Internships

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a literary agent in need of creative talent, must be in want of an intern.

Perhaps this is not how Jane Austen summarised the need for internships amongst literary agencies searching for new talent, but at David Higham Associates, we’re always on the hunt for passionate readers who are ready to start their career in the industry. We see paid internships as a key pathway into the industry for candidates who need to earn a living while they build publishing experience and offer the London Living Wage as standard. We are keen to attract applications from candidates from under-represented backgrounds in our shared aim to make publishing a more diverse and fully representative industry.

Our internships are usually offered on a six-monthly basis, to give as many candidates as possible the chance to take their first step into publishing but also to ensure they have the opportunity to take on varied responsibilities.

Typically interns undertake a variety of office tasks and act as receptionist, answering our phone line, and also manage our submissions inbox, read and report on manuscripts, assist one of our book agents with client-related tasks, help out the translation rights team, fulfil permission requests, help organise our Open Day events and attend book department meetings amongst other jobs.

Interns leave DHA with a good insight into all the functions of an agency and a developed sense of which publishing role interests and suits them best. We mentor our interns with one-to-one sessions throughout their tenure and assist them as they start their permanent job search. We are extremely proud of the varied, exciting roles our interns have since gone on to secure since our internship programme was initiated over a decade ago.

This is how some of our talented interns have summarised their experience with us at DHA:

Anna Barnes, Head of Picture Books at Puffin:

I loved my time interning at David Higham. I learned so much about the industry – from big, fundamental things like how contracts work and how agents and publishers work together to find, launch and nurture authors and illustrators; to small but crucial things like how to write a good email. It was the best possible start to my publishing career.

Aimée Felone, Managing Director of Knights Of, British Books Awards 2022 Children’s Publisher of the Year:

I honestly look back at my time as an intern at DHA with such fond memories! Getting the (paid!) opportunity to work at such an illustrious literary agency gave me the much needed skills and confidence to start formulating my ideas of what I wanted my career to look like and what I wanted my impact in this industry to be.

Rebecca Jamieson, Editor at HQ: 

My experience interning at David Higham Associates was invaluable. Not only did I meet some of the most amazing people and brilliant minds, but it gave me an extraordinarily helpful introduction to the publishing industry and agenting. The internship is what you make of it, so if you put yourself forward and get involved, you can learn so much – you could be working on inspiring projects, like the DHA Open Days for Underrepresented Writers, or reading submissions and writing reader reports for agents, alongside the internship duties required. For anyone trying to break into the industry, I highly recommend applying to this internship at DHA.