After reading French and German literature at Oxford, Steve Cook joined Cassell as Reference Publisher. In the early 1990s, he persuaded the company to launch the UK’s first trade list of lesbian & gay studies titles. In 1998, he joined Lord Michael Young’s School for Social Entrepreneurs and shortly after was recruited by the Royal Literary Fund to set up its Fellowship Programme. He has placed more than 600 authors into over 100 universities where they help students with their academic writing. Under his direction, RLF Fellows have also produced hundreds of podcasts and online articles on writerly topics. He recruited the team who created www.writersmosaic.org.uk –the UK’s first online platform for writers of colour, launched by the RLF in 2021.