Catherine Cho

Literary agent and author, Catherine Cho discusses motherhood, mental health and starting her own business.

Catherine Cho is a literary agent and author of Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Jhalak Prize. She studied English Literature at New York University and received a JD from the University of Hong Kong. After working in public affairs and law, she started her publishing career as a contracts manager and literary assistant at Folio Literary Management in New York. She moved to Curtis Brown as an assistant before being promoted to associate agent. She was an agent at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency for a year before she left to found Paper Literary in 2021.

‘My advice … know your worth.’

Can you tell us a bit about how you got into the publishing industry? You used to work in public affairs and law, what made you want to switch to agenting?

It’s really a lot of lucky coincidences that led me to the path of publishing. 

I studied English at university and graduated during the 2008 financial crisis. I decided to do the practical thing and become a paralegal at a fancy, corporate law firm. I spent six months doing all-nighters and preparing boxes of binders before hearings, and I decided it wasn’t for me, but that it might be worth going to law school instead (with hindsight, I realise that makes no sense!) and that's where I headed to next, studying in Hong Kong. I spent the summers doing legal internships at corporate law firms, and so by the time I graduated from law school, I knew I wanted to do something else. I worked for a lobbying firm on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, but I became a bit disenchanted and found myself asking, 'When is the last time that I've been really happy and fulfilled by what I was doing?’ I thought back to my English degree, and thought publishing would be a good option so I decided to return to New York and try to get into editorial, because at the time, I had never heard of agenting. 

I took the bus to New York every weekend, meeting lots of very nice publishing people for coffee and having phone calls whilst crashing on friends’ couches. It was at one of these meetings that someone suggested agenting because of my law background. I ended up having a conversation with an agent and thought that it sounded like exactly what I’d want to do. I started emailing agents, looking for unpaid internships and ended up meeting Jeff Kleinman, one of the founders of Folio. He offered me a part-time role as a Literary Assistant and Contracts Manager - and, as embarrassed as I am to say how much I was paid ($15,000), I was so determined to make things work that I lived in a friend’s living room and did a bunch of other freelance things. I learnt so much at that agency but when I met my husband who lives in London, I made the decision to move and had to start from scratch. I went through the same process and the first person I met was Will Francis at Janklow & Nesbit. He put me in touch with some scouts, and I eventually got an internship at Whitefox, a digital publishing company run by John Bond. Whilst there, I saw an ad in the Bookseller for a position at Curtis Brown as Jonny Geller’s assistant. I applied, and I felt very lucky because Jonny and I got on well, and he decided to hire me. I stayed at CB for four years as an assistant and later became an associate. 

That’s such an interesting journey. And through that, what would you say has been your proudest career achievement so far?

I think it would have to be selling Sarah Underwood's Lies We Sing to the Sea, which is coming out in March 2023. It’s the first book I sold from Paper Literary, and I'm proud of it for many reasons. Sarah really took a leap of faith with me because she had many agent offers, but made the decision to be the first Paper Literary client. On top of that, having such a successful deal was very validating, it reinforced to me that I could do this by myself. I was also very happy to see Sarah, who works so hard, and her book be recognised. I hope it’s going to be the beginning of a long partnership for us, I know she has a stellar career ahead. So that's definitely been the proudest moment for me.

‘It’s important to have a level of grace to yourself and be okay with that.’

We were really interested to hear the answer to that question because you’ve had a really busy past few years, especially through COVID. From writing your memoir and regularly contributing to other publications, most recently East Side Voices, to starting your own agency while also parenting two young children, do you have any advice for other working mothers tackling their work-life balance?

I laughed when I first read this question and also I’ve just realised there’s currently an ironing board in my background! 

It's a constant juggle, and it's something I am always reading about, looking for an answer on how to do it better. We don’t have family nearby to help, but we do have a nursery — that was how I could start the agency when my daughter was six months old. I think acknowledging that it's difficult is important because often you read about these ‘superhero mums’, and it makes you wonder ‘how does she do this?’ People make it sound superhuman, but often if you unpick it, there's a whole network of systems underneath, so I'm focused on trying to build my own system. 

My husband and I approach it like a mission and are very much equals. We have a colour-coded spreadsheet, which divides up our tasks and our hours. He's a research professor so he has a very intense job, but he understands that my career is important to me as well. In our relationship, there's never been an approach of ‘well, you should do this because you're the mother,’ which is something I could talk about for hours because that expectation really upsets me. Just an example, he gets up with me in the middle of the night if the children aren't sleeping, and he does the drop-off and pick-ups which is hugely helpful. We are constantly trying to figure out how we can be more efficient and that does mean accepting that the flat is never going to be as clean as I’d like it to be or, with my kids, I often don’t feel like I’m as present a parent as I’d like to be. But it’s also important to have a level of grace to yourself and be okay with that.  

Often it's hard because childcare is so expensive, especially working in publishing where money is low. It can feel like you're basically paying for someone else to take care of your child. But, I think it was Nelle Andrew who said that you should see it as an investment for your future and I completely agree with that — this is just a short stage in the decades I have in my working life.

I also usually work at a WeWork which helps with my work-life balance. At home, the tasks are endless (there’s always more laundry and more chores to do) so it really forces me to separate myself from the house and helps me be fully immersed during the limited time I do have for work. 

I will just also say that there's never a good time to have kids. I became pregnant when I was an assistant — it just wasn’t very common at the time, and it was kind of a surprise. In my head, I thought ‘this isn’t a great time to be pregnant’ but to be honest, there’s never a good time and if you keep waiting for the right time, it’ll never arrive.  It’ll always be a  challenge, and you learn to work around it. It’s easy to say ‘once I become an agent, then it’ll be a good time’ but actually that’s when you have to build your list. Then, once you build your list it just keeps going really.

And then you can’t think ‘oh, once I start my agency…’

Exactly! And then you think ‘but I can’t do XYZ. It’s something I thought a lot about through my 20s and 30s, like ‘when should I try to have a baby?’ It’s unfair for women that we have to think about that. It’s hard, it’s really hard!

‘There is just so much shame and stigma surrounding motherhood and mental health.’

Did you find it hard to negotiate your work-life balance during the pandemic?

Oh definitely, yes. I was furloughed for two months at the beginning of lockdown. I was initially upset about it, but it actually was a huge blessing because my son was two and a half and the nursery was closed. So he was home and my husband was working from home and we would have to barricade the door with a ladder so that our son wouldn't come in during meetings. I spent two months purely with my son, and we had picnics every day, and it was really nice. It was almost an enforced period of rest and a period of time that I've never had with my son, at least not since he was a baby.

Talking about your son, we wanted to talk a bit about your memoir, Inferno, which is beautifully honest and so well written. It discusses your struggle with postpartum psychosis and your mental health struggles after giving birth. It covers really sensitive topics that often aren't talked about enough in the mainstream. How did you feel ahead of publication and through the process?

I was never somebody who really talked about my private life, even with friends. Some of the stuff that's in the book, for example, having a violent ex, were things that a lot of my friends weren't aware of — they knew it wasn't a happy relationship, but that was the extent. So it was daunting to write so openly about stuff that was so private, but it was a very deliberate decision. I really felt after going through postpartum psychosis that there is just so much shame and stigma surrounding motherhood and mental health. I was surprised to find that in our modern day — it's just something that you're meant to keep hidden. Mental illness is like that anyway, but I think it’s especially evident around motherhood. There's this stigma around the idea that being a mother isn't enough or that it could be a loss in some way. And so I felt that if I could openly, without shame, talk about this experience, then hopefully it can make people feel like it's an okay thing to talk about and can help break a taboo. 

Actually at work, I hadn’t told people about my experience. . I had a few friends at the office that I’d told ‘oh, I spent a couple of weeks in a mental institution...’ But I hadn't really talked about it openly, I think because it felt in some way it would be burdensome to people. So I think it was a shock when I went in to tell Jonny that I had written a book. He asked if it was a novel and I had to say ‘No, it’s a memoir… And it’s on submission.’ A lot of people found out what I'd gone through at the same time as the book was announced. So that was a bit of an overwhelming thing for me but overall, I found it very encouraging and people have been so kind about it. 

So many people have reached out since, because it is a very universal experience. Everybody struggles with mental health and identity, and everybody has a story. A friend told me that they finally had a conversation with their mother about her postpartum experience, something the family had never talked about, and I thought that was amazing. That’s a real gift if something like that can happen because of a book. 

‘Nobody is going to give you something that you haven’t asked for or fought for.’

Do you have any advice you would give women in the industry and other women who are struggling with their mental health?

I mean, where to begin? 

My advice — and this is general advice, not just about mental health — is to know your worth. It's a theme that comes up a lot but it's very important, particularly for women in the industry. Often, especially when you're starting out in your career, people tend to be put into boxes. I'm somebody who is quiet and doesn't complain, and so I often heard that I didn't seem very ambitious when actually I’m the complete opposite. Just because I'm not loud doesn’t mean I am not ambitious. I think if I had taken what everybody else had been telling me, then perhaps I wouldn't have had the confidence to pursue everything I have.

I think with women, there's this thing about being grateful for what you have in your career in a creative industry. You think that if you put your head down and you work hard, people will hand you things, and I found that that's really not true. If anything, working hard just means you'll get more work. 

If you're unhappy in your position and you feel like you're not being valued or you feel like people are telling you something about yourself that you know is not true, then you should do something about it. Nobody's going to give you something that you haven't asked for or fought for. That’s the thing that I wish I had told myself earlier on, and it's something I definitely tell younger women now, especially women of colour — there's a whole lot to be said about that. There are so many more factors and unconscious bias, and just being aware of that, recognising it and working with the hand that you have — that's really important.

We’d love to hear more about starting Paper Literary. You set it up in 2021 after working at Folio Literary Management, Curtis Brown and the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. What made you want to start your own agency and how have you found it? You mentioned that you were on furlough for two months, was it something that came up during that time?

No, so I was on furlough when I had just started at Madeleine Milburn. I had been there for five months, I was on furlough for two months and then I came back and sold two really big books in succession, which was completely unexpected. I was also pregnant at the time. I knew I was going on maternity leave, and I didn’t have the intention of going back to that agency afterwards so I ended up talking to several other places and thinking about what I wanted from my next workplace. I thought a lot about what I wanted for myself and for my clients and the pandemic helped me realise that some things that I thought we needed, like an office, weren’t necessities. It really made me rethink the fundamentals and the things that we took for granted and I saw it all from a different point of view. 

For me, as an American living in the UK, I’ve always liked the fact that I can represent both perspectives and think more globally. Last year seemed like it was a really good time because people were more open to doing something new. It was very daunting and it felt risky, especially with two kids. At the same time, it’s been incredibly liberating. For me, it’s really a lot about having full control of what I want to do — having a small list of stories that can work in the US and in the UK with a bespoke strategy for each client. 

I think having a legal background helps me too. Katie Greenstreet, who I recently brought on, is also a former lawyer so we both came from similar backgrounds and have that big agency perspective, which is invaluable. Now, I would like to use those skills in a way that would really benefit debuts and the new — the generation that's to come. So hopefully we're offering something different.

‘Those are qualities that I value - people who strive for excellence and who commit to doing things in an excellent way and that becomes what is recognised.’

What advice would you give to the person who will be reading this interview?

I know I’m repeating myself, really it is to know your worth - that’s what it is. It is what I have found to be the most important advice. Anytime I've taken something away from an interview with somebody else who is more experienced, it's always that. Work really hard, of course, but fight for what you deserve. I think that's important.

Finally, can you tell us a bit about another woman or women in the publishing or arts industries who inspires you?

I really enjoyed thinking about this question, and I'm going to choose two.

One is Theresa Park, who founded Park & Fine in the US. She's somebody who has forged an amazing path and I've looked up to her for a really long time. She's a former lawyer and she found Nicholas Sparks on submission — that was her first book. She  founded her own agency, and her list is just incredible. But what I also appreciate is that she’s really honest about that whole process. One of my favourite things she’s said, and I’m paraphrasing here, is that: ‘maturity is a process of giving up your dependency on others.’ It's about realising that actually, it had to be her and that she is enough. 

Then the other woman is Regina Pyo who is in the fashion industry. I'm not somebody who follows fashion but I was interested in her because she's Korean, young, has young children, and she started her own fashion label. She's also very honest about the struggle and what it took to form her own fashion label. So many people told her after some of her failures that maybe she should give it up because it was just becoming a very expensive hobby. And she was just like, ‘Have I really given it everything that I can give?’ She decided she hadn't and since then, she's been incredibly successful. What I really admire is that she also seems kind. She's always soft spoken and lets her talent and her work ethic speak for itself. Those are qualities that I value - people who strive for excellence and who commit to doing things in an excellent way and that becomes what is recognised. I think we need more of that in the world for sure.