Cornerstones: Exciting author news, the Bath Novel Award competition deadline and more...
Dear authors,
We hope you’re well and looking forward to a lovely long weekend! We always like to get in touch with you with good news, our authors’ successes, and industry insights.
With the upcoming deadline for the Bath Novel Award competition, we’ve posted an insightful new blog on our website written by Julie Ma (Winner of the Richard and Judy Bestseller Competition) on The Importance of Entering Writing Competitions and her road to publication. Julie Ma is a Cornerstones author, who runs a Chinese restaurant in Wales and is the acclaimed writer of Happy Families and Love Letters.
We are the proud sponsor of the Bath Novel Award and Bath Children’s Novel Award, a renowned international writing competition whose recipients include Abi Daré, Kim Sherwood and Struan Murray. The deadline for the 2025 Bath Novel Award is rapidly approaching, and if you’re interested in submtting or finding out more about the competition, you can visit their website here.
We have some exciting author news for you today, with publishing deals and upcoming books being released! Keep an eye out for the following…
One of our lovely authors, who goes by the pseudonyms of Alex Makepeace and Tom Benjamin, has written a Behind the Book blog on the process of choosing a nom de plume and his publication journey. With a number of rejections under his belt for his debut manuscript, Alex Makepeace writes about the process to publication with his Bologna-based series and upcoming new speculative novel Canaries.
Congratulations to Miranda Moore, another Cornerstones author, whose debut novel A Beautiful, Terrible Thing is being published by David Fickling Books this October! A YA novel about loss, atonement, and love which defines a lifetime - we can’t wait to see this out on shelves later in the year.
‘I’d had shortlistings, longlistings and full manuscript requests but couldn’t get beyond that. Cornerstones helped me get my manuscript to the next level and ultimately land a publishing deal with the brilliant DFB.’ - Miranda Moore
In other exciting news, one of our partners at the Professional Writing Academy, Fiona Dixon, has signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins for her middle-grade fantasy series. The first book, Crow: Thief of Magic, is set to publish in May 2026. You can read more about the acquisition in The Bookseller article here.
To round things off, our series of Zoom sessions with the Kate Nash literary agency on How To Get Your Manuscript Agent-Ready has come to an end. The series included three Zoom sessions: Craft Your Successful Elevator Pitch, Write Your Winning Synopsis, and Know Your Rights. Thank you to those who signed up and joined us, it was wonderful to see you and we hope you found the sessions as enjoyable and helpful as we did!
‘It was an invaluable crash course on the expectations of the publishing industry with market insights from industry agents. I would recommend all sessions to all aspiring writers. Thank you.’ - Judith Newns.
Off the back of the success of these Zoom sessions, if you missed out and would like to buy the recordings do email the office.
That’s all from us for today! We hope you all have a great long weekend and, as always, do get in touch with any enquiries or materials. We love hearing about new projects and how your writing is going!
Very best,
The Cornerstones Team