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.

US Editorial Director

Michele Rubin has been in publishing for nearly 30 years and was a literary agent at Writers House for 25 years, where she represented a wide range of authors, both adult and children’s, from bestsellers to award winners. She was also the literary agent the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr, and founded the King Legacy Imprint at Beacon Press. Michele left agenting in 2013 to work full-time as a freelance editor, writer, ghostwriter, and conductor of writing workshops. She is the Managing Editor of Cornerstones US. Her areas of expertise and interest are broad; she is open to all genres, and also works as a freelance editor for Cornerstones.

UK Managing Editor

Kate Padiachy graduated from Warwick University in 2019, where she read American History and Literature. Her time as a bookseller at George Bayntun, an antique bookshop and bindery in Bath, confirmed her desire to stay in the world of publishing, and she joined the Cornerstones team as an intern in July 2021 before becoming an editorial assistant, and then managing editor. Her role includes editorial project management – overseeing the development of titles and supervising freelancers alongside assessing submissions and strategic work. Outside of work she can often be found with her nose in a book, and her favourite writers include Elizabeth Strout, Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Levy, and Frank O’Hara.

Editorial Assistant

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 assessing new manuscripts that come in, pairing authors with editors, and proofreading editorial reports.

Outside of work, she can be found buying way more books than she needs. Her favourite genres include fantasy, contemporary fiction, historical fiction and anything else escapist.