18th July 2025 Rising Stars 5
Maddy Belton Madeleine Milburn Agency
The secret to agenting, Maddy Belton says, is “love, care and a lot of hustle. It’s hard to do this job if you don’t love it, care about it and if it doesn’t sometimes keep you awake at night”. After cutting her teeth at non-fiction specialists Graham Maw Christie, Belton crossed the aisle to fantasy and romance when she arrived at Madeleine Milburn Agency in September 2022, first as Chloe Seager’s associate. She has orchestrated a cascade of deals, most more than six-figures (some much more) since, having built a roster of standout early- career authors – such as Nadia El-Fassi, Maithree Wijesekara and Katja Kaine, all writers of books that were sold at auction or in major pre-empts. There are lots on tap over the coming year including Amy Coombe’s cosy debut Stay for a Spell, Lucy Jane Wood’s second outing Uncharmed and Tori Bovalino’s The Second Death of Locke. Long term, Belton hopes to “have a roster of brand authors and to be understood as someone who has their finger on the pulse and their heart in the pages”.
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Kerry-Ann Bentley KAB Literary
Jamaica-born Kerry-Ann Bentley dreamt of becoming a journalist or psychiatrist, but “the universe had different plans”. While studying abroad, she landed an internship in Janklow & Nesbit’s US and “realised agenting was the best of both worlds”. She returned to the firm post-graduation, later becoming UK rights manager and selling titles by Yrsa Daley-Ward, Mason Coile and Jessica Ramirez Guel. She moved to The Good Literary Agency to build a list aligning with her mission to support diverse voices, such as Alex Wheatle and Yvonne Bailey-Smith. Following its recent closure, she set up as an independent. Exciting upcoming debuts include Jackson King’s “smart and sexy” novel about Black trans and queer masculinity and Seema McArdle’s time-jumping middle-grade adventure. She is concerned about UK publishing’s lack of progress around diversity “beyond superficial initiatives” and hopes to one day found a prize for writers disrupting the literary landscape.
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Fleur Clarke HarperFiction
A few years ago, marketer Fleur Clarke left HarperFiction for “a brief zigzag” outside publishing but came back in 2023 to assume a multi- faceted role. Now associate publisher, she oversees the direct-to-consumer fantasy subscription box Locked Library (LL), which since Clarke’s return has seen subscriptions rocket 900% and every LL pick in 2025 becoming a bestseller. Clarke works with MD Frankie Gray on the division’s strategy across its imprints. Gray says Clarke’s approach – “creative, questioning and always thinking about the reader” – has added “significant value”. And to think Clarke had once given up on publishing. She had moved to London after university, applying “madly” for publishing posts to no avail. After a fruitless year, she left the capital, “resigned to loving books from afar”. But then she was asked to interview for a marketing job at Hodder, eventually spending five years there before crossing over to HarperCollins. She is excited for the short-term at HarperFiction and hopes her long term is “full of things I won’t see coming”.
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5 7 Melissa Bond Pan Macmillan 6
Melissa Bond is one of publishing’s unsung heroes. The Pan Macmillan editorial manager works across the Pan lists and is vital to getting the division’s books to market. She is keen to change this perception –“I’d love managing editors to be recognised as central strategic partners in the publishing process; we are distinct from, but just as essential as commissioning editors in bringing books to life” – and relishes the balance of creativity, problem solving and people management that her job brings. Bond grew up in a bilingual British/ Latin American household, and says that her mixed-race background meant from early on she had “a real appreciation of linguistic and literary variety”. She read English and Classics at Oxford and worked at several houses including Simon & Schuster and Bonnier Books UK – before landing at Pan Mac in 2023. Looking ahead, she says that “as long as I am still working on a breadth of great books alongside brilliant, forward-thinking commissioning editors, I’ll be happy”.
Features
Rising Stars
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