The Blake Friedmann Literary Agency was formed in 1982 by merging the Julian Friedmann Literary Agency (1976) with the Carole Blake Literary Agency (1977).  Carole and Julian each had publishing backgrounds and when they met in the early 80s realised they had complementary skills.  Putting the two small agencies together created a stronger whole in which Carole handled book rights and Julian handled film and television rights.

Carole and Julian married in 1983, just days before a Frankfurt Book Fair (which became their honeymoon). In 1996 they separated but continued to work together in the agency they had created, until Carole’s death in 2016. Julian Friedmann is now Chairman of the Agency and represents a select list of scriptwriter clients.

Conrad Williams joined the agency in 1986. The agency didn't have a clearly defined role for him at the time (or a desk: his first 'work station' was a door supported by two short filing cabinets), but so entertaining was his letter of application that Carole and Julian felt they had to make a job for him. He became the agency’s second film and television agent and now runs the Media Department.  

Isobel Dixon joined BFLA in 1995, ‘falling happily into publishing’ after studying English Literature and Applied Linguistics at Edinburgh University. She began as Carole's assistant, also selling audio, short stories and translation rights and was thrilled by the experience of pitching the agency’s books at the Frankfurt Book Fair three weeks after joining, having had to absorb the entire book list between being offered the job and flying to Germany. She was promoted to agent in 1997, taking on clients from the UK, South Africa, India and around the world, and is now Head of the Book Department and Managing Director of the Agency as a whole.

In 2013 Juliet Pickering joined as a book agent, bringing an impressive client list from A.P. Watt, and in 2017 became Vice Head of the Book Department. 

A Translation Rights department was created in 2012 with the appointment of Louise Brice, and is now run by James Pusey and Hana Murrell.

In September 2016, Carole Blake sadly passed away. We started the Carole Blake Open Doors Project as part of her legacy, and to encourage inclusivity and diversity in our industry – exactly as Carole did.

In 2019, Kate Burke joined the Book Department as a Senior Agent, bringing award-winning and bestselling authors from Northbank Talent Management. Before becoming an agent, Kate was an editor at Headline and HarperCollins, and an editorial director at Penguin Random House.

Our clients and the book and media agents are supporting by an excellent team of colleagues. Our Finance Manager, Daisy Way, joined in this role in 2017, having initially interned here, then worked at Rogers, Coleridge and White, before returning. Sian Ellis-Martin joined as an intern in 2018 before becoming Book Department Assistant, then assistant to Isobel Dixon and Kate Burke in 2019, and Associate Agent in 2021. In 2019, Lizzy Attree started as Office Manager. In March 2020, we were joined by our Contracts Manager Ane Reason, and Roya Sarrafi-Gohar, who is assistant to Isobel Dixon and Juliet Pickering. After taking part in the Carole Blake Open Doors Project in 2020, Tabitha Topping became Book Department Assistant in 2021. Media Department Assistant Anna Myrmus joined in 2022.

Carole, Julian, Conrad and Isobel all have published books to their name.  See our publications page for details.

Blake Friedmann has had several homes: at first Carole and Julian worked in Covent Garden offices above a comic book store, then moved to Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, the heart of London's 'bookland' at that time. Staying in Bloomsbury they moved to Gower Street, and then on to Camden, first to a 1930s building on Arlington Road, and then to a 1910 converted furniture warehouse on Mandela Street. In 2018, we moved to our current home in Highbury Place, facing the lush green space of Highbury Fields.

At BFLA we work closely as a team, all taking great pride and pleasure in the work we do for our writers. We are extremely proud of our colleagues and their range of achievements – and we’re happy to have such a fine list of past staff and intern alumni. We’re delighted that so many colleagues, with our encouragement and help, go on to achieve careers within and beyond the book business, and we hold an annual party to catch up with as many of them as possible.

All of this rests on our clients, the writers who give us – and those who enjoy their stories in books and on film – so much pleasure. We have always had a policy of representing writers and their careers, rather than just books and individual scripts, and we seek to represent excellent writers who are also people we like and admire. That policy has stood us in good stead over the years. We are happy to have long-standing relationships with our writers, relish increasing the number of markets we sell them to, and delight in the fun we have along the way. This is, we believe, the best job in the world.