We are delighted to announce our 2026 partnership with the London College of Communication (UAL) and Graduate Futures: Publishing Connect: Meet the Industry, Gain New Perspectives

Designed to reveal the depth and scope of today’s publishing industry, Publishing Connect is a three-part event series that puts publishing master’s students in the room – literally and virtually – with the talented professionals shaping the industry today.

Each of our three Publishing Connect events will focus on a different area of the industry. The first event, ‘The Editors’ Table’ on 25^th February, introduces students to four expert editors who will share what the work really looks like, how they got there and how flexible and varied editorial careers can be – from in-house roles to freelancing and everything in between. The format is professional ‘speed-dating’: meet, ask questions, discuss and learn.

Our four editorial experts have decades of combined experience from ‘Big 5’ traditional publishing houses to freelance projects for high-profile authors and publishers:

Rali Chorbadzhiyska is an award-winning freelance editor working with both independent and corporate publishers, as well as authors, to provide expert editorial support to their fiction and narrative non-fiction projects. Drawing on experience at Penguin Random House, Faber and Canongate, she brings a supportive creative approach and a deep understanding of the publishing process. She can be found at ralieditorial.com and @rali.editorial.

Emma Adams has been a freelance copyeditor, proofreader and occasional copywriter since 2009 when she left her associate director role in publishing recruitment to set up on her own. She has worked with publishers such as A&C Black, Bloomsbury, Book Launchers, Penguin Random House, Reedsy.com, Sweet & Maxwell and Whitefox, with the charity Book Trust and with B2B, online and corporate clients. Crime, thriller, romance, contemporary and historical fiction, and business, biography, health and nutrition, memoir and personal development non-fiction titles are all subjects that cross her desk. She also works with self- published authors at various stages of their projects from development editing and copyediting through to final proofread.

Silvia Crompton is the Editorial Director and Creative Strategist at Whitefox Publishing. Silvia began her editorial career in 2003. Since then she has worked as an editor of fiction and non-fiction for publishers including HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Faber & Faber, before joining Whitefox in 2014 to manage a large publisher account. She has worked across most genres, with authors from Sally Rooney to Nigella Lawson, and is an experienced copyeditor.

Liz Ward is a freelance editor with over twenty years experience in publishing. After working at Hodder and Stoughton, she had a brief hiatus teaching English as a Foreign Language in Paris before returning to London to work as a freelance editor and to do a Masters in English Literature. She currently works for Whitefox as a freelance editor, with extensive authors via Reedsy, Hodder and occasionally for Ian Fleming Publishing. She loves to travel and can often be found editing by a pool in Southeast Asia, her favourite perk of being freelance.

Each of the three events in the Publishing Connect series is designed for real talk and real feedback about the work, the challenges, the unexpected turns, and what it takes to build a career in the fast-changing world of publishing. Whether students are drawn to editorial, production, rights, marketing or something they haven’t even heard of yet, it’s a chance to connect with industry professionals and get new ideas about how their story could start. Face-to-face with publishing experts, they’ll get answers to the questions that matter and discover that publishing isn’t a ladder, it’s a landscape.