Mentoring for writers by writers
The Ruppin Agency Writers’ Studio was established in 2017 by author and creative writing teacher Emma Claire Sweeney and then literary agent Jonathan Ruppin.
Contact us via studio@ruppinagency.com or call the office on 01490 419787
Our directors
EMMA CLAIRE SWEENEY
“Back when it felt like I was writing in the wilderness, my year of mentoring changed everything. Having now brought out two books and taught creative writing for years, I’m delighted to offer other writers similar opportunities – craft advice and industry insight from people speaking from experience”
It was our co-director Emma who devised the idea of the Writers’ Studio, thinking back to her own earlier years as writer after obtaining her MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia when she was trying to bridge the gap between finishing her course and developing her craft to a high enough stnadard to interest agents and publishers. Our philosophy now is to support authors at any stage of their development in taking their writing to the next level.
As a creative writing teacher of many years, Emma is very experienced in identifying what individual writers need to do to progress. If you need us to suggest a mentor or manuscript assessor to pair you with, she’s our infalliable matchmaker! She’s also available as a mentor herself, either in person in north Wales or online.
Emma is a central academic at the Open University, where she chairs and designs undergraduate and post-graduate creative writing courses. She was formerly Director of Professional Tutoring at New York University – London, and she co-founded City University of London’s year-long novel-writing course. She has a great deal of experience managing and mentoring colleagues, and has planned, co-ordinated and delivered salon series, workshop programmes and writing residencies.
An award-winning writer herself, Emma has published Owl Song at Dawn (Legend Press, 2016), a novel set in Morecambe and inspired by her autistic sister, and A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendship of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf (Aurum/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2017), co-written with another of our mentors, Emily Midorikawa, and featuring a foreword by Margaret Atwood. She is currently working on a new novel.
Her greatest literary influence is Virginia Woolf.
JONATHAN RUPPIN
“It’s all about about authors and books. I’ve always loved the fact the working in publishing allows you to spend time with the people at the centre of it all: authors. From handselling as a bookseller to helping unpublished writers on their way, it’s great to be a part of the creation of something I love so much: books.”
Former literary agent Jonathan has 30 years of experience working with books and authors, and the many people who connect them with the reading public.
As co-director of the Writers’ Studio, he works with Emma to co-ordinate our mentoring and manuscript assessment services and run our writing retreats. He also offers manuscript and submission package assessments. He’s currently hard at work preparing our new premises in North Wales for the launch of our Little Goat Barn writing retreats in 2025.
From 2016 until 2024, he ran the Ruppin Agency, selling fiction and narrative non-fiction. Every novel sold by the Ruppin Agency was nominated for awards, including winning the Portico Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and the Betty Trask Award; his first client was also included in the 2023 Granta Best of Young British Novelists.
Unlike most agents, or indeed most people in publishing, he’s been involved in every stage of the publishing process, working for bookshops (on the shopfloor, online and at head office), for publishers, other literary agents and with authors. He’s also been known to write himself, with work nominated for the odd award and appearing in anthologies.
Jonathan has also worked with organisations including English PEN, the Booker Prize, New Writing North, New Books in German and various literary journals, festivals, editorial services and literary awards (serving as as judge for the Costa Novel, Guardian First Book, Geoffrey Faber Memorial and Desmond Elliott. He’s also interviewed hundreds of authors onstage and in print, including Sebastian Barry, Eleanor Catton, Peter Carey, William Boyd, Elif Shafak, Sarah Hall, Daljit Nagra, Sarah Perry, Richard Ford and David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas not Peep Show) and wrote the industry guide Paperback Preview for the Bookseller for many years.
But above all these things, he’d describe himself as a passionate reader and champion of authors, going so far as to prove his devotion to authors and teachers of creative writing by marrying Emma. His favourite author is Jim Crace.
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