No agent yet - but a two-book deal!
MA in Creative Writing graduate Chris Killen has secured a two-book deal with Canongate, for his first novel The Bird Room and second Indoor Fireworks.
The Bird Room looks at the agony of true love and unfaithfulness, and will be published as a large trade-paperback in spring 2009. The publishers are already seeking interest in foreign rights.
"I don't have an agent and got in contact with Canongate through the author Stephen Hall, who I met at the counter of Waterstone's where I work," Chris says. "I emailed him my novel and he liked it and passed it on to his editor at Canongate; the deal happened pretty quickly and everyone's very excited about it."
Now 26, Chris began writing short stories at the age of 18. He is fiction editor at 3:AM magazine, and, as well as his conventional novels, has completed a 100-chapter 'supermarket nightmare' novel as a 'one chapter a day' blog. His blog also recently won the 2007 Manchester Literary Festival's Blog Award.
Editor Francis Bickmore of Canongate compares him to Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and says he "...had never read anything like Killen's manuscript.
"[...]I got straight on the phone to Chris and arranged to meet. I was amazed to find that the writer of such sophisticated prose was both unagented and so young."