Founder/Director

Helen Corner-Bryant spent a number of years in editorial at Penguin before setting up Cornerstones Literary Consultancy in 1998. In 2016, she opened Cornerstones US, creating the world’s first transatlantic literary consultancy. Cornerstones is known for teaching self-editing techniques, providing feedback on all types of genres, scouting for agents, and launching many writers such as: Ayisha Malik, Sarwat Chadda, Ava McCarthy, Kate Glanville, Victoria Selman and Emily Gunnis. Helen is a guest lecturer at writer conferences and leading universities including UCL Centre for Publishing and the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford University. She is co-author of On Editing: How to Edit Your Novel the Professional Way (John Murray, 2018) and director of the Edit Your Novel online course.

Managing Editor

Kyrie Roxby graduated from Royal Holloway University in 2020, with a BA in English. Before coming to Cornerstones, Kyrie worked as a librarian at a school for ages 5 to 16, managing the library, running events and organising author visits and inter-school literary competitions. She also worked with the Social Impact Director at Penguin Random House, learning about all the different roles and departments in a publishing house. This cemented her desire to work in publishing and refined her editorial skills. At Cornerstones, she focuses on editorial project management - overseeing the development of titles and supervising freelancers alongside assessing submissions, proofreading editorial reports and strategic work.

Her favourite genres include fantasy, romance, contemporary fiction, historical fiction and anything else escapist.

Editorial Director

Monica has over twenty years’ experience as an editor in the publishing industry, with a number of titles topping the Sunday Times Bestseller List. She has an MA in English Literature from Cambridge University and a post-graduate year learning print production at UAL.

She worked as an Editorial Director at HarperCollins Publishers, where she commissioned and edited her own list, transforming manuscripts and original ideas into successful, desirable books for a competitive market. She also has previous experience working for Picador, Profile Books, Faber Academy, and Dorling Kindersley. She has been an Industry editor at Cornerstones for many years, and now heads the scouting programme.

Editorial Assistant

Chiara graduated from the University of York with a BA in English and Related Literature, before completing an MPhil at the University of Cambridge in Medieval Italian Literature. After her studies, she worked in animation as a project manager and scriptwriter.

At Cornerstones, she focuses on assessing new manuscripts that come in, pairing authors with editors, and proofreading editorial reports.

Outside of work, she is an enthusiastic reader with a love for historical fiction, children’s books, and anything a little offbeat. Her favourite writers include Marilynne Robinson, Ken Follett, Roald Dahl, Nancy Mitford and Émile Zola.