THIS WEEK


PICTURED FROM LEFT: HELEN MANDERS, DAISY MEYRICK AND KAROLINA SUTTON


London Book Fair Preview The Lead Story: Creative Artists Agency


Change agents: Creative Artists Agency London’s whirlwind 18 months of growth


Creative Artists Agency has grown aggressively in the past year and a half, with agents flocking from rivals and the wider book trade, backed by the firm’s behemoth parent


Tom Tivnan @tomtivnan W 06


ithout a doubt the most expansion- ist firm in UK deal-making going into this year’s London Book Fair


is Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Eighteen months ago, the Hollywood powerhouse had no literary division staff in London (though its UK talent and sport divisions had hundreds of employees). But aſter a shiſt in strategy to establish an in-house translation rights team— in part driven by its acquisition of competitor ICM in 2021—CAA has gone on a hiring spree. The Curtis Brown cupboard was raided first, with long-time foreign-rights specialists Helen Manders and Daisy Meyrick lured


23rd February 2024


over, followed a few months later by the duo’s colleague Karolina Suton, representative to the stars (Margaret Atwood, Tara Westover, Imogen Hermes Gowar, etc) and winner of the 2020 British Book Award for Literary Agent of the Year.


Aſter Suton came a flood of new faces, such as John Ash arriving from PEW, Rachel Mann moving from Jo Unwin and Sarah Harvey joining from Curtis Brown by way of David Higham; ex-Hodder editorial director Harriet Poland, meanwhile, crossed over from publishing. With Yasmin McDonald swapping her role as United Agents’ head of


books-to-screen for a similar remit at CAA this week, the London office head count is now 25. When I sit down with Suton, Manders and


Meyrick via Zoom—all looking remarkably at ease despite LBF looming, but maybe this is some sort of filter—there is a collective insist- ence that it was not necessarily a concerted strategy from the off for CAA to grow from nought to 25 this quickly.


Manders points out that in some ways CAA London has been reverse-engineered from how many agencies begin, with translation at the heart. Meyrick picks up the thread: “Particularly aſter 20 years of working in environments where the domestic has always been bigger, for us to come and really lead from the translation side has been great. And also, because we are still a sort of smaller department, we have this great flexibilit and there is more say in what [translation agents] do—which you don’t get with a lot of agencies.” Suton adds: “‘I’ve never worked anywhere


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