Director - Maternity cover

Part-time, fixed term contract

The Good Literary Agency is looking for a dynamic committed leader and manager to oversee the running of the agency during our co-founder Julia Kingsford’s maternity leave.

TGLA is a social enterprise literary agency founded in 2018 by Nikesh Shukla and Julia Kingsford to explicitly represent British writers from backgrounds under-represented in UK publishing. In the 40 months since we started we have worked with over 150 writers at various stages in their writing from early mentoring to receiving life-changing advances and winning major prizes. We have Arts Council England funding as well as generating our own income from the deals we make on behalf of our clients.

Julia oversees the leadership and strategic responsibilities of the agency including overseeing finance and partnerships as well as management of our small team of four agents, an assistant, a submissions coordinator and part-time development editor. 

This is a flexible part-time role and a unique opportunity for someone with a strong track record of championing writers, literature and inclusion and representation to lead a dynamic organisation in a crucial stage in its development. 

Our ideal candidate would have experience as a creative entrepreneur whose lead or had management roles in small organisations and have worked within both a commercial publishing environment and arts organisations, but we are very keen to hear from candidates who may have narrower or completely different professional experience but can demonstrate an understanding of how their transferable skills can bring value in leading TGLA. We are aware that it’s unlikely we’ll find someone who perfectly matches Julia’s skillset and are very alive to receiving applications from people with a wide range of experience but it is vital that all applicants can demonstrate a longstanding commitment to championing inclusion either through their own lived experience or through their work. 

It is useful to note that Julia does not look after clients at TGLA and so this role is very much of a leader and manager rather than a literary agent though we would be interested in receiving applications from experienced literary agents. 

For a full job specification including details of how to apply please visit www.thegoodliteraryagency.org/jobs

Application deadline: 9am Wednesday 22 September