Catherine Pellegrino is a literary agent, specialising in children’s literature. After four years working for the wonderful Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd, she decided to set up on her own and launched Catherine Pellegrino and Associates in July 2011. She has a small but growing list of talented writers who she is immensely proud of. Her writing tastes are pretty eclectic which is reflected in the writers she represents and she is very keen on diversity issues which is why she became involved with Penguin and Commonword in Manchester to set up The Commonword Children’s Diversity Prize, to encourage underrepresented sections of the communities that make up the culturally diverse landscape of the UK.
She has always worked in publishing, mainly in house, working in Foreign Rights departments for publishers: Victor Gollancz, Penguin and Bloomsbury where she had the pleasure of attending the editorial meeting, where all those present, having read three chapters of a debut children’s book, agreed that a modest advance should be offered to an unknown writer, J.K Rowling.
Becoming an agent though, was she discovered, the most satisfying job she ever had and the buzz of discovering a new writer is totally addictive and has her completely hooked.