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A pupil from one of the first Faber Academy Creative Writing Courses has been signed by Transworld, with deals inked in eight territories and deals or auctions underway in countries around the world.
Before I Go to Sleep, by 39-year old Steve Watson, has been signed "for significant sums" by HarperCollins in the US and Canada and Text in Australia, as well as publishers in France, the Netherlands, Brazil and Poland. Auctions are underway in Greece, Spain, Germany and Italy, with deals pending in Israel, Norway and Denmark and interest from the rest of Europe, Russia and the far east.
Watson was tutored by Richard Skinner and Louise Doughty, and Clare Conville of Conville and Walsh signed him up in January.
She said: "Steve's determination impressed me from the start. Before I Go To Sleep is a powerful, complex psychological thriller, but it is also a marvellous and potentially prize-winning novel about the nature of love. The interest in this book internationally has been unprecedented for us at Conville and Walsh."
She said C&W expected to sell the book into more than 30 territories in total, and had "serious film interest".
Conville added: "Steve is a wonderful writer with great emotional intelligence and we are enormously proud and excited that he is part of Conville and Walsh."
Before I Go To Sleep follows Christine, a forty-seven-year-old writer who, following a catastrophic accident in her mid-twenties, is incapable of forming and maintaining new memories for more than a day. She wakes every day believing herself to be single, and with a whole lifetime of choice ahead of her, and every has to discover that she lives with her husband, Ben, and with most decisions already made.
Watson said: "I had always wanted to write a novel and it was a big risk for me to quit my job as deputy head of a big NHS department to do so. My income halved overnight and there were times when I worried whether I was doing the right thing - but within a week of handing in my notice I saw the advertisement for the first Faber Academy 'Writing a Novel' course.
"Being selected from the hundreds of applicants felt like a major milestone, and a read vindication of the choice I'd just made. The course was truly a life changing experience for me and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity."