Undiscovered Voices is 100% volunteer run. Our volunteers are passionate about finding new children’s book talent and work tirelessly behind the scenes on the Undiscovered Voices anthologies.
Imogen White
Committee Chair
Imogen knows first-hand what an amazing platform UV is for new writers—having been one of the finalists for the UV2014 anthology, she gained an agent and a two-book deal with Usborne, which saw her UV entry become The Rose Muddle Mysteries.
She also wrote The Palace Cat for London’s Fulham Palace, and her ELVA stories are displayed at Brighton Museum.
In 2020, Imogen started a copywriting business in sunny Hastings, where she lives. She is also a weekly volunteer at a local crisis charity, helping vulnerable people with their creative writing and co-runs Now You See Me—an Arts Council England (ACE) funded project that gives a public platform to underrepresented community voices, so they can be heard, seen and valued. Imogen continues to write stories and mentor new writers too, which she loves.
Laura Warminger
Laura is a MG writer from Norfolk and grew up in a small village just outside Norwich. Nothing ever happened there, so a good imagination was essential for passing the time!
She’s had a variety of jobs including one in a local school, where she fought a long battle against the terror that was the lost property cupboard.
Laura was selected for Undiscovered Voices in 2020 with a book called The Great Prime Minister Swap. Now that she realises that everything she writes comes true, she will be embarking on a new project called Laura Wins the Lottery. Since UV, she has been shortlisted for the Penguin Books Write Now 2021, the Write Mentor Children’s Novel Award 2022 and All Stories. She has written for Ladybird Books and is currently working on a project for Oxford University Press.
Laura loves characters that perhaps haven’t had things easy but approach life with optimism and humour. In her own writing she takes a lot of inspiration from the area where she lives and families that she’s known whilst working in schools. There are so many stories that never get told and she feels strongly that all children’s lives should be represented in books. Why shouldn’t children from council estates get to go on brilliant adventures and believe that they have the power to change the world?
Katrina Charman
Katrina was an Undiscovered Voices finalist in 2014, and soon after signed with superstar agent Gemma Cooper at The Bent Agency.
She writes for all ages from Picture books up to Middle Grade and has since had over thirty books published including bestselling chapter book series The Last Firehawk.
In 2021 she won the Hampshire Book Prize for the ABC Factor and Booktrust’s Storytime prize for her book The Whales on the Bus illustrated by Nick Sharratt. She is excited to be part of the new UV team and to play a small part in making more writer’s dreams come true!
Claire O’Brien
Claire is a children’s author with over 25 years’ experience. She was a UV2010 winner for Cordelia Codd: Not Just the Blues, which became the first in a trilogy of middle-grade novels. Since then, she has written a wide range of funny stories and fairy tale retellings for major UK publishers.
Claire is a SCBWI Southeast network co-ordinator and a tutor at Oxford Centre for Fantasy. She recently established The Really Chilled Writing Retreat to give authors and illustrators precious time and space.
Twitter: @claireobriennow
Website: www.claireobrien.com
Victoria Benstead-Hume
Victoria is a previous UV winner (2022) and is currently writing a two book YA series for Working Partners. Her passion is science fiction, in particular anything involving weird and wonderful plants. She works as a botanist for her day job, surveying habitats in England and lives in Brighton.
Adam Connors
Adam’s debut novel, The Girl Who Broke The Sea, is a science inspired YA thriller set on board the world’s first deep-sea mining rig.
He is a former physicist and former child who likes writing stories and building unlikely, poorly thought through gadgets with his sons.
Twitter: @adamconnors
Website: http://aconnors.com
Susan Brownrigg
Susan is a Lancashire lass who loves writing middle-grade historical fiction. She is the author of three published children’s books. Her Gracie Fairshaw books are a mystery detective series set in 1930s Blackpool. Kintana and the Captain’s Curse is a treasure hunt adventure set in Madagascar during the golden age of piracy.
A journalism graduate, Susan worked as a reporter and sub editor in local newspapers for 12 years before switching careers to heritage education. She has worked at historic houses, a cotton mill, a science museum, a farm, a zoo and a former priory with a beautiful walled garden. She now works as a library assistant spreading her love of books.
Susan was awarded the SCBWI Margaret Carey scholarship in 2015. She featured in the 2016 UV anthology.
Twitter: @suebmuseum
Website: www.susanbrownrigg.com
Rosie Best
Rosie is a Commissioning Editor at Working Partners Ltd, and has written more than 20 books, including Skulk, which appeared in the 2012 edition of Undiscovered Voices.
She has written under pseudonyms on series published by Usborne, Hot Key Books and HarperCollins, including as Erin Hunter, working on the new series Bamboo Kingdom.
Elizabeth Brahy
A native of Los Angeles, Elizabeth Brahy has a degree in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and worked in film and television for many years before becoming a freelance writer and editor. Elizabeth writes about Paris arts and culture for the online magazine INSPIRELLE and is RA of SCBWI France.
For the past several years she has been one of the judges of the Young Author’s Fiction Festival, a writing competition for children hosted by the American Library in Paris.
Passionate about genre storytelling, Elizabeth was longlisted for the Undiscovered Voices award in 2016 and 2018 and is currently at work on a middle-grade mystery novel.
Twitter: @expat_eliz
Website: www.elizabethbrahy.com