I started Escalator around the time it was accepted by Bloomsbury, and the scheme was hugely helpful in preparing me to make the immense psychic transition to being a published writer. I’d completed She Rises on the two-year Creative Writing MA (Novels) at City University of London (a wonderful course run by Jonathan Myerson, but now sadly defunct) but hadn’t yet found a publisher. How did Escalator help you towards the publication of your debut novel She Rises in 2013? He was able to suggest possibilities for development and ways of conceptualising my project that were new and resonant, and he nudged me towards greater clarity without ever making me feel inadequate. His poet’s eye for detail and nuance, his intelligent, quiet, gentle, generous and considered approach to feedback was exactly what I needed at that point. That knowledge has sustained me ever since. It still means a huge amount to me that a writer of Tobias Hill’s calibre could see value in my work, and was prepared to devote his time and energy to it. How do you feel your selection for the Escalator programme has shaped your approach to writing and your writing process? Kate returned to Escalator this year as a mentor, overseeing the development of two emerging writers from the East of England over a nine-month period. She was RLF Writing Fellow at the University of Essex from 2014 to 2017 and has been a visiting lecturer in creative writing at City, University of London since 2015.

In 2012 she took part in the Escalator Talent Development Scheme and subsequently received a Grant for the Arts to help fund the completion of her second novel. Kate Worsley’s first novel She Rises won the HWA Debut Crown and the New Angle Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Prize for Lesbian Fiction.

She Rises by Kate Worsley