Adventures in Fiction: Our consultants

General Fiction

Marion Urch made the transition to literature with a radio play The Long Road, which won the LBC Radio Playwrights Festival Award in 1991 and was broadcast on RTE (Radio Telefïs Éireann). In 2002, she wrote two episodes of the TV series Little Ghosts (CITV). Short stories have been published in England, Canada and America. Her first novel Violent Shadows (Headline Review) was published in 1996. Her second novel, An Invitation to Dance (Brandon) is due for publication in 2008, and in Russia later in the same year (Arabesque). She is currently working on a novel entitled The Ghost Hospital.

All I can say is … wow! What a clear insight you’ve gained into my novel and how incisive are your comments.

Julian Desser
The Poison Pill

Children's Fiction

Brian Keaney is a specialist in the market for children’s fiction. He has more than ten years experience as a creative writing tutor, workshop leader and literary consultant. He is also the acclaimed author of over twelve novels for children and young people.

His trilogy The Promises of Dr Sigmundus recently sold to Random House US for an undisclosed six-figure sum.

I have genuinely learned so much that it would be impossible to itemise it all here.

Irene Barrall
Flight of the Magpie

Crime

Martyn Waites is the author of eight crime novels including The White Room, which was a Guardian Book Of The Year in 2005 and The Mercy Seat, which was nominated for the Crime Writers Association 'Ian Fleming' Steel Dagger for Thriller of the Year 2006. Born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, he was an actor before becoming a writer. He has held two writing residencies, one in Huntercombe Young Offenders Institution and one in HMP Chelmsford. He is currently RLF Literary Fellow at the University of Essex.

Crime / Comic Fiction

Peter Guttridge is an award-winning novelist with a back catalogue that includes both crime and comic fiction. He is also an expert on international crime fiction and the crime fiction critic for the Observer Newspaper. As a Royal Literary Fund Fellow he is currently writer-in-residence at the University of Southampton.

His most recent novel is Cast Adrift (Allison and Busby 2006)

Thank you for your comprehensive appraisal. I found it incredibly useful.

John Turkie
The Accidental Hero

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England. She is the author of nine novels and one short story collection and is published in Bantam (US) and Tor Macmillan (UK). Her work regularly appears in Realms of Fantasy, Asimov's and other magazines. Her novel Banner of Souls has been nominated for both the Philip K Dick Memorial Award and the Arthur C Clarke Award.