I was approached recently by a US editor from Crooked Lane Books/Alcove Press, someone who was scouting for new talent. They had come across my writing and asked about my current and future projects. They were impressed by my reply and said they would like to continue the conversation through my agent. When I said I didn’t have an agent, they recommended someone at the New York-based Corvisiero Literary Agency. I decided to go with this person, in the hope that they could find a US market for LeafLight Moon, my novel of prehistoric Ireland. I spent a number of days putting together a full submission package and sent this off to the agent.

I’d noticed that both the editor and agent had quite wordy, long-winded styles of writing. I wondered if perhaps they were using Chat GPT to assist with correspondence – but, since they worked with reputable organizations, I thought no more about it.  Then I happened upon an article in the Irish Times about AI bots writing plausible proposals to authors, purporting to come from literary festivals, book clubs, publishers and agents, which eventually resulted in a request for money. That’s when I checked the email of the editor and saw that it came from a Gmail account. When I looked on the publisher’s website I found a warning on their contact page against messages coming from Gmail/ Yahoo/Hotmail addresses. The agent’s email address was @corviserogency, which seemed plausible, until I noticed the misspelling of Corvisiero.

I imagine if I had kept the conversation going I would been asked for money, but I decided I didn’t want to invest any more time or mental or emotional energy on this plausible, flattering, manipulative scam. I wrote a scathing email to the human who is behind this – whoever, wherever they may be – and then blocked both addresses from my email account.

I’m sharing this in the hope that other writers will catch these scams much sooner than I did.