About Andrew

Andrew Lownie was born in 1961 and was educated in Britain and America. He read history at Magdalene College, Cambridge where he was President of the Union. He went on to gain an MSc at Edinburgh University and spend a year at the College of Law in London.

After a period as a bookseller and journalist, he began his publishing career as the graduate trainee at Hodder & Stoughton.

In 1985 became an agent at John Farquharson, now part of Curtis Brown, and the following year became the then youngest director in British publishing when he was appointed a director.

Since 1984 he has written and reviewed for a range of newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Spectator and Guardian, which has given him good journalistic contacts.

As an author himself, most notably of a biography of John Buchan and a literary companion to Edinburgh, he has an understanding of the issues and problems affecting writers. He is a member of the Association of Authors' Agents and Society of Authors and was until recently the literary agent to the international writers' organisation PEN. In 1998 he founded The Biographers Club, a monthly dining society for biographers and those involved in promoting biography, and The Biographers' Club Prize which supports first-time biographers.

the agency's readers

GENNA GIFFORD has for more than ten years been dividing her time between work in London, New York and Melbourne - in both the literary world and in the television industry. In that time, among other things, she has worked as a literary reader, evaluator and editor; a freelance producer and a television format developer. Genna has been employed by the ABC, the BBC, various television production companies and a performing arts training centre as well as taking on a vast number of freelance projects in the literary field. Genna currently provides services to literary agencies and writers based in the UK and Australia as well as places as diverse as Istanbul, New Orleans, Bombay, Montreal and Paris. Visit her website at: www.gennagifford.com.

DAVID HAVILAND is a freelance journalist and sub-editor, who specialises in drama and screenplay development. He studied Film and English at the University of East Anglia, before working in advertising with M&C Saatchi, and moving into television with management roles at Simply Money and Sirius Television, of which he was a co-founder.

After the sale of the company, David left Sirius in 2003 to become a freelance writer and journalist, since when he has written regularly for a broad range of publications including City Life magazine and the Morning Star. He has also worked extensively in script development for a range of film and television companies, theatres, and agents.

David lives in London, and enjoys plays by David Mamet, films by Mike Leigh, and Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels.