Faculty Sneak Peek 2025

Each year we gather the best teachers to deliver craft, business insights and community. Writers from across genres who represent all facets of publishing from indie to traditional. Most importantly, we look for people who are kind. Generous when it comes to sharing their knowledge. People eager to show you the path to published. For 2025, meet our star faculty!

Mike’s writing career started with a five-year stint as an “agony uncle” for teenage girls' magazine Bliss. Since those early days Mike has written for a variety of publications including The Sunday Times, The Guardian and Cosmopolitan. He became a full-time novelist in 1997 following the publication of his Sunday Times top ten bestseller My Legendary Girlfriend, which was hailed by The Independent as “Full of belly laughs and painfully acute observations,” and by The Times as “A funny, frank account of a hopeless romantic.” Mike is the author of sixteen novels including A Song of Me and You and Turning Thirty. His books have been translated into over thirty languages. On Friday, August 29, Mike will lead us through an intensive workshop: “Getting started with your novel.” Read more about Mike's books.

Tiffany has spent nearly thirty years as an editor working directly in the publishing industry with major publishers and The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial, named by Writer’s Digest as a “Best Websites for Writers.” She is the author of two books on writing: Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing, and The Intuitive Author: How to Grow and Sustain a Happier Writing Career. She is also the author of six novels. On our first day of SWF25, Tiffany will run an intensive workshop: “Shoring up middle-of-the-book sag.” Discover more about Tiffany.

For writers who purchase agent one-on-one meetings, they can book a 10-minute session with Jemima to present their books and receive feedback. She is actively growing her list of commercial and upmarket fiction and has wide-ranging tastes within this space. Jemima is currently on the lookout for a number of genres including: book club and accessible literary fiction, crime and thriller, upmarket historical fiction, psychological suspense, non-fiction, women’s fiction, speculative/high-concept novels, novels with a lightly magical or fantastical edge.

In both fiction and non-fiction, she looks for diverse voices and books with a strong feminist angle. Learn more about Jemima and DHA.

Tasha Suri is the award-winning author of The Books of Ambha duology, The Burning Kingdoms trilogy, What Souls Are Made Of, and Doctor Who: The Cradle. She has won the Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds) from the British Fantasy Society and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her debut novel Empire of Sand was named one of the 100 best fantasy books of all time by TIME magazine. When she isn’t writing, Tasha likes to cry over TV shows, buy too many notebooks, and indulge her geeky passion for reading about South Asian history. At SWF25, Tasha will lead us in breakouts about “Romantasy,” and “Character-driven world building,” among other things. (Photo credit: Shekhar Bhatia.) Get to know Tasha.