the muse & the marketplace 2010

bios of contributors

• keynote speaker
• guest authors
• "the essentials of craft" instructors
• editors
• literary agents
• panelists

keynote speaker

Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk’s nine previous novels are the bestselling Fight Club, which was made into a film by David Fincher; Survivor; Invisible Monsters; Choke, which was made into a film by director Clark Gregg; Lullaby; Diary; Haunted; Rant; Snuff; and Tell All, forthcoming in May 2010. He is also the author of Fugitives and Refugees, a nonfiction profile of Portland, Oregon, published as part of the Crown Journeys series, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

guest authors

Steve Almond

Steve Almond is the author the story collections: My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction books Candyfreak and (Not That You Asked). His new book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, is just out. He has also, crazily, self-published a book called This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, composed of 30 very brief stories and 30 very brief essays on the psychology and practice of writing.

Lynne Barrett

Lynne Barrett is the author of the story collections The Secret Names of Women and The Land of Go and she co-edited the anthology Birth: A Literary Companion. She has received the Edgar Allan Poe award of the Mystery Writers of America for best mystery story and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Recent stories have been published or are forthcoming in Night Train, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Delta Blues, A Hell of a Woman, One Year to a Writing Life, Miami Noir, A Dixie Christmas, and many other anthologies and literary magazines. Editor of The Florida Book Review, she is a professor at Florida International University, where she teaches in the M.F.A. program. You can read more here.

Brunonia Barry

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry studied literature and creative writing at Green Mountain College in Vermont and at the University of New Hampshire. In a prior career incarnation, she created brain teaser puzzles for Smart Games, a company she co-founded. Barry lives in Salem Massachusetts with her husband, Gary, and their fifteen-year-old golden retriever, Byzantium. Barry has written the New York Times bestseller, The Lace Reader, which has been published in thirty languages. In September, The Lace Reader was awarded the International Women’s Fiction Festival’s Baccante prize for best fiction of 2009. Her second novel, The Map of True Places will come out in May 2010.

Donovan Campbell

After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell wanted to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. So he joined the service, becoming a commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One. His experiences became the basis for his first book, Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood, which debuted at #15 on the New York Times non-fiction best-seller list, and has been featured on numerous national television and radio shows. Donovan Campbell served three combat deployments–two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, was awarded the Combat Action Ribbon and a Bronze Star with Valor for his time in Iraq and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for work in Afghanistan. He is now working for PepsiCo and living in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and daughter.

Maud Casey

Maud Casey lives in Washington, D.C. She teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Maryland. She also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Warren Wilson and was a faculty member at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in 2009. She is the author of two novels, The Shape of Things to Come, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Genealogy, a New York Times Editor's Choice Book, and a collection of stories, Drastic. She has received international fellowships from the Fundacion Valparaiso and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, and is the recipient of the 2008 Calvino Prize and a 2008-2009 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship.

Michael Downing

Michael Downing’s novels include the national bestseller Perfect Agreement and Breakfast with Scot, which was adapted as a movie that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. In addition to Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, a narrative history of the first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, Michael’s nonfiction includes the updated 2009 edition of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, and a memoir, Life With Sudden Death: A Tale of Moral Hazard and Medical Misadventure. His essays and reviews appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. A frequent commentator on clocks, Congress, and confusion about daylight saving on NPR, PBS, and network and cable news programs, Michael teaches creative writing at Tufts University. You can read more about his work at www.michaeldowningbooks.com.

Hallie Ephron

Hallie Ephron came to writing after careers as a teacher and marketing copywriter, and has been making up for lost time. She’s published six novels, including her latest Never Tell A Lie (2009) which was nominated for several awards including the Mary Higgins Clark Award. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called it “stunning” and a “deliciously creepy tale of obsession.” Her new novel, Come and Find Me, is due out in winter 2011 from Wm. Morrow. She is also the crime fiction book reviewer for the Boston Globe, and the author of two books about books, including The Bibliophile’s Devotional. Her book on mystery writing was a finalist for both the Edgar and Anthony awards.

Joseph Finder

Joseph Finder, internationally bestselling author of nine novels, launched the Nick Heller series with the publication of Vanished in 2009. The second book in that series, Buried Secrets, is due for release by St. Martin’s Press in August 2010. The Daily Mail called Nick Heller, a high-level corporate security consultant, “an adaptable, compassionate and satisfying maverick hero.” Previous bestsellers include Power Play, which debuted at #7 on the New York Times list; Killer Instinct, which won the ITW’s Thriller Award for Best Novel of 2006; Company Man; and Paranoia, now in development as a major motion picture and named as a “Best Business Book of 2009” in a poll conducted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. Finder’s 1998 novel High Crimes became a hit movie starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. A summa cum laude graduate of Yale, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Finder did graduate work at the Harvard Russian Research Center. He lives in Boston with his wife, their teenage daughter, and a neurotic golden retriever, Mia, a dropout from seeing-eye dog school.

Elizabeth Graver

Elizabeth Graver is at work on a project titled Plants and Their Children, a novel set in a summer community on Buzzard’s Bay from 1942 to 1999. She is the author of three novels: Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her short story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories (1991, 2001); Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards (1994, 1996, 2001); The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2001), and Best American Essays (1998). Her story “The Mourning Door” was awarded the Cohen Prize from Ploughshares Magazine. The mother of two daughters, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Boston College. Read more about Elizabeth on her website.

Lauren Grodstein

Lauren Grodstein is the author of a short story collection and two novels; her more recent novel, A Friend of the Family, was named a Washington Post Book of the Year, a New York Times Editor’s Pick, and an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month and Spotlight Pick. Her essays, stories, and reviews have been widely anthologized, and her work has been translated into eight languages. She is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers-Camden, where she helps administer the MFA program in creative writing.

Ann Hood

Ann Hood is the author of eight novels, including the bestsellers Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine and The Knitting Circle; a collection of short stories, An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life; and the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, which was a New York Times Notable Book and was selected by Entertainment Weekly as one of the ten best non-fiction books of 2008. She has won two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award and The Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. Her essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit, Traveler, Glimmer Train and many other publications. Her new novel, The Red Thread, will be published in May 2010 by WW Norton.

Katherine Howe

Katherine Howe is the author of the novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, a novel of the Salem witch trials which debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. She is completing a PhD in American and New England Studies at Boston University, where she has taught in the history, art history, American studies, and writing programs. She lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her husband.

Liza Ketchum

Liza Ketchum is the author of fourteen books for young people, including Newsgirl (Viking, 2009), a novel that takes place in San Francisco during the gold rush. Her novel in two voices, Where the Great Hawk Flies, won the 2006 Massachusetts Book Award for Children’s Literature and the Boston Authors Club/Julia Ward Howe Prize for Young Readers. Other titles focused on American history are the popular serialized adventure novel, Orphan Journey Home, and the non-fiction titles Into a New Country: Eight Remarkable Women of the West (an ALA “Best Book” for 2001), and The Gold Rush, a companion to the PBS series “The West.” Blue Coyote, the final title in her quartet of young adult novels, was nominated for a Lambda Literary award. Her books have appeared on the ALA’s “Best Book lists,” numerous state award lists, the Notable Social Studies Trade Book List, Bank Street College’s “Best Book List,” and on the NY Public Library’s “100 Titles for Reading and Sharing” and their “List for the Teenage.” An occasional Grub Street instructor, Liza is currently on the faculty of the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Hamline University, in St. Paul, MN. She has also taught at Vermont College, Emerson College, the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College, and at Rhode Island College.

Victor Lavalle

Victor LaValle is the author of slapboxing with jesus, a collection of stories, and two novels, The Ecstatic and Big Machine. Among his awards and fellowships are a Whiting Writers' Award, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship, and the key to Southeast Queens.

Jennifer 8. Lee

Jennifer 8. Lee is the author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, a book on Chinese food in America that hit #26 on The New York Times best seller list. She worked for nine years as a reporter at The New York Times, where she still helps out on social media. She is the lead judge in the Knight News Challenge, which gives away $5 million to news innovation every year. In addition, she is co-chair of the Asian American Writers Workshop’s board of directors, a former member of the Poynter Institute’s National Advisory Board, and a judge in the Robert F. Kennedy courage in journalism awards. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in applied math and economics.

Thomas Mallon

Thomas Mallon’s seven novels include Henry and Clara, Bandbox and Fellow Travelers. He has written non-fiction books about plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One’s Own), letters (the just-published Yours Ever) and the Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine’s Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos and In Fact). His work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review and other publications. He received his Ph. D. in English and American Literature from Harvard University and has taught at Vassar College, the George Washington University and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. The recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, as well as the National Book Critics Circle award for reviewing, he has been literary editor of Gentlemen’s Quarterly and deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Vestal McIntyre

Vestal McIntyre was born and raised in Nampa, Idaho, and has lived in Boston, New York, and, currently, London. He is the author of the story collection You Are Not the One, which won a 2006 Lambda Literary Award, and the novel Lake Overturn, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Washington Post Best Book of 2009, and is the winner of the 2010 Grub Street Book Prize in Fiction. His stories have appeared in Open City, Tin House and Boston Review; and he has received fiction fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Pablo Medina

Pablo Medina is the author of 11 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and translation, among them the poetry collection Points of Balance/Puntos de apoyo (2005) and the novel The Cigar Roller (2005). In January 2008, Medina and fellow poet Mark Statman published a new English version of García Lorca’s Poet in New York, which John Ashbery called “the definitive version of Lorca’s masterpiece”. Acclaimed as “lyrical and powerfully evocative” and “deserving a prominent spot in today’s literature of exile,” Medina’s work has appeared in various languages, among them Spanish, French, German, and Arabic, and in periodicals and magazines throughout the world. Winner of numerous awards, among them grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the NEA, the Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, and others, Medina is currently professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston and is on faculty at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.

Tova Mirvis

Tova Mirvis is the author of two novels, The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller published by W.W. Norton in 1999 and The Outside World, published in 2004 by Alfred A. Knopf. Her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers including The New York Times Book Review, Good Housekeeping, Poets and Writers and Brain/Child Magazine, and her fiction has been broadcast on National Public Radio. In 2009, she was named a Scholar in Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, and in 2010, she was selected as a Visiting Research Associate at The Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. She has taught expository writing at Columbia College, fiction writing at Gotham Writer’s Workshop in New York and at Grub Street in Boston. She has also lectured at many universities and communal organizations. After receiving a BA in English literature from Columbia College, she earned an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband and three children and is completing a third novel.

Lesléa Newman

Lesléa Newman is the author of 60 books for adults and children including the novel, The Reluctant Daughter, the short story collection, A Letter to Harvey Milk, the poetry collection, Nobody's Mother, the young adult novel Jailbait, the middle-grade novel, Hachiko Waits, the children's book, Heather Has Two Mommies, and the writing guide, Write From The Heart. Her literary awards include creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, a James Baldwin award in cultural achievement, a Parents' Choice Silver Medal, and four Pushcart Prize nominations. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. From 2008-2010, she was the poet laureate of Northampton, MA. Visit www.lesleanewman.com for more information.

Joseph Olshan

Joseph Olshan is an award-winning American novelist. His first novel, Clara's Heart, won the Times/Jonathan Cape Young Writers' Competition and went on to be made into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg. He is the author of eight novels, the most recent of which, The Conversion, was published in 2008/2009. In addition to his novels, he has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Times (London), The Guardian (London), The Independent (London), The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Observer, Harpers Bazaar, People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. For six years he was a professor of Creative Writing at New York University where he taught both graduate and undergraduate courses. Joseph Olshan's other novels include Nightswimmer and Vanitas, as well as The Waterline, A Warmer Season, The Sound of Heaven and In Clara's Hands, a sequel to his acclaimed first novel, Clara's Heart.

Benjamin Percy

Benjamin Percy is the author of a novel, The Wilding (Graywolf, 2010), and two books of stories, Refresh, Refresh (Graywolf, 2007) and The Language of Elk (Carnegie Mellon, 2006). His fiction and nonfiction have been read on National Public Radio, performed at Symphony Space, and published by Esquire (where he is a regular contributor), Men’s Journal, the Paris Review, Orion, and Glimmer Train, among others. His honors include the Whiting Writer’s Award, the Plimpton Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories. A graphic novel adaptation of “Refresh, Refresh”—co-authored by filmmaker James Ponsoldt and illustrated by Eisner-nominated artist Danica Novgorodoff—came out in 2009 with First Second Books (a division of Macmillan). He teaches in the MFA program at Iowa State University.

Nathaniel Rich

Nathaniel Rich is the author of The Mayor’s Tongue, a novel, now available in paperback. He has written essays on literature and film for The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The Nation, Slate, The Daily Beast, and The New Republic, among other publications, and he is also the author of a book of film criticism, San Francisco Noir: The City in Film Noir from 1940 to the Present. He can be hunted down on the Internet at www.nathanielrich.com.

Allison Winn Scotch

Allison Winn Scotch is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Time of My Life and The Department of Lost and Found. Her next novel, The One That I Want, will be published on June 1, 2010. She is also a magazine writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Parents, Glamour, Redbook, and Shape. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.

Jessica Shattuck

Jessica Shattuck is the author of the novels Perfect Life (W.W. Norton, 2009) and The Hazards of Good Breeding (W.W. Norton, 2003), which was a New York Times Notable Book of 2003 and finalist for a PEN/Winship award. Her short fiction has appeared in Open City, Glamour, The Tampa Review, and The New Yorker.

Anita Shreve

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts. After graduating from Tufts University, she taught high school for a number of years in and around Boston. In the middle of her last year, she quit to start writing. "I had this panicky sensation that it was now or never." Joking that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejections from magazines for her short stories, she published her early work in literary journals. One of these stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," won an O. Henry prize. Despite this accolade, she quickly learned that one couldn't make a living writing short fiction. Switching to journalism, Shreve traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for three years, working as a journalist for an African magazine. One of her novels, The Last Time They Met, contains bits and pieces from her time in Africa.

Returning to the United States, Shreve was a writer and editor for a number of magazines in New York. Later, when she began her family, she turned to freelancing, publishing in the New York Times Magazine, New York magazine and dozens of others. In 1989, she published her first novel, Eden Close. Since then she has written 14 other novels, among them The Weight of Water, The Pilot's Wife, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December, and, most recently, A Change in Altitude (2009) and Testimony (2008).

In 1998, Shreve received the PEN/L. L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for fiction. In 1999, she received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey, and The Pilot's Wife became the 25th selection of Oprah's Book Club and an international bestseller. Still in love with the novel form, Shreve writes only in that genre.

Janna Malamud Smith

Janna Malamud Smith is a writer and psychotherapist. She has lectured widely, and has published in many newspapers, magazines and journals. She is the author of three books. The first two, Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life. (1997) and A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear. (2003) were both chosen as “Notable Books” by The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Her latest, My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud (2006) was selected as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her essay, “Shipwrecked” is reprinted in Best American Essays 2009; another essay was reprinted in an earlier volume. She has worked part time since 1979 in the Cambridge Health Alliance, in Cambridge Massachusetts, and has a private practice. She is currently writing a book about the emotional perils that inhibit art-making; and researching a book about fishing in the Gulf of Maine.

Martha Southgate

Martha Southgate is the author of three novels, most recently Third Girl from the Left which was published in paperback by Houghton Mifflin in September 2006. It won the Best Novel of the year award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She received a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts grant and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her July 2007 essay from the New York Times Book Review, “Writers Like Me” appears in the recent anthology Best African-American Essays 2008. Previous non-fiction articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, O, Premiere, and Essence. She also has essays in the recent anthologies Behind the Bedroom Door and Heavy Rotation: Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives. She is working on her next novel, to be published by Algonquin Books. You can visit her website at www.marthasouthgate.com.

Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout is the author of three books of fiction. Her latest work, Olive Kitteridge, won the Pultizer Prize in fiction for 2009, and her other books Amy and Isabelle, and Abide With Me, have been national best sellers. She lives in New York City.

Susan M. Tiberghien

Susan M. Tiberghien, an American writer living in Switzerland, has published three memoirs—- Looking for Gold; Circling to the Center; and Footsteps, A European Album—- along with numerous narrative essays in journals and anthologies. Her most recent book, One Year to A Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer’s Art and Craft, published by Da Capo Press (Perseus Books), is “an inspiring window into the world of writing.” She has been teaching creative writing for twenty years both in the States and in Europe, at writers conferences, graduate programs, C.G. Jung Centers, the International Women’s Writing Guild, and at the monthly Geneva Writers’ Workshops. She directs the Geneva Writers’ Group and Conferences. Her website is www.susantiberghien.com.

"the essentials of craft" instructors

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara has taught writing at the college level and in community-bases settings and prisons. She received a 2010 NEA Literature Fellowship and her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, Harvard Review, Puerto del Sol and other publications. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Democratic Strategist, Alternet.org, and The Advocate. She is currently a student at Harvard Divinity School.

Ethan Gilsdorf

Ethan Gilsdorf is a freelance journalist, poet, critic, editor and teacher, and the author of the travel memoir-pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. A regular contributor to The New York Times, Boston Globe and the Christian Science Monitor. Gilsdorf also writes on travel, arts and culture for National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, Fodor's travel guides, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Poets & Writers, and other publications. His blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com, and he also blogs for Boston.com's Globetrotting, Tor.com, and TheOneRing.net. As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review and several anthologies. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP); volunteers as a guest speaker in schools and community centers; appears at colleges and conventions and on talk radio; and teaches memoir, journalism, feature writing, travel writing and creative writing workshops at Emerson College, Grub Street and Media Bistro. Read more at http://www.ethangilsdorf.com/

Michelle Hoover

Michelle Hoover is a full-time instructor at Boston University and has published short stories and novel excerpts in numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Night Train and Confrontation. She has been the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell, a MacDowell Fellow, and in 2005 the winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award for Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published in Best New American Voices. Her novel, The Quickening, will be published by Other Press in 2010.

Celeste Ng

Celeste Ng holds a BA from Harvard and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Subtropics, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere; she is also a blogger for the Huffington Post and contributing editor at Fiction Writers Review.

Adam Stumacher

Adam Stumacher's fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices, has been published in TriQuarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Carve, Barnstorm and The Sun, and was winner of the Raymond Carver Short Story Award. His nonfiction has appeared in the Guardian (UK) and the anthology Peace Under Fire. He holds degrees from Cornell University and Saint Mary's College, where he was recipient of the Jeanine Cooney and Agnes Butler fellowships. More recently, he was the the Carol Houck Smith Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, where he taught undergraduate courses. In addition to his work at Grub Street, he teaches creative writing at MIT and has many years experience as an educator in urban high schools. He is the author of a short story collection, Slipknot, and is currently working on a novel, entitled A Liar's Opus.

Michelle Seaton

Michelle Seaton is the co-author of several books, including The Way of Boys: Protecting the Social and Emotional Development of Young Boys (William Morrow, 2009) and The Cardiac Recovery Handbook (Hatherleigh Press, 2004). She is a former associate editor at Yankee magazine and a former senior contributor to Worth magazine. Since 1995, she has been a regular contributor to the NPR sports show "Only a Game," for which she has reported on everything from professional wrestling to competitive bird watching. Her essays and fiction have appeared in The Pinch, Sycamore Review, Quiddity International Journal, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been an instructor at Grub Street for ten years and serves as the lead instructor for Grub Street’s Memoir Project, teaching memoir writing to senior citizens in the neighborhoods throughout Boston.

editors

Jofie Ferrari-Adler*, Grove/Atlantic

Jofie Ferrari-Adler is a senior editor at Grove/Atlantic, where he acquires and edits both fiction and nonfiction. Previously he worked as an editor at Viking Penguin, the independent house Four Walls Eight Windows, and as a bookseller. Recent titles include Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn, William J. Bernstein’s A Splendid Exchange, Andrew Ferguson’s Land of Lincoln, Joe McGinniss Jr.’s The Delivery Man, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin’s The Last Stand of Fox Company, Christopher Beha’s The Whole Five Feet, Tim Flannery’s Now or Never, and David Kinney’s The Big One. Jofie serves on the AAP’s International Freedom to Publish Committee and is a contributing editor of Poets & Writers magazine.

Reagan Arthur*, Reagan Arthur Books

Reagan Arthur is Vice President and Editorial Director of Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Little, Brown. She began her publishing career at St. Martin’s Press, and also worked for Picador USA. Writers she has worked with since arriving at Little, Brown include Kate Atkinson, Kate Braestrup, Tony Earley, Joshua Ferris, Elin Hilderbrand, Elizabeth Kostova, Denise Mina, George Pelecanos, Josh Bazell, Kathleen Kent, and Joanna Scott.

Tim Bartlett, Random House

Tim Bartlett is a Senior Editor at Random House. He worked previously at Oxford University Press, Basic Books, and NYU Press. Among the writers he has worked with are Andrew Bacevich, Donovan Campbell, Anthony Flint, Tim Harford, Jed Horne, June Jordan, Keith Olbermann, Richard Preston, Peter Singer and Rob Walker. Bartlett is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and attended the editorial fellowship programs in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Jerusalem and Turin.

Amy Caldwell, Beacon Press

Amy Caldwell is an Executive Editor at Beacon Press. Some of her recent titles include Jonathan M. Metzl’s The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease, Kathryn Joyce’s Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, Eboo Patel’s Acts of Faith, Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau’s new anthology, Believer, Beware, and Fred Pearce’s Confessions of an Eco-Sinner. She’s interested in writers with strong backgrounds in their subject area who can translate complex material for a broader audience. She also looks for writers with a solid platform.

Pamela Dorman*, Viking Penguin

In her more than twenty years at Viking Penguin, Pamela Dorman acquired and edited the multi-million copy #1 bestsellers The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Memory-Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding and The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard, which was the first selection of the Oprah Book Club, along with many other fiction and non-fiction bestsellers. In 2006, she became Vice-President, Editorial Director of Voice, a new imprint for women at Hyperion, where she acquired and edited the fiction bestsellers The Physick Book of Deliverance Dance by Katherine Howe and The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, and edited Candace Bushnell’s One Fifth Avenue. She also acquired and edited the bestselling memoirs The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan, and Perfection by Julie Metz. She rejoined the Penguin Group in 2008 to found her eponymous imprint, Pamela Dorman Books, where her inaugural hardcover, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, was selected to launch the Sam’s Club National Book Club. Other new titles from Pamela Dorman Books include The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale, about a girl in eighteenth-century London who becomes apprenticed to a mysterious fireworks maker; and a major international bestseller, The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano that has already sold more than one million copies in his native Italy, where it won the prestigious Premio Strega award. She began her publishing career at St. Martin’s Press. Dorman is a summa cum laude graduate of Wesleyan University.

Amy Einhorn*, Amy Einhorn Books

Amy Einhorn Books’ mission-statement is to publish books that hit that sweet-spot between literary and commercial. Launched in February 2009, the imprint’s first title published was The Help by Kathryn Stockett, a debut novel that was a #1 New York Times bestseller. It was named USA Today’s Book of the Year, and has sold over a million copies in hardcover, receiving critical acclaim from NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, People, and many more. With a boutique list of only 10-12 titles a year, Amy Einhorn Books is backed by the marketing and publicity might of the most successful commercial publishing house in the business, G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Amy Einhorn Books publishes fiction, narrative nonfiction and commercial nonfiction. Upcoming titles include The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, This is Not the Story You Think It Is by Laura Munson, The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni and The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees. Some of Amy’s past New York Times bestsellers include I Like You by Amy Sedaris, The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks, Good Grief and Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston, Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman, and the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Red Hat Society by Sue Ellen Cooper. Amy has been in publishing for over 20 years, and was the Editor-in-Chief of Grand Central Publishing, Editorial Director of Washington Square Press, and worked at Poseidon Press, Villard, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Jeanne Leiby, The Southern Review

Jeanne Leiby is an associate professor of English at LSU and editor of The Southern Review, which publishes the best literary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Poems and fiction are selected with careful attention to craftsmanship and technique and to the seriousness of the subject matter. Although willing to publish experimental writing that appears to have a valid artistic purpose, The Southern Review avoids s extremism and sensationalism. We do not typically publish genre fiction. Jeanne Leiby is also the author of a story collection titled Downriver, published by Carolina Wren Press and winner of the Doris Bakwin Prize. Her stories have appeared in Fiction, Indiana Review, and New Orleans Review, among other journals.

Christine Pride*, Broadway Books

Christine Pride is an Editor at Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc. where she acquires and edits a range of fiction (Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace, The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha, The End of The Alphabet by CS Richardson), memoir (Rattled! by Christine Coppa, The Geography of Love by Glenda Burgess), narrative non-fiction (Teaching Hope by Erin Gruwell, If It Takes A Village, Build One by Malaak Compton Rock) and animal stories (Love is the Best Medicine by Dr. Nick Trout). While her tastes and interests are very diverse, she is committed to finding and nurturing projects that feature strong story-telling and emotional resonance. Christine attended the University of Missouri’s prestigious broadcast journalism program and worked in non-profit management before embarking on career in book publishing.

Ladette Randolph, Ploughshares

Ladette Randolph is editor-in-chief of the literary journal Ploughshares and a professor at Emerson College. Prior to joining the staff at Ploughshares she was an editor and associate director at University of Nebraska Press, and prior to that managing editor of Prairie Schooner. She is the author of the novel A Sandhills Ballad and the award-winning short story collection This Is Not the Tropics and the editor of two anthologies, A Different Plain and The Big Empty. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe grant, the Virginia Faulkner Award, a Best New American Voices citation, and three Nebraska Book Awards. Ploughshares is well known for its fiction, with work frequently reprinted in both Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart prize volumes. Known for its program of inviting established writers to guest edit each of the three issues it publishes each year, the magazine is committed to maintaining high quality while also showcasing diverse literary tastes in each issue. Half of each issue is solicited from the guest editor, and the remaining half comes from submissions made directly to the magazine. Ploughshares tends not to publish a lot of experimental fiction, nor do they publish genre fiction. As a former book editor, Randolph conceived of and acquired manuscripts for the award-winning series American Lives (memoirs) and Flyover Fiction (novels and short story collections).

Nathaniel Rich*, The Paris Review

Nathaniel Rich is the fiction editor of The Paris Review, where he has worked for the past five years. Before that he worked on the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books. He's also the author of two books, including a novel, The Mayor's Tongue, and has written essays on literature and film for Vanity Fair, Slate, and Lapham's Quarterly, among other publications. His website is www.nathanielrich.com. When asked what The Paris Review is looking for submission-wise, Rich answers, "to be surprised," and quotes William Styron from the inaugural issue: "The Paris Review should welcome these people into its pages: the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and non-axe-grinders. So long as they're good."

Alexis Rizzuto, Beacon Press

Alexis Rizzuto received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Emerson College, where her work won the DuPrey Award. She has taught creative nonfiction at Cazenovia College, Syracuse University, and Grub Street Writers. Alexis learned the publishing business through working at the Kneerim & Williams literary agency and as an editor at Da Capo Press. She currently works on Grub Street's Memoir Project team and at Beacon Press acquiring in the areas of nature/environment and child/family.

Christina Thompson, Harvard Review

Christina Thompson is the editor of Harvard Review and a lecturer in the Writing Program at Harvard University Extension. She is the recipient of a 2010 NEA Fellowship and a 2010 grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Her essays and criticism have been published in Vogue, The American Scholar, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and many other newspapers and journals. She is the author of a memoir entitled Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All (Bloomsbury, 2008). More info at www.comeonshore.com.

literary agents

Richard Abate*, 3 Arts Entertainment

Richard Abate has been a literary agent for over fifteen years. He recently joined 3 Arts Entertainment, a premier management company based in Los Angeles, to begin their literary division. He works with many literary writers such as Kate Christensen (a PEN/Faulkner winner), Sana Krasikov (2009 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature winner), Oscar Casares, Chuck Hogan (Hammett Award winner), Dale Peck, Calvin Baker, Attica Locke, and young adult mega stars Lisi Harrison and Melissa De La Cruz. He also works with award-winning non-fiction writers including Evan Wright (two-time National Magazine Award winner), Jeff Tietz (National Magazine Award nominee), Tara Bray Smith, Anthony Flint, Tina Cassidy, Pulitzer Prize winner Tamara Jones, historians James Swanson and Mitchell Zuckoff, Brian McGrory of the Boston Globe, National Book Award nominee David McCumber, music writer Anthony Bozza, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Snyder, and NPR journalist Farai Chideya. He has also worked with top creative talent in other fields, such as Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Kring (creator and executive producer of Heroes), and Howard Gordon (executive producer of 24). Richard has a bachelor’s degree in European History from the University of Maryland and a doctorate in American Studies from NYU.

Jenni Ferrari-Adler*, Brick House Literary Agents

Jenni Ferrari-Adler is an agent at Brick House Literary Agents. Jenni specializes in representing novels, food narrative and cookbooks, and narrative nonfiction. Recent sales include the debut literary novel A Wonderful Sight From the Air by Sarah Gardner Borden to Vintage, the food memoir Four Kitchens by Lauren Shockey to Grand Central, and the cookbook Ancient Grains for Modern Meals by Boston-based journalist Maria Speck to Ten Speed Press. Jenni holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and a BA from Oberlin College. She taught creative writing at the University of Michigan and the Gotham Writers Workshop. She has worked as a reader for The Paris Review, and a bookseller at Housing Works. Her short fiction and food writing have been published in numerous magazines. She is the editor of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (http://www.aloneinthekitchen.com/) and a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is looking for projects with wonderful writing and a new take on an interesting topic. Some books she’s loved recently: Look At Me by Jennifer Egan, The Great Man by Kate Christenson, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow, The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn, One L by Scott Turow, and Heat by Bill Buford.

Miriam Altshuler, Miriam Altshuler Literary Agency

Miriam Altshuler established her own agency in 1994 after twelve years as an agent at Russell & Volkening. Her list focuses on literary commercial fiction and nonfiction, but most important to her are the quality of the writing and how the subject is approached.

The range of fiction writers she represents includes Robb Forman Dew, winner of the National Book Award for Dale Loves Sophie to Death (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); Alice Lichtenstein, whose second novel, Lost, will be published this spring by Scribner, Doug Trevor, whose stories have appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading, Glimmer Train and The Paris Review, and whose collection, The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space, won the Iowa First Fiction Award in 2005; Jennine Capo Crucet, winner of the 2009 Iowa First Fiction Award for her collection, How to Leave Hialeah; and Walter Dean Myers, two-time National Book Award finalist, first Michael Printz award winner, and New York Times best-selling author of Monster. Her nonfiction authors include Andrew Carroll, New York Times best-selling author of War Letters (Scribner) and Operation Homecoming (with the National Endowment of the Arts, Random House); Harriet Brown, whose forthcoming memoir with HarperCollins, Brave Girl Eating, is based on her New York Times Magazine article; New York Times best-selling author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Dogs Never Lie About Love), and his newest book about the choices behind the foods we eat, The Face On Your Plate (W.W. Norton); New York Times columnist Alina Tugend and her forthcoming book about making mistakes, The Right To Be Wrong (Riverhead); Janna Malamud Smith, author of the 2003 New York Times Notable Book A Potent Spell (Houghton Mifflin), and her memoir of her father, the late Bernard Malamud, My Father is a Book (Houghton Mifflin); B.U. professor, YA novelist, and acclaimed author of Sex and the Soul and The Possibilities of Sainthood, Donna Freitas; and Wednesday Martin, author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do (Harcourt Houghton Mifflin).

Julie Barer, Barer Literary

Julie Barer established her own agency in 2004 after six years at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Barer Literary is a full-service boutique agency that represents a variety of writers across a literary spectrum, with an emphasis on fiction. Clients include National Book Award finalist Joshua Ferris (Then We Came to the End and The Unnamed), award winning short story writer Gina Ochsner (People I Wanted To Be and the forthcoming Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight), and bestselling historical novelist Kathleen Kent (The Heretic’s Daughter). Writing by her clients has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Best American Non-Required Reading, New Stories From the South, Best New American Voices, Tin House, Granta and various other publications, and has received numerous awards and honors, including grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, the Los Angeles Times First Book Award, the National Book Award finalist medal, the Flannery O'Connor Award and the Orange Prize and Guardian First Book Award long lists. Forthcoming books include Helen Simonson’s debut novel Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (Random House), City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris (Little, Brown & Co.) and The Great Penguin Rescue by Dyan DeNapoli (Free Press). Before becoming an agent Julie was a bookseller at Shakespeare & Company in New York.

Regina Brooks, Serendipity Literary Agency LLC

Regina Brooks is the founder and president of Serendipity Literary Agency LLC, based in Brooklyn, New York. Her agency has represented and established a diverse base of award-winning clients in adult and young adult fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature, including: three-time National Book Award finalist, the Coretta Scott King Honor, and the 2006 Michael Printz Honor Award-winning author Marilyn Nelson; winner of the 2008 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award, Sundee Frazier; Nina Jablonski; and Marjorie Greenfield (The Working Women’s Pregnancy Book). Brooks also has a talent for identifying new voices and potential authors like Derrick Barnes, whose first novel, The Making of Dr Truelove, won an American Library Association Award. Serendipity was hailed by Writer's Digest magazine as one of the top 25 literary agencies in 2004. Prior to opening her own agency, Ms Brooks held senior editorial positions at John Wiley and Sons (where she was not only the youngest but also the first African-American editor in their college division) and McGraw-Hill. She is the author of the children's book, Never Finished! Never Done! (Scholastic, 2004) and Writing Great Books for Young Adults (Source Books 09). Brooks is also on the faculty of the Harvard University publishing program. Her recent sales include: In the Black: Retirement Planning Guide for African Americans (Harper Collins), Handle Your Entertainment Business (Hachette); Wishing: How to Fulfill Your Dream (Beyond Words/Atria), Girligami (Watson Guptil), Beautiful Ballerina (Scholastic), Imperfections (Clarion), and Sweethearts Of Rhythm (Random House). She is a regular speaker at writer’s conferences and is interested in new and emerging writers. www.serendipitylit.com

Elyse Cheney*, Elyse Cheney Literary Associates LLC

Elyse Cheney has been a literary agent for fifteen years, beginning at a small firm, Connie Clausen Associates, and then moving on to Sanford J. Greenburger Associates for ten years. In January 2005 she opened her own company. She studied English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, with a minor in business at the Wharton School and a minor in Art History. Cheney's writers include journalists from all the top magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Harper’s, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Recently published nonfiction and memoir books include Warren St. John’s Outcasts United, Justin Fox’s The Myth of the Rational Market, and Reza Aslan’s How to Win a Cosmic War; Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz, Mockingbird Years and Are You Happy? by Emily Fox Gordon, and Ask Amy columnist Amy Dickinson's New York Times bestselling The Mighty Queens of Freeville. Cheney was also the agent for Dave Eggers’ bestselling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Cheney's fiction interests range from the literary to the commercial. She represents Jess Row, author of The Train to Lo Wu, Stegner fellow Suzanne Rivecca, Benjamin Kunkel, author of the highly acclaimed Indecision, and Nathaniel Rich, author of The Mayor's Tongue. She was also the agent for Sister Souljah’s classic novel The Coldest Winter Ever, and is increasingly interested in commercial fiction, thrillers and women’s fiction.

Elizabeth Evans*, Jean V. Naggar Agency

Elizabeth Evans joined the Jean V. Naggar Agency in January, 2010. Previously, she worked for six years with Kimberley Cameron & Associates (formerly the Reece Halsey Agency). Elizabeth specializes in nonfiction, including memoir, current affairs, pop culture, relationships, journalism, history and popular science. She also represents select titles in up-market women’s fiction, mysteries and young adult novels. She enjoys working closely with her authors to fine-tune their proposals and especially loves launching new authors’ careers. She is always on the lookout for stories of adventure, and books that aspire to foster knowledge and understanding. Elizabeth does not represent thrillers, children's books, essay anthologies, poetry, short fiction or screenplays.

Stephany Evans*, FinePrint Literary Management

Stephany Evans, President of FinePrint Literary Management, began agenting in 1990. In 1992 she formed her own agency while serving as editor for wellness and personal growth magazine Free Spirit. For twenty years, she has represented nonfiction writers in the areas of health and wellness, lifestyle (including home renovating, decorating, food & drink, and sustainability), spirituality, memoir and narrative nonfiction. Her clients span an unusual spectrum from meditation 'sitters' to ultra-runners. In fiction, she represents a range of women's fiction, from literary to romance, including mystery, paranormal, and suspense, and the occasional novel not aimed at chicks. Stephany is a member of the Association of Authors' Representatives, the Women's National Book Association, and Romance Writers of America, and member and former co-chair of New York Women in Publishing. She splits her time between her offices in New York City and Marfa, Texas.

Sorche Fairbank, Fairbank Literary Representation

Since establishing Fairbank Literary Representation in 2002, Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank has had the pleasure of working with a dynamic and varied list, representing best-selling authors, Edgar recipients, award-winning journalists, and of course plenty of one of her favorite kinds of client -- the first-time author. Her tastes in novels tend toward literary fiction, international voices, and women's voices, and the occasional mystery/suspense novel. On the nonfiction side, she is most likely to take on books that tackle current events and societal issues with a narrative treatment. She has a strong interest in women's voices and class and race issues, popular science, quality lifestyle books (food, wine, craft, and home design), and humor(!) and pop culture, which have been exceptionally strong sellers lately. Subjects and genres not of interest include: sci-fi and fantasy, children’s and YA, self-help, romance, sports fiction, or generally anything that opens with a dream scene and/or exhaustive descriptions of weather. Unless, of course, it’s really really REALLY good.

Authors and books represented by Fairbank Literary include: O. Henry Prize winner Charlotte Forbes; Pulitzer nominee and LA Times Cairo Bureau Chief Jeffrey Fleishman; Matthew Frederick and his best-selling 101 Things I Learned In _______ School series; the estate of Robin Moore (The French Connection, The Green Berets); Xaviera Hollander (The Happy Hooker); journalist Ethan Gilsdorf (Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks); Darci Klein (To Full Term, A Mother's Triumph Over Miscarriage); Jonathan McCullough's A Tale Of Two Subs; syndicated cartoonist and Georgia Author of the Year Man Martin (Days of the Endless Corvette and Paradise Dogs), Edgar-winner and host of Anatomy Of A Mystery, Rex Burns; Robert McKinnon (Actions Speak Loudest, a collection of essays by such luminaries as Jimmy Carter, Paul Simon, Dave Eggers, Mia Hamm, Richard Louv); essayist Jessica Handler; and Eudora Welty prize in Fiction winner Miroslav Penkov and his debut collection Bulgari, a country, in stories, forthcoming from FSG. Updated information on Sorche Fairbank and Fairbank Literary, their clients, and recent deals can be found here.

Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Katherine Fausset is an agent with Curtis Brown, Ltd., New York. She has worked in publishing since 1998. In non-fiction she looks for dynamic, bold voices and subject matter that alters our view of the world. In fiction, she particularly loves rich, atmospheric detail; humor; explorations of family dynamics; anything set during a revolution; and morally-complicated protagonists. Some of her non-fiction clients are Moustafa Bayoumi, Mary Ann Caws, Ioan Grillo, Daniel Hernandez and Chris Rose. Her fiction clients include Benjamin Percy, Laura van den Berg, James Magruder, Katharine Davis, Jerry Gabriel, Janna McMahan, Justin Allen and John Nichols.

Lisa Grubka, Foundry

Lisa Grubka spent six years at the William Morris Agency before joining Foundry in summer 2008, and represents both fiction (literary, young adult, and women's) and non-fiction (pop culture, food, and narrative). Lisa has worked with a broad variety of authors, from debut novelists to Food Network stars. She takes a very hands-on approach in working with her authors, and is a thorough editor, ensuring the best possible proposal or manuscript. In addition to representing her authors, she also managed magazine/serial and audio rights for William Morris. She began her career at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Jill Kneerim, Kneerim & Williams

Jill Kneerim a founder of Kneerim & Williams, represents a wide range of authors, including best-selling novelists Brad Meltzer and Sue Miller; ADD expert Dr. Edward M. Hallowell; scholars Pauline Maier, Stephen Greenblatt, Tanya Luhrmann, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Elkins; journalists Larry Tye, Bo Burlingham, and David Laskin; biographers Susan Quinn and Gillian Gill; former poet laureate Robert Pinsky; and leading women thinkers such as Jean Kilbourne, Kitty Dukakis, and Dr. Susan Love. Jill is a former editor and publisher who has worked for Simon & Schuster, American Heritage, and Grossman Publishers, a publishing house that she cofounded. She has overseen the creation of countless books and worked with hundreds of authors. She has served on the board of PEN New England and is a member of the advisory board of Grub Street Writing Center. Boston Magazine named her one of Boston's 100 most influential women. Jill's interests include a good story on almost any interesting subject; serious fiction; American, African, Asian, and European history; religion; psychology and anthropology; biography and memoir; women's issues; the English language; and good writing.

PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Associates

PJ Mark has worked in the publishing industry for sixteen years, as an international book scout, a journalist covering the book publishing industry, and as a literary agent since 2002. His clients include Dinaw Mengestu (The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for First Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award, the Prix du Premier Roman, and a “5 Under 35” writer by the National Book Award Foundation, 2007); Samantha Hunt (The Seas; The Invention of Everything Else, shortlisted for the Orange Prize; a “5 Under 35” writer by the National Book Award Foundation, 2006); Josh Weil (The New Valley; a “5 Under 35” writer by the National Book Award Foundation, 2009); Ed Park (Personal Days, a TIME magazine book of the year and finalist for the John Sargent Award for First Novel); Sarah Manguso (The Two Kinds of Decay, recipient of The Rome Prize); Craig Thompson (Blankets; recipient of three Harvey Awards, two Eisner Awards, and the 2005 Critics Choice at Angouleme); and others. His clients have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Harper's, and elsewhere. They have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, Lannan Foundation fellowships, the MacArthur Foundation Grant, The Narrative Prize, and Fulbright fellowships. They have also been finalists for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

Rebecca Oliver*, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment

Rebecca Oliver moved over to the William Morris Endeavor Entertainment book department when the two companies merged in June 2009. Previous to joining Endeavor as an agent in 2007, she worked in book publishing, first at St. Martin’s Press followed by Grand Central Publishing (formerly Warner Books) as the Associate Director of Subsidiary Rights. At WME her client list is diverse and ranges from practical non-fiction (Tracy Anderson, The 30-Day Method Kick Start; Nicole Williams, Girl on Top) to memoir (Eric Poole, Where's My Wand; Janna Cawrse Esarey, The Motion of the Ocean; Michael Cooper, Displaced) to both commercial and literary fiction. Fiction clients include New York Times bestselling author Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places); Susan White, author of the Target book club pick A Soft Place to Land; historical novelist Kamran Pasha (Mother of the Believers and Shadow of the Swords); and women's fiction author Ellen Block (The Language of Sand).

Katharine Sands, Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency

A literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Katharine Sands has worked with a varied list of fiction and non-fiction authors who publish a diverse array of books. Highlights include XTC: SongStories; Chasing Zebras: THE Unofficial Guide to House, MD; Make Up, Don't Break Up with Oprah guest Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil; Playwright Robert Patrick's novel, Temple Slave; The Complete Book on International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child; Hands Off My Belly: The Pregnant Woman's Survival Guide to Myths, Mothers, and Moods; Under the Hula Moon; Whipped: A Professional Dominatrix's Secrets for Wrapping Men Around Your Little Finger; The Gay Vacation Guide; CityTripping: a Guide for Foodies, Fashionistas and the Generally Syle-Obsessed; Writers on Directors; Ford model Helen Lee's The Tao of Beauty; Elvis and You: Your Guide to the Pleasures of Being an Elvis Fan; New York: Songs of the City; Taxpertise: Dirty Little Secrets the IRS Doesn't Want You to Know; The SAT Word Slam; Divorce After 50; The Complete Book of Bone Health; The Safe and Sane Guide to Teenage Plastic Surgery, to name a few. She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent's Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers' lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. When reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed.

Denise Shannon, Denise Shannon Literary Agency

Denise Shannon heads her own literary agency in New York City, which she started in 2002. She has also held positions at Alfred A. Knopf, St. Martin’s Press and ICM. Representative titles: Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen, Alternatives to Sex by Stephen McCauley, The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle and Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones and Pamela Ferdinand.

Janet Silver*, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth

Janet Silver, the Literary Director of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth agency, brings more than three decades of experience as an acclaimed editor and publishing executive to her work as a literary agent. She joined the agency after 25 years at Houghton Mifflin Company, where she was Vice President and Publisher. Throughout her long career, Silver has remained committed to supporting exceptional writers of literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. Her clients benefit from both her in-depth knowledge of the publishing process and her industry-wide reputation as the renowned editor of many celebrated writers, including Philip Roth, Tim O'Brien, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cynthia Ozick, Monique Truong, and Jonathan Safran Foer. As a publisher, she oversaw the release of such groundbreaking works as Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Silver’s clients at ZSH are writers recognized for their original voices, narrative skill, and proven expertise. Recent major sales include the memoir Wild by novelist Cheryl Strayed (Knopf), recounting her solo trek on the Pacific Crest trail; Brian Christian’s The Most Human Human (Doubleday), an inside look at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence; and award-winning writer Michael Byers’ Percival’s Planet (Holt), a novel based on the discovery of Pluto in 1930.

Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation

Joanna Stampfel-Volpe has been with Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation for just over two years. Prior to becoming a full-time agent with Nancy Coffey, Joanna was an assistant and junior agent with FinePrint Literary Management, a publisher's assistant at Blue Marlin Publications, and a book seller at Barnes & Noble. Her previous sales range from children's literature to adult non-fiction, including The Town That Food Saved (Rodale, March 2010) by Ben Hewitt, Deception-- A Haunting Emma Novel (Bloomsbury Children's, June 2010) by Lee Nichols, The Duff (Poppy, September 2010) by Kody Keplinger, Sway (Hyperion, Summer 2011) by Amber Turner, and The Rotten Adventures of Zachary Ruthless (HarperCollins Children's, Summer 2011) by Allan Woodrow. She has also sold a number of audio books and has just finished negotiations on her first film option. Joanna is looking for clients who are as enthusiastic about writing and reading as she is, and she is currently building her list. When she's not reading (which is almost never), she enjoys cooking, watching movies, playing Guitar Hero and hanging with her husband and her chihuahua, PeeWee.

Rachel Sussman*, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth

Rachel Sussman graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a B.A. in English literature. She has worked as an editor at Scribner, where she edited a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including Dawn Raffel's debut novel, Carrying the Body; Naama Goldstein's debut short story collection, The Place Will Comfort You; Thomas Webber's memoir Flying Over 96th Street; Louis Edwards's novel Oscar Wilde Discovers America; and Jennifer Vogel's memoir Flim-Flam Man. After four years at Scribner, Rachel moved to London, where she worked as an editor with The Literary Consultancy and edited for various U.K. publishing houses on a freelance basis. Rachel joined Zachary Shuster Harmsworth as an agent in the summer of 2005. Some of her recent sales include Two Kisses for Maddy, a memoir by blogger Matt Logelin (Grand Central Publishing); Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight about Animals by Western Carolina University professor of psychology Hal Herzog (HarperCollins); I Thought You Were Dead, a novel by Peter Nelson (Algonquin); Sharp Notes, a personal narrative blending memoir, travelogue, and history by New York Times reporter Doreen Carvajal (Riverhead); and Virtually You: How Online Life is Transforming Offline Reality by Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, Director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine (Norton).

Mitchell Waters, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Mitchell Waters has been an agent at Curtis Brown, Ltd. for fifteen years. He represents an eclectic group of authors of fiction and non-fiction. He is particularly interested in literary fiction, but is not averse to strong plots and some humor. Recent and forthcoming titles include Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre (winner of the 2010 Grub Street Book Prize), Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford, The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier, The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes, Probation by Tom Mendicino, Mile-High Fever by Dennis Drabelle, The Conversion by Joseph Olshan, Cloris by Cloris Leachman, The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper and A Voice from Old New York by Louis Auchincloss.

Elisabeth Weed, Weed Literary LLC

Elisabeth Weed is committed to working with writers on individual titles and for the long term. She is dedicated to developing her authors’ careers by guiding them as they fine-tune their work, and build platforms in their areas of expertise. Elisabeth is interested in discovering new voices in up-market fiction, with literary echoes. Drawn to high-concept work and great writing, her list includes best selling and nationally recognized authors, including Martha Moody, Allison Winn Scotch, Lynne Griffin, Trish Ryan, Sara Barron, Therese Walsh and Megan Kelley Hall. For more information, visit www.weedliterary.com.

*first time at the Muse and the Marketplace conference!

panelists and special guests

Jenna Blum

Jenna Blum is the author of the New York Times bestseller Those Who Save Us (Harcourt, 2004) and The Stormchasers (Dutton), available May 27, 2010. Jenna attended Kenyon College and Boston University, where she taught writing for five years and was the fiction editor for AGNI literary magazine. Currently, Jenna runs master novel workshops for Grub Street Writers in Boston, where she lives. She spends her non-writing time on the road talking to book clubs about Those Who Save Us, which in addition to being a New York Times bestseller was a Boston Globe bestseller, the winner of the 2005 Ribalow Prize, a Borders Book Club pick, and a favorite with book clubs across the country (Jenna has visited over 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone). Jenna is very excited for her author tour for The Stormchasers, a novel she researched by chasing tornadoes for five years with the stormchase company Tempest Tours. For more information about Jenna, her novels, and her upcoming Stormchasers tour, please visit her website.

Lisa Borders

Lisa Borders' first novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, was chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing's Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel and was published in 2002. Cloud Cuckoo Land also received fiction honors in the 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards. Her essay "Enchanted Night" was published in Don't You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes (Simon & Schuster, 2007). Lisa has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her short stories have appeared in Kalliope, Washington Square, Black Warrior Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, CrossConnect and other journals. She has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Somerville Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and residencies at Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. She was also a visiting writer at the University of Pennsylvania. Lisa holds an MA in Creative Writing from Temple University in Philadelphia, where she taught undergraduate writing. More information on Lisa and her work is available at lisaborders.com.

Michael Borum

Michael Borum is a digital strategist, designer, and developer, with over 15 years experience in the Web marketing and communications industry. He has worked for technology companies in the early days of the Web, small marketing firms, and global digital communications and branding agencies. In 2002, he started his own practice, etherweave communications, where he has focused on providing digital marketing services to authors, small non-profits, and educators. Since 2007, he has also worked as the Web Manager at Boston-based Oxfam America, a branch of the global non-profit organization dedicated to ending poverty and injustice. At Oxfam he leads on digital strategy and content delivery platforms for constituent engagement, growth, campaigning, and fundraising online.

Lyn Brakeman

Lyn Brakeman is an Episcopal priest, published author and pastoral psychotherapist. Her books Spiritual Lemons: Biblical Women, Irreverent Laughter and Righteous Rage and The God between Us: A Spirituality of Relationships are published by Augsburg Books, and her memoir Becoming a Woman Priest From the Inside Out is seeking publication. Brakeman has been a member of Grub Street, Inc. for several years and has studied writing at Juniper Writing Institute, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Blue HIlls Writing Institute. She grew up in New York City, is basically a city girl, and this summer plans to move into Cambridge from Gloucester where she has lived for the last thirteen years with her marriage partner and second husband, Episcopal priest, Richard Simeone. They have seven children between them from former marriages and eleven grandchildren. Brakeman was ordained priest in Connecticut in 1988 following a colossal struggle with a patriarchal institution not ready for female anatomy, voice or ideas. She brings to her writing a passion for womens liberation and an end to sexism, wise religion and earth-bound spirituality, three muses that have shaped her life from childhood on and forces she has struggled to bring together in her vocationsplural because they number five and counting.

Ondine Brent

From the ridiculous to the sublime, Ondine Brent has appeared on important stages from Jacques World-Famous Drag Cabaret to Carnegie Hall. As a performer and voice-over artist in this country and overseas, she enjoys a wide-range of engagements. Highlights include: back-up singer for Barry Manilow, Opening Ceremonies of the Nagano Olympics, Boston Pops 4th of July on the Esplanade, three world-premieres at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood, and other notable productions. Ondine has appeared on France's prestigious Le Vrai Journal. She has graced the stage of the historic Bilboquet jazz club and was a regular headliner at Le Cercle Suedois. She has the distinction of appearing in a Boston-based Academy Award-winning film (The Departed) and a Grammy Award-winning disc (BSO Classics’ Daphnis et Chloe). On the stage, her roles have included Athena, Persephone, the Virgin Mary, Monica Lewinsky and other incarnations of goddesses, divas, and notorious women. No stranger to the small screen, Ondine has appeared on local news programs across the country as a fashion commentator. For the past ten years, she has served as diction coach for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus. She can be heard frequently on NPR’s Sunday morning broadcast from Marsh Chapel at BU.

Eve Bridburg

Eve Bridburg is the founder of Grub Street and has worked as a literary agent at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth, representing numerous fiction and non-fiction authors who are figuring out how to navigate the changing landscape of publishing. She has participated in a number of conferences and panels on the topic of digital publishing and has a keen interest in helping to shape its future.

Charles Coe

Poet and writer Charles Coe coordinates grant programs for literature and music organizations at the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He is author of Picnic on the Moon (a volume of poetry) and writes for numerous publications such as Harvard Magazine and the Boston Phoenix. He is also a sought-after public speaker--reading his own work, moderating panels on writing, or serving as a keynote speaker at community and cultural events.

Sherry Ellis

Sherry Ellis is the author of Now Write! Fiction, Now Write! Nonfiction, Now Write Screenwriting and Illuminating Fiction. Ellis became interested in examining the writing process when she was working on her first novel and found herself turning to respected writing teachers for their expertise. Determined to learn more, Ellis interviewed these authors as well as several other esteemed writers. She also asked approximately three hundred well known authors and teachers to share writing exercises. Ellis’ first book of writing exercises, Now Write! Fiction (2006) was recognized as one of the best writing books of 2006. Her second book is a collection of her author interviews titled Illuminating Fiction (2009). Now Write! Nonfiction (2009) is the second book in the Now Write! series of writing exercises. The third book in the Now Write! series, Now Write! Screenwriting, is scheduled for publication in January, 2011. Ellis continues to focus on her personal creative endeavors and is a writing coach. She may be contacted at sellseid@comcast.net.

Matthew Frederick

Matthew Frederick is an architect, urban designer, and the author of the bestselling 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School (MIT Press, 2007). He began his writing career as the architecture critic for The Harrisburg Patriot-News, the daily newspaper of Pennsylvania's capital city, and recently co-authored four books in a new 101 Things I Learned book series, with titles in Business, Culinary Arts, Fashion, and Film to be released by Grand Central Publishing in May 2010.

Lynne Griffin

Lynne Griffin writes about family life. She is the author of Sea Escape-A novel to be published by Simon & Schuster in July 2010, Life Without Summer-A novel (St. Martin’s Press), and the nonfiction parenting title Negotiation Generation (Penguin). Lynne teaches family studies at the graduate level at Wheelock College, and writing at Grub Street Writers in Boston. She appears regularly on Boston’s Fox Morning News talking about family life issues. Lynne writes for the blog, Family Life Stories. To learn more about her work visit her website at www.LynneGriffin.com.

Bret Anthony Johnston

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the internationally acclaimed Corpus Christi: Stories (Random House, 2004). Named a Best Book of the Year by The Independent of London and The Irish Times, the collection has received the Southern Review's Annual Short Fiction Award, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, the Texas Institute of Letters' Debut Fiction Award, the Christopher Isherwood Prize, the James Michener Fellowship, and was shortlisted for Ireland's Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, "the richest short story prize in the world." His work appears in magazines such as The Paris Review, Oxford American, and Tin House, and in numerous anthologies including New Stories from the South: The Year's Best 2003, 2004, and 2005. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. In 2006, the National Book Foundation honored him with a new National Book Award for writers under 35. Currently, he is Director of Creative Writing at Harvard. For more information, visit www.bretanthonyjohnston.com.

Jocelyn Kelley

Jocelyn Kelley is a partner at Kelley & Hall Book Publicity. She has worked for one of the largest publishing houses in the country and has also worked as a book reviewer and marketing consultant. Jocelyn is an established freelance journalist for national magazines like Glamour, Self, and The Writer. A magna cum laude graduate of Emerson College, Jocelyn hosted and produced an Associated Press, award-winning, public affairs radio program. Jocelyn's clients include Brunonia Barry, Lauren Belfer, David Dosa, Lisa Genova, Avner Hershlag, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Michael Palmer, and Michael Zadoorian.

Pagan Kennedy

Pagan Kennedy is the author of ten books in a variety of genres from such publishers as Viking and Simon & Schuster. She has written for dozens of publications, including several sections of The New York Times. She has just launched a new web-magazine about the future of publishing. Please visit it at www.writer2point0.com.

Sanj Kharbanda

Sanj Kharbanda is a VP Digital Market Strategy at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where among other things he is tasked with developing and executing HMH’s vision for creating compelling digital products and bring them to market in new ways. He considers himself a digital geek, a book nerd, and gadget freak.

Crystal King

Crystal King is a 15+ year public relations and marketing veteran who currently drives social media for CA, Inc., a $4.3B high-tech firm. She teaches graduate-level media communications at Boston University as well as social media classes for artists and writers at Mass College of Art and at Grub Street, respectively. Additionally, Crystal is a freelance writer and Pushcart-nominated poet who is currently working on her first novel. She holds an M.A. in Critical & Creative Thinking from UMass Boston where she centered her thesis on developing creative tools to help fiction writers in progress. Find her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/crystallyn.

Ron MacLean

Ron MacLean is author of the story collection Why the Long Face? (2008) and the novel Blue Winnetka Skies (2004). His fiction has appeared in GQ, Greensboro Review, Prism International, Night Train, Other Voices and other quarterlies. He is a recipient of the Frederick Exley Award for Short Fiction and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. He holds a Doctor of Arts from the University at Albany, SUNY, and has been a proud part of team Grub since 2004.

Alisa M. Libby

Alisa M. Libby is the author of two young adult historical novels: The Blood Confession, based on the legend of the bloody Countess Bathory, and The King's Rose, the story of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of the notorious King Henry VIII. Libby works at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College. She lives outside of Boston with her husband, Thomas, and their basset hound, Roxanne.

Tara L. Masih

Tara L. Masih is author of Where the Dog Star Never Glows: Stories, and is editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (a finalist in ForeWord’s Best Book of the Year Awards). She has published fiction, poetry, and essays in numerous anthologies and literary magazines (such as Confrontation, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Natural Bridge, New Millennium Writings, Red River Review, Night Train, and The Caribbean Writer), and her essays have been reprinted in college textbooks and read on NPR. Several limited edition illustrated chapbooks featuring her flash fiction have been published by The Feral Press, along with poet’s farthing cards. Awards for her work include first place in The Ledge's fiction contest, second place in Jane’s Stories Flash Fiction contest, a finalist fiction grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Pushcart Prize, Best New American Voices, and Best of the Web nominations. She judges the intercultural essay prize for the annual Soul-Making Literary Contest, and has taught flash at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and at Grub Street. She received her MA in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College, and now works as a freelance book editor. Visit Tara's website.

Jeff Mayersohn

Jeff Mayersohn is the co-owner of the Harvard Bookstore, an independent bookstore serving the university and Cambridge community since 1932. Previously, Jeff has worked at several high-tech companies in New England, including internet pioneer Bolt, Beranek and Newman. For the last ten years, Mr. Mayersohn has been an executive at Sonus Networks, a market leader in IP communications infrastructure.

Stephen McCauley

Bio coming!

Randy Susan Meyers

The dark drama of Randy Susan Meyers’ debut novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, published by St. Martins Press in January 2010, is informed by her years of work with batterers, domestic violence victims, and at-risk youth impacted by family violence. She was raised by books, in Brooklyn, where she could walk to the library daily. Each book she read added to her sense of who she could be in this world. Reading In Cold Blood at too tender an age assured that she’d never stay alone in a country house. Biographies of women like Marie Curie and Elizabeth Blackwell opened doors to another world and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn taught her faith in the future.

Nick Montfort

Nick Montfort is associate professor of digital media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Montfort has collaborated on the blog Grand Text Auto, the sticker novel Implementation, and 2002: A Palindrome Story. He writes poems, text generators, and interactive fiction such as Book and Volume and Ad Verbum. Most recently, he and Ian Bogost wrote Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (MIT Press, 2009). Montfort also wrote Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (MIT Press, 2003) and co-edited The Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 (ELO, 2006) and The New Media Reader (MIT Press, 2003).

Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child. He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology. He is also author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages.

Jon Papernick

Jon Papernick is the author of The Ascent of Eli Israel and ho by Fire, Who by Blood. His second collection of short stories There is No Other will be published in the spring of 2010. Author Dara Horn wrote about There is No Other, "Every single story here delivers a knock-out punch that will leave you reeling long after you've put it down -- and revising your thinking on what life and love really mean." He teaches fiction writing at Emerson College and the BIMA program at Brandeis University.

Heidi Pitlor

Heidi Pitlor was a senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt before becoming the series editor of the annual The Best American Short Stories in 2007. She has worked with Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, Alice Sebold, Richard Russo, Geraldine Brooks and others. She also wrote the novel, The Birthdays (W.W. Norton, 2006), and is at work on her second novel. She lives with her husband and twin son and daughter outside Boston.

Sophie Powell

Sophie Powell split her time growing up between London and a sheep farm in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. She graduated in Classics from Trinity College, Cambridge University, where she was a junior scholar, and has an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from New York University, where she had a fellowship. She is the author of the novel The Mushroom Man (Putnam Penguin) which received glowing reviews, including one from the New York Times Book Review, and which has been translated into several languages. She has also published short stories and creative nonfiction. Sophie lives in Boston with her husband, Christian, where she teaches creative writing at Boston College. Previously she has taught at New York University, Georgetown University, George Washington University and with the Lesley Seminars. She is also assistant director of Abroad Writers' Conferences. For more about Sophie, visit www.meetsophiepowell.com.

Peter Jason Riley

Peter Jason Riley has been in business in Newburyport for over 20 years. His practice originally started out as individual tax return preparation and gradually grew. He officially started the firm of Riley & Associates, PC in the fall of 2001. Peter’s initial education was pure liberal arts - English, music, philosophy and history at Northeastern University in Boston. In his thirties he went back to school and received his Associates Degree in Business Administration and Accounting from Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill. He then continued my education at Merrimack College in Andover and received a BS in Accounting in May of 1992 In December of 1990 he took the two-day I.R.S. Enrolled Agent's tax certification exam and passed in the first sitting. On graduation from Merrimack College he sat for and passed the C.P.A. exam at the first sitting. The Massachusetts Society of C.P.A.'s consequently awarded Peter a special certificate for being one of only 169 first time passers out of the approximately 3,800 that took the exam that year in the state of Massachusetts. He has continued to make rigorous education a part of my career.

Zick Rubin

Zick Rubin is an intellectual property attorney based in Newton, MA who devotes his practice to publishing and media, copyright, trademark, and higher education law. He drafts and negotiates publishing, licensing, and collaboration agreements, advises educational, scientific, and cultural organizations on intellectual property issues, devises strategies for copyright and trademark protection, and helps his clients to resolve intellectual property disputes. A former psychology professor at Harvard and Brandeis Universities, Zick is a textbook and trade book author and a frequent contributor to both general and legal publications. Before establishing The Law Office of Zick Rubin in 2003, Zick was Of Counsel at the Boston firms of Palmer & Dodge and Hill & Barlow. He has been listed as a Massachusetts Super Lawyer every year since 2004 and was listed in Boston Magazine as one of Boston's five best intellectual property lawyers. He received a B.A. from Yale University (where he was Managing Editor of the Yale Daily News), a PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

James Scott

James Scott has an MFA from Emerson College, where he was the fiction editor for Redivider. His work has been published in One Story, American Short Fiction, and Saint Ann's Review. A graduate of Middlebury College, James has worked for the Boston Red Sox and Bob Vila Productions. Currently, he is finishing a novel set in upstate New York in 1897.

Sebastian Stuart

Sebastian Stuart’s most recent novel, The Hour Between, was an NPR Season's Readings pick and is a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for best gay novel of 2009. His mystery, To the Manor Dead, the first in a series set in the Hudson Valley, will be out in September. Sebastian's proudest achievement is the New York Times bestseller, Charm by Kendall Hart, which was sold with a perfume of the same name. Eat your heart out, William Faulkner.

Brenda Ulrich

Brenda Ulrich is an intellectual property attorney who focuses her practice on advising clients about intellectual property matters, including protection of copyrights and trademarks, drafting and negotiating publishing agreements, developing intellectual property guidelines and policies for businesses and educational and cultural organizations, drafting and negotiating licenses and development agreements for literary and artistic works, software, and online ventures, and resolving intellectual property disputes. Brenda was previously the Assistant Director of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts, where she provided legal assistance to artists and arts organizations, including visual artists, musicians, authors, dancers, and filmmakers. Before the VLA she worked in the litigation department of Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge in Boston. Brenda received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Therese Walsh

Therese Walsh is the co-founder of a site Writer’s Digest named one of the best for writers three years running, Writer Unboxed. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, was published in 2009 (Random House). Prior to becoming a novelist, she was a senior researcher and writer for Prevention magazine and Rodale Press, and has had hundreds of articles on nutrition and fitness published in consumer magazines and online. She is married to the next Tommy Makem, and has two cute kids, one cat and a Jack Russell named Kismet. Learn more about her at http://ThereseWalsh.com.