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NPO championing marginalised writers to close

The Good Literary Agency makes ‘heartbreaking’ decision to close at the end of March, just two years after becoming a member of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio.

Chris Sharratt
4 min read

An Arts Council England-funded literary agency set up to increase diversity in the publishing industry is to close at the end of March, with all staff being made redundant.

The Good Literary Agency (TGLA) was founded in 2017 by literary agent and consultant Julia Kingsford and author and editor Nikesh Shukla with startup funding provided by ACE.

It went on to become an ACE National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) in 2023. 

The founders said they had made the “heartbreaking” decision to close the agency due to falling publisher investment in authors. The charity relies on income it earns through commission on book deals to match the funding it receives from ACE.

The decision to close comes despite the charity restructuring the organisation and making savings. Its attempts to secure additional funding were unsuccessful.

Shukla said he was “devastated that we have to do this”.

He added that the agency “did the best we could” but that “we were sometimes hampered by the capacity of a small team, a culture war or two, a pandemic, an industry that assumed itself to be doing the work, money [and] our other professional journeys”.

Ongoing pressure

The closure comes amid ongoing financial pressure on arts and culture organisations in recent years.

Analysis conducted last year by Arts Professional and financial benchmarking company MyCake found that the number of NPOs breaking even has shrunk at an alarming rate. Collectively, arts organisations making up the 2023-26 National Portfolio were in the red by £63.1m in 2023.

A spokesperson for ACE said: “We have invested in The Good Literary Agency since 2017.

“Since that time, the organisation has made a valuable contribution to the cultural sector, platforming underrepresented voices in the publishing world, and ensuring that talented individuals from a range of backgrounds receive the training and support to become literary agents.”

TGLA initially received three years of ACE funding in 2017 totalling £584,692, which was from the National Lottery-funded Ambition for Excellence programme.

Two further awards from ACE’s National Lottery Project Grants were made in 2021, totalling £379,959. In 2023 the agency became an NPO with an annual grant of £152,542.

ACE said it had paid out £323,453 of NPO funding to date, with a final payment of £40,017 pending.

The spokesperson added: “We will not be recouping any investment, as we are satisfied that The Good Literary Agency has successfully delivered against their funding agreement with us for their investment to date.”

Marginalised writers

TGLA was created to primarily represent authors from “BAME, working-class, disabled and LGBTQ+” backgrounds.   

Kingsford explained: “TGLA came about because we wanted to change two things: for there to be more opportunities for marginalised writers to break through and for accountability for the industry’s shortcomings on diverse publishing to shift, ensuring that no one could say that they didn’t publish more diversely because the writers weren’t there.” 

She continued: “We are immensely proud to have been part of an incredible, informal collective of organisations and individuals who have prioritised helping drive change across the industry, and we are proud of everything we’ve achieved. 

“We also know the work we wanted to do is not complete and we are heartbroken at having to make this very difficult decision to stop doing this work at a time when it continues to be so needed.” 

Since it was founded the agency has represented more than 200 authors, including Raymond Antrobus, Nikita Gill, Leone Ross and Alex Wheatle.

It said that over a seven-year period it had given feedback to 9,000 writers who had submitted manuscripts.

‘Emotionally numb’

Writing in The Bookseller, author and freelance journalist Lydia Wilkins – who is represented by TGLA and describes herself as having “a litany of disabilities” – said that its closure made her feel “emotionally numb and sad”.

Wilkins, who signed with the agency a year ago, said that a book she had worked on for more than 12 months now “hangs in the balance”.

She added: “To have an advocate like the TGLA was a lifeline – and those of us who are so often dismissed, misunderstood or mistreated need lifelines, more so than ever before.”