Our BSSA 2025 judges are Lucy Luck and Liv Bignold from Conville & Walsh Literary Agency,
Lucy Luck started in publishing as an assistant at Rogers, Coleridge & White before setting up her own agency in 2006. In 2014 she formally joined Aitken Alexander Associates and in 2016 she moved to C&W. Her authors have been listed for and awarded numerous prizes including the Rooney Prize, the Orange Prize, the Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award, the Irish Book Award, the Costa Novel Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the British Book Award Newcomer of the Year, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, the EFG Sunday Times Short Story Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Impac Dublin Literary Award, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Encore Award.
Liv Bignold joined Conville & Walsh in May 2024 as assistant to Sarah Ballard, having previously spent two years at Curtis Brown supporting Alice Lutyens and, prior to that, Karolina Sutton. She has experience working on books that span all genres, and is enjoying getting to know Sarah’s exceptional roster of authors. Alongside her day-to-day workload, she provides editorial feedback to students enrolled on Curtis Brown Creative courses. Before deciding to pursue a career in agenting, she worked in Contracts at HarperCollins and in Rights at an educational publisher. She holds a first-class honours BA in English Literature from the University of Exeter.
We’re delighted that Lucy Luck and Liv Bignold from C & W Agency have agreed to judge our 2025 Award shortlist. They gave some great answers to team member, Alison Woodhouse’s questions below. Do read if you are thinking of entering our 2025 Award, open now for entries and closing March 31st 2025.
- Alison Thank you so much for agreeing to judge our 2025 award. You are with C&W Agency, having worked at Rogers, Coleridge & White, Aitken Alexander Associates and run your own agency. Would you say the role of an agent has changed over that time and, if so, in what way?
- Lucy I started at RCW back in 1997 which is a lifetime ago (literally for Liv – my first day at work was the day she was born) but also feels like yesterday. Lots has changed, most crucially the role of the internet and email in how we do our job, the formats of the books we work with and the routes to market, but the essence of what an agent does has not changed at all. We sell rights to publishers and we work with hugely talented writers to make their work as strong as possible and to manage their careers so they have the chance to see their talent rewarded.
- Alison Do you have any advice for authors seeking representation who work primarily in short stories?
- Alison In your by-line you say you are always on the lookout for ‘a beautifully crafted short story that lands and a voice that rings completely true from the first line’. Could you give us an example or two?
- Alison You represent a prestigious list of writers who have been listed for and awarded numerous prizes. How important are competitions such as the Bath Short Story Award for a writer’s career?
- Alison Our word limit is 2200 which is quite short compared with other prizes. What are you hoping to see in these stories and what are the pitfalls you’d advise writers to avoid.
- Alison Finally, can you sum up what you love about the short story form?
Lucy I would say that every short story writer has to come to understand that not every story they write will be the same quality; to have the ability to self-edit and to mercilessly judge the stories that are finished. Great stories are rare and sometimes take years to form. Every attempt at a story helps build the craft and a great story will be made up of all the attempts. When an author feels the story they have in hand is potentially great they should submit for magazines and prizes – having a publication or shortlisting is crucial to any publisher being able to offer a contract so it is important to agents too. It is through publication and prizes that agents find new writers and also helps introduce a new writer to the community of those who love short stories – a very welcoming and supportive place.
Liv This might be obvious, but agents will almost always be looking for a collection of short stories, so be cautious about querying if you only have one or two stories to offer. Consider how you would package a series of stories; they might not share explicit similarities, but consider what themes or images your stories have in common.
- Lucy Kevin Barry’s ‘Breakfast Wine’ from his first collection THERE ARE LITTLE KINGDOMS has a first paragraph that you know you can trust, anything by Chekhov is masterful in setting the story in the first few lines, Wendy Erskine’s ‘To All His Dues’ lands magnificently, in a way that is hard to predict but makes sense of the whole. So many more but I’ll stick with those.
Liv So many. Two that are branded into my memory are ‘Antarctica’ by Claire Keegan, one of the most chilling stories I’ve ever read, and ‘Kilifi Creek’ by Lionel Shriver, which is utterly compelling despite – or because of – its churlish, misanthropic tone. I also love Miranda July’s short stories (her voice is inimitable), and every story in Colin Barrett’s YOUNG SKINS is pitch-perfect – I love the interiority of his narrators.
- Lucy It makes a big difference, as above. Recognition is great, writing a story for a competition and recognising when it is ready is so helpful and also the community is so supportive.
Liv I agree. Any prize wins or nominations are instant green flags for agents and editors at publishing houses, and many agents will actively follow prize announcements in order to get first dibs on fresh talent.
- Lucy It is short, a reading length of 14 minutes (it’s the Radio 4 story length). There can be no extra words, everything has to earn its place. Avoid too many characters, too much exposition, use dialogue to show character. Everything should move the narrative forward, trust the reader and get the ending right.
Liv As Lucy says, it’s important to perfect your writing on a sentence level, so consider the rhythm and purpose of each line. Don’t get bogged down in unnecessary description – trust the reader to deduce context from the events of the story. Less is often more, provided you’re fastidious. Consider the themes that you’re exploring in the story, and the emotions that you want the reader to experience.
- Lucy It is such a hard form to master that when a great story comes along you can appreciate how much craft has gone in to making it feel effortless. Like a perfectly crafted bell, the tone is pitch-perfect when struck. That’s what I love to find and it is worth all the stories that don’t quite work when you find it.
Liv I love the way that successful short stories create a sense of hidden depths, of ideas and themes buried beneath the surface of the text. In short stories, every word counts; they’re the ultimate reminder of the power of language.
Alison Woodhouse is a BSSA team member