RSL Members: To book your Member and guest tickets, remember to register and log in.

---

This event takes place online and is free for all to attend.

Our annual event, chaired by RSL Fellow Edmund Gordon, explores the varied working lives of those in the literature sector, and how to get started in your own career in words. During this 90 minute Zoom webinar, each panellist will speak about their own work, followed by an opportunity for you to ask questions to people who have been there and done it.

Hear from a renowned literary agent; a freelance literature programmer and producer; an acclaimed poet who balances a career in marketing with a career in writing; and an editor and academic who works with numerous literary magazines. We hope their journeys will inspire you as you embark on your own career in literature.

Edmund Gordon was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. He is the author of The Invention of Angela Carter (2016), which won a Somerset Maugham Award, the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize and an RSL Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. His essays and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including the Financial Times, the Guardian, Independent and New Statesman. He teaches literature and creative writing at King’s College London and is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times, TLS and the London Review of Books.

Sarah Such has worked in publishing for over 30 years holding senior positions across editorial, marketing and press. She began her career in 1990 at (then) Random House in the Children’s division, moving to Chatto & Windus as Press Officer then Marketing and Publicity Manager. She was appointed Publicity Manager at Penguin Books, becoming Head of Publicity and ultimately Publicity Director of Penguin UK, with corporate responsibilities. She later joined 4th Estate as Commissioning Editor, becoming Senior Editor at Hodder & Stoughton and Editorial Director of Duckworth Publishers.
She founded Sarah Such Literary Agency in 2007 since when she’s been shortlisted three times for Literary Agent of the Year at The Book Industry Awards 2017, 2014 & 2013.

Bea Colley is a freelance Literature Programmer and Producer. She has worked in the literature sector for over 15 years, supporting writers in their careers and programming and producing literature and poetry festivals. She worked at Southbank Centre in London for 10 years where she set up numerous projects alongside underrepresented writers and has also worked at the Poetry Society and the Reader Organisation. She has strong connections with many of the UK’s literature development agencies and was Co-Chair of New Writing South until 2020.

A poem from Rishi Dastidar’s debut Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018. A second book, Saffron Jack, was published in 2020, and he is editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century. His third collection, Neptune’s Projects, will be published by Nine Arches Press in May 2023. He is also co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair).

Sana Goyal is Wasafiri’s Deputy and Reviews Editor. Formerly the Publicity Manager at Tilted Axis Press and the Digital Editor at Wasafiri, she now does Marketing and Outreach at Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. She has a PhD in literary prizes from SOAS, University of London. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, the Los Angeles Review of Books, TLS, Poetry London, PBLJ, Brixton Review of Books, Vogue India, and elsewhere. She lives between Birmingham and Bombay. Twitter: @SansyG