Sceptre's Toon to join The Novelry as Joyce and string of authors appointed writing coaches

Five new authors have joined the Novelry as writing coaches while Sceptre’s Francine Toon will join the editorial team.

Authors Rachel Joyce, Lesley Kara, Piers Torday, Anna Mazzola and Amanda Reynolds will offer advice and guidance to aspiring writers at the Novelry, which was launched in 2017 by author Louise Dean to offer creative writing courses and coaching.

Toon, a commissioning editor at Hodder & Stoughton imprint Sceptre, will start her new editorial role in October.

Joyce is the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry as well as Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop, Miss Benson’s Beetle and a collection of short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories, all published by Black Swan.

Kara is the author of psychological thrillers including The Rumour (Ballantine Books) and The Dare (Corgi), while Torday is the author of seven books for children, such as The Last Wild (Quercus Children’s Books), which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2013.

Mazzola writes historical fiction, with her “utterly immersive” The Clockwork Girl published by Orion Fiction in January. Reynolds is the author of three novels, including Close To Me (Wildfire), which was recently adapted into a Channel 4 TV series starring Connie Nielsen and Christopher Eccleston.

Dean said: “Almost every member of our team is a published author of some standing, and our editors have incredible pedigrees and track records, we’re so pleased to have agents from the US and the UK giving us feedback on the exceptionally high standard of manuscripts coming from our submissions, and very pleased to hear from Aevitas and Watson Little for example that they have found our manuscripts need such little revision.

“Taking writers from the very beginning of their writing life through to representation and book deals makes for a very exciting journey for all concerned."