Curtis Brown's Purdy sets up own company

Former Curtis Brown Creative editor Rufus Purdy has launched a new company offering a range of editorial services for novelists.

The company, Write Here..., will seek to work with both published and un-published authors. It promises to improve writers’ novels and make them "as strong as they can be" before they’re sent out to literary agents and publishers, or put in front of the book-reading public. The company also offers insider help with the submission package that authors send out to agents.

Having spent the past five-and-a-half years working at the Curtis Brown Creative novel-writing school – at which he helped 38 former students go on to get book deals with major publishers – Purdy is now looking forward to working with novelists throughout the world.

As well as being editor at Curtis Brown Creative from 2012 to 2018, Purdy ran its digital-first imprint Studio 28 – and was the editor for new fiction such as Gregory Lee’s Berlin: Day Zero and Alex Gerlis’ spy novels The Best of Our Spies, The Swiss Spy and Vienna Spies. He also worked with Squeeze songwriter Chris Difford on his memoir Some Fantastic Place (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), which is shortlisted for this year’s Penderyn Music Book Prize. As a journalist, Purdy’s work has been published in the Times, the Observer, the Financial Times, Condé Nast Traveller and the Sunday Times Travel Magazine, among others.

"I’m genuinely excited to be able to offer my editorial skills and knowledge of the book market to a wider pool of writers," said Purdy. "And if I can help aspiring authors achieve their dream of finding an agent and ultimately a publishing deal – or provide assistance to a novelist who’s struggling with a second or third book – then I’ll be delighted. I like going to book-launch parties, you see."