Erin Kelly's Launch of `He Said, She Said' and Pitch DHH

The email I’d been waiting for finally pinged into my Inbox the week before Easter: I’d been successful in my application to meet Broo Doherty, an agent at DHH, for a 10 minute slot in their three hour #pitchDHH session. Each of the five agents had selected 12 people from the 500 plus who’d sent in a synopsis and the first three chapters of their work.

I had the first ten minute slot and gathered with the other four writers in the entrance of The Library, a hip private members’ club on St Martin’s Lane, around the corner from DHH’s offices in the basement of Goldsboro books in Cecil Court. My fellow writers had all come from out of town- me from Cambridge, others from York, Birmingham and even Cornwall for the day. We were all nervous and unsure what to expect, but Emily Glenister was valiant in her efforts to put us at ease, escorting us up the stairs at the allotted time, making introductions and thoughtfully supplying water. Apparently, one writer arrived with home-baked caramel shortbreads for the agents, a creative improvement on an apple for the teacher!

Broo was very professional and had prepared a long page of comments. I’d prepared a pitch, but was more interested in what she had to say, so didn’t get past the first part of it. The ten minutes flew by. She liked my central character and the ingenious murder, said I had a strong opening, but felt I needed to unveil the mystery more slowly, layer by layer, and not introduce too many viewpoints too soon.

She asked me for my ten word pitch and my mind froze for a moment. She gave me a pen to jot down her comments, but it didn’t work, probably due to the copious amounts of sweat I’d produced in lieu of coherent speech. When we parted, she gave me the (unannotated) print-out of my chapters to keep, but what I really wanted were those notes of hers!

To have someone experienced take your writing seriously and devote their precious time to considering your efforts is the biggest inspiration any aspiring writer can have. I’ve been feeling grateful, invigorated and curiously exhausted ever since…

Another person who took my writing seriously was Erin Kelly, who was our fabulous tutor on the Curtis Brown Creative course I completed. I’ve been a big fan ever since. Last night saw the launch of her new book, `He Said, She Said’, at the Waterstones on Tottenham Court Road. The book is set in the `eclipse chasing community’. A young couple in 1999 are at a festival and later become the star witnesses in a rape trial, so it’s also partly a courtroom drama. According to the recent Guardian review: `She steps it up a level with this creepy, tangled, disturbing tale’ and it certainly looks set to be a huge success.

Ruth Tross, Erin’s new editor at Hodder and Stoughton, opened the proceedings. Someone shouted from the back that they couldn’t hear, to which she replied: `Yes, I’m small. No, I’m not going to stand on anything.’ She had definite `stage presence’ and the room fell silent as she spoke warmly about Erin’s talents- her clever plotting, her devastating twists, her impeccable use of language.

Erin, in turn, thanked Ruth, whom she felt was like a heat-seeking
missile, targeting any weakness of plot or phrase, but also recognising all that was good in her writing. She also thanked Sarah Ballard and Eli Keren at United Agents for sticking with her even in the years when she wasn’t earning them any money, perhaps referring to the period when she was doing a lot of teaching, which interfered with her deadlines.  Finally, Erin thanked her husband, without whom none of her success would have been possible.

I didn’t know whether the bonny baby being passed around a group of people who might have been Erin’s relatives was hers or not. I do know she’s taken herself off Twitter to finish her next book, so maybe there have been several successful acts of creation recently.