We don't just help you finish a novel. We help you start a career

This is the pitch from GWA, The Goldsboro Writing Academy, a Brighton-based organisation, dedicated to kick starting your writing career. With new face to face and online courses starting as early as March 2026, it's an exciting opportunity worth exploring further.

Course Director, Phil Viner met with Chalk Circle Writers to explain GWA's vision and how he got involved.

'My first book came out in 2012. OH MY GOD, what a thrill. A two-book deal (pretty good money) big book launch, I could walk into a bookshop (and library) and find my book (The Last Winter of Dani Lancing) on the shelf. I had good foreign sales, I was shortlisted for an international prize, and there was a TV deal with Charlize Theron. I was living the dream. It was great, but of course it had to change. The TV pilot didn’t come to anything, over time sales slowed, and after 4 books I was looking for a new publisher. Nothing had prepared me for that (and I did a two-year writing course). I hadn’t made the right choices early on, as I didn’t know how the industry worked, and I hadn’t planned my career.

'In 2022 I had a new book deal, but with a much smaller publisher, and I had been mentoring and teaching for a few years. When I talked to my students they were all like me back in 2011, they had no idea about how to build a career, or how to sell their writing. They just wrote. And writing is amazing, but I knew that I wrote to be read. I wrote to be published. That was when the Goldsboro Academy was born.

'With the support of some amazing writers, I approached David Headley. He had started Goldsboro books in 1999 and then the DHH literary agency in 2007. They have six agents, a US TV and film agent, and a foreign rights specialist. David also founded the Capital Crime festival and has amazing contacts throughout publishing. I wanted to harness his agents, and his links to the big 5 publishers, to create courses that targeted publication and gave all students access to agents and editors from the start, not just at the end of a course. I wanted to develop courses that targeted publication and prepared writers for the reality of publishing.

GWA class taught by best-selling author, Elly Griffiths

'The GWA encourages writers to develop their craft, know what market they are writing into and understand what is needed to hook not just a reader, but an agent and commissioning editor. Pitching to the real-world gatekeepers sets writers up for success (with no guarantees of course). It is great networking, and feedback from hardened professionals is the gold standard for understanding where your book might sell and how successful it is. And at the end of the course, you get to submit your book to an agent, knowing they will read it within three weeks, and sit down with you for full feedback. That is what makes the GWA special.'

Chalk Circle Writers certainly enjoyed meeting with Phil, whose knowledge and experience of the industry speaks for itself. Most of all, his genuine interest in encouraging other writers towards publication always shines through. 'I love to talk books so you can email me for a chat any time, either on zoom or over a coffee in a nice café.' 

Email: phil@goldsborowritingacademy.co.uk

New courses begin in March 2026, covering everything from writing a novel to getting it finished, crime and screenwriting. Full details are on the GWA website: https://goldsborowritingacademy.co.uk