From my desk to yours

I'm delighted to announce that I'll be appearing at Word Vancouver this September - and I couldn't be more excited about it.

On Saturday, September 19th, 2026, at 2:00 PM in Room C420, UBC Robson Square (800 Robson Street), I'll be joining a brilliant panel of authors for a conversation titled "For the Love of Storytelling: Writing Between the Noise."

Word Vancouver is Western Canada's largest free literary festival, and it is an absolute privilege to be part of it.

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Should you set your crime novel in a real place? A made-up one? Somewhere 'safer' like London or New York? As a crime, suspense and thriller editor who work with writers all over the world, with novels set in global settings, I've got thoughts.

I am absolutely chuffed to bits to share that Vaseem Khan's incredible psychological thriller, The Girl in Cell A, has been officially shortlisted for the CWA KAA Gold Dagger! The Daggers are the absolute pinnacle of crime writing awards, and to see Vaseem’s work recognised at this prestigious level is just brilliant.

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Set against a rising summer heat in London, Death’s Shadow opens with a series of murders that seem impossible to connect — save for the cards left behind. Beneath the procedural tension lies something more personal, as memory, justice, and moral complexity surface for DCI Parker. To mark publication day, I spoke with TA Müller-King about the origins of the novel, writing flawed investigators, and the delicate balance between social undercurrents and gripping, page-turning suspense.

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The Bookseller earlier this week published an article highlighting how agents, such as Greene & Heaton, are changing their policies after an influx of AI-assisted submissions began flooding their inboxes.

And rightly so – because AI is everywhere right now.

It’s reshaping industries, accelerating workflows, and quietly embedding itself into the tools we use every day. In publishing, that can feel both exciting and unsettling as we adjust and adapt to this new AI-present world we’re facing. Authors are campaigning over IP concerns. Charts are being swamped by AI-generated content. Some writers are experimenting. Some are wary. Some are embracing while others are quietly using these tools and unsure whether they should admit it.

As a fiction editor specialising in crime, thriller, and suspense novels, I work with authors at developmental, line, and copyediting stages, and one of the questions I’m increasingly asked is how writers should think about AI in the editorial process.

So how to navigate this new world? Let’s start here.

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