and writers, between editors and their publishing houses, and between the books we write and the markets publishers target.

Katie Brown started her publishing career as a publicist, winning awards for her campaigns, before moving into editorial at Orion where her authors have included bestsellers, award winners and nominees for prizes including the Women’s Prize and the Costa, and chosen for retail promotions such as Waterstones Book of the Month. A Bookseller Rising Star in 2018 and co-founder of Hachette’s All Together Network, Katie is now Editor at Large for HarperNorth, and is on the search for inclusive and attention-grabbing fiction, which supports her longstanding work to improve diversity in publishing.

 Genevieve Pegg has worked in publishing for twenty years, from photocopying at Penguin to founding HarperNorth. Delighted to be bringing HarperCollins to Manchester, Gen is looking for fiction and non-fiction from, of or inspired by the north of the nation(s) and looking to take those voices to national and international readerships. In fiction, she searches for novels with endings as powerful as their beginnings and in non-fiction, books that inform, inspire and entertain while being accessible and narrative-driven.