Student Achievements and News
The HarperCollins Author Academies train and support writers and designers from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, with the aim of helping them to become commercially successful in the publishing environment.
Many of our students have already had success in their publishing careers. Here below are some of their achievements:
Nadine Cowan (Children’s Alumni Spring Course 2021): Collins Learning have now commissioned Nadine to write and illustrate 12 BOOKS as part of their new Black History series for Big Cat!
Sara Di Fagandini (Children’s Spring Course 2021) – has secured an agent and is a recent winner of the Fab Prize (From Faber Academy)
Ulka Karandikar (Fiction Spring Course 2021) Silver Winner of Leeds Literary Prize 2020
Maxine Nwaneri (Non-Fiction Alumni Spring Course 2021) – will be published by HQ Non-Fiction
Jade Cuttle (Non-Fiction Autumn Course 2023) has won the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour 2024
Andrew Theophani (Fiction Spring Course 2022) will be published by Simon & Schuster Children’s UK with his YA novel The Light That Blinds Us
Holly Green (Design For Children’s Course Autumn 2022) has been picked up by the publishing licensor Moon Bug and is working on freelance projects for Harper Collins’s Farshore and Children’s.
Vanessa Phan (Fiction Spring Course 2021) – London Library Emerging Writers 2021 shortlist and shortlisted for Owned Voices Novel Award 2021
L J DeMille (Children’s Spring Course 2021) changed her work from YA to Adult fiction and decided to write under a new pen name (Elle Machray) will be published soon by Harper North
Emma Zipfel (Children’s Spring Course 2022) won runner-up for Grazia’s First Chapter Competition for women in fiction 2022
Mayo Agard-Olubo (Children’s Spring Course 2022) is the winner of the Mo Siewcharran Prize 2023 for Kid Rex vs the Dastardly Dust Bunnies
Reyhanna Ismail (Design For Children’s Course Autumn 2022) was signed by the major agency Bright Agency. She’s working freelance and has landed design work for Amazon Publishing and Farshore.