Viola Hayden

An agent with Curtis Brown (see other agents at this agency).

About

I was a publisher for the first seven or so years of my career, before I moved to Curtis Brown and agenting – and I’m grateful to have found a position in this wonderful business that allows me to still work with writers and their manuscripts everyday, but to have our interests totally aligned.
I represent both fiction and non-fiction but skew towards the former, and almost always towards the more commercial end of the scale.

Country & Year Established

United Kingdom

Agent since 2020

AI Policy

Unknown AI policy

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Collapse section Fiction Temp Closed

I’m keen on novels that reflect the complexities of the female experience: Marian Keyes’ warmth, wit and real heroines; Naoise Dolan’s razor-sharp observations and whiplash-inducing dialogue; Kiley Reid’s light treatment of uncomfortable situations, difficult questions and harsh realities. Stories structured differently like One Day, The Heart’s Invisible Furies and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society are wonderful, but crucially they are substance over style. I love a good mind-bending crime or suspense novel and am on the hunt for a series character like Jackson Brodie or Jimmy Perez. Lastly, the ultimate escape: historical fiction. Lucinda Riley’s Seven Sisters series is magnificent, as are Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Bridget Collins’ The Binding.
I am not looking to represent science fiction, fantasy, horror, or books for children and young adults.

Audience:

Open to a broad Audience.

Genres:

General

Lengths:

Novel

Styles:

Open to all/most Styles, including: Literary, Mainstream.

Topics:

Open to all/most Topics.

Submissions:

Method: Email.
Simultaneous submissions: Simultaneous submissions are allowed.

Collapse section Nonfiction Temp Closed

In non-fiction I represent experts in their field (Dr Sam Bunting, Dr Andrea Oskis), commentators and agenda setters (Emma Gannon, Jess Morgan), creators with significant platforms (Rich Roll, Arnold Schwarzenegger), and astonishing memoirists (Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Richard Ratcliffe, Rosamund Dean). I’d love to find a (female) young historian, some freshly framed personal development, and smart and crucially positive thinking from experts that will challenge and revolutionise the way we see ourselves.

Audience:

Open to a broad Audience.

Lengths:

Book

Styles:

Open to all/most Styles, including: Literary, Mainstream.

Topics:

Open to all/most Topics.

Submissions:

Method: Email.
Simultaneous submissions: Simultaneous submissions are allowed.

Always check guidelines for details and restrictions. If you aren't familiar with these terms, see our glossary.

No recent cover image of a book represented by Viola Hayden available.

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Viola Hayden Submission Statistics

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We have not received any submission reports for this listing in the past 12 months.

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Dates

Last Updated: 28 Jun 2026

We check their guidelines for changes every four weeks, and we audit the listing twice a year.