Hachette unveils new cohort of writers on its Grow Your Story scheme

Hachette UK has unveiled this year’s participants in its Grow Your Story scheme, the publisher’s free development programme for unpublished and unagented writers from BAME backgrounds.

First launched in 2020 by Thrive, Hachette’s BAME network, the annual programme offers writers an opportunity to develop their manuscripts through a series of online workshops. 

In partnership with David Higham Associates and The Future Bookshelf, the workshops will be delivered by industry professionals including Virago senior commissioning editor Rose Tomaszewska, author Vaseem Khan, Headline senior commissioning editor Katie Packer and Square Peg assistant editor Emily Martin. 

Following the workshops, each writer will have six hours of one-to-one mentorships with both a David Higham Associates agent and a Hachette UK editor, meetups with their fellow writers and a Grow Your Story Open Day at Hachette’s London office.

The judges this year were Vaseem Kham (Hodder & Stoughton author), Sara Adams (editorial director, Hodder & Stoughton), Niki Chang (DHA Literary Agent), Amy Mae Baxter (Bad Form Review) and Lipfon Tang (Quercus Books senior marketing executive and co-chair of the Thrive network).

The 10 writers include Tamyra Johnson, an alumni of City, University of London’s The Novel Studio whose novel, The Colour of Gold , “weaves literary analysis and poetic verse into the craft of storytelling” ; Ranjit Saimbi, highly commended in the 2018 Bridport competition for his short story Near Llandaff and who is working on his debut novel, Burnout; and journalist Monica Sarkar, whose debut novel, Pink Crown, explores the experiences and conflicts of the diaspora.

Seema Clear, a Ugandan writer and “occasional poet” and translator of Gujarati, also joins the scheme, as well as Anna-Zohra Tikly whose work Between the Wars “was forged in the fire of the anti-apartheid movement”;  Ilana Graham, a final-year Liberal Arts student at King’s College London; Joylene De-Whyte, an adult/YA writer who was shortlisted in Penguin Random House #Merkybooks New Writers Prize 2021; and Tatum Anderson, a journalist and writer working on Mengo Baby, her second novel. 

German-Ghanaian writer Franziska Bioh is currently developing her first novel and also joins the scheme, alongside Zayne Kadry, whose writing has been longlisted for the Penguin WriteNow 2018 programme and the 2021 Morley Prize. She is also an alumnus of the HarperCollins Author Academy. Her work in progress is a “fun-filled fantasy that follows a young woman with superpowers on a journey of self-discovery and growth”. 

Tang said: “We are so thrilled to welcome our cohorts for the second year of Grow Your Story. The level of submissions showed a really high level of ambition and such a strong quality of writing. The 10 writers chosen are incredibly talented and write across multiple genres, from literary to new adult. 

“We cannot wait to see how these 10 writers develop throughout our programme and are so excited to share this journey with them.”