Schedule
Please note that sessions and times are subject to change. Please check the final schedule closer to the conference date. Download the full program here.
8:00 am - 9:00 am
Great Hall
REGISTRATION OPENS
Please enter the conference at the FIT entrance at 218 West 28th Street, which takes you directly to the Great Hall. Registration is located in the Great Hall. Plan to arrive early to get coffee before heading to the Haft Auditorium for the Opening Session.
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
OPENING SESSION:
Haft Auditorium
WELCOME & INTRODUCTIONS
Regina Brooks & Lynn Johnston, Co-founders, People of Publishing
HOW SHE LEADS
Meet the innovators, disruptors, and visionary women helping shape publishing today. In this candid conversation, they explore what leadership requires as the industry confronts changes in how books are discovered, bought, read, and valued. They examine how publishing can build new generations of readers, respond to shifts in consumer behavior, and harness emerging technologies responsibly. Together, they consider where the industry can rethink established practices, test new approaches, and create meaningful opportunities for growth while protecting copyright and preserving the human judgment and creativity at the heart of books.
PANELISTS-
Mary McAveney became President and CEO of Abrams in November 2022, making her the first woman to hold the position in the company’s history. In addition, she sits on the board of Abrams & Chronicle Books. Prior to Abrams, McAveney was the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at Open Road Integrated Media and her previous positions include senior roles at Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Zondervan, as well as numerous consulting positions with media companies, internet start-ups, and publishers. In 2024, she received the Women’s Media Group Founders Impact Award.
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Sasha Quinton leads Scholastic’s Children’s Book Group, home to bestselling and beloved franchises such as Harry Potter, Dog Man, The Baby-Sitters Club, Clifford, and more; and the company’s iconic Book Fairs and Clubs, providing nearly 30 million kids with equitable access to books while raising over $240M in resources every year for schools and educators. Prior to Scholastic, she held senior leadership roles at Barnes and Noble Inc., the largest U.S. retail bookseller, and ReaderLink Distribution Services, North America’s largest full-service book distributor.
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Dominique Raccah founded Sourcebooks from her home in 1987. Under Dominique's leadership Sourcebooks now ranks as the 5th largest book publisher in the U.S. by print units sold. Dominique was named one of Publishers Weekly’s “Top 25 Book Business Changemakers,” included in the Washington Post’s Post Next 50, a distinguished list of leaders who are “shaping our society in 2025,” and recognized in 2026 as one of INC’s Female Founders for the third year in a row.
MODERATOR -
Regina Brooks is the founder and CEO of Serendipity Literary Agency, the largest African American owned agency in the country. Since 2024, she has served as president of the Association of American Literary Agents, after serving as Vice President and co-founding the People of Publishing Conference. She was named Woman of the Year by The National Association of Professional Women, A New York Urban League Rising Star Award winner, and a finalist for the Stevie Award for Women Entrepreneurs. She is the author of three books.
10:10 AM - 11:00 AM
CONCURRENT SESSION:
MANAGING YOUR LIST WITH STRATEGY & INTENTION
Haft Auditorium
A strong list does not happen by accident. Learn how to evaluate, reshape, rebuild, and optimize your list with greater intention. This session examines the strategic choices that can help agents and editors balance creative ambition, market realities, workload, and long-term career goals.
PANELISTS-
Aram Fox began his career by fleeing from academia and landing on the development side of the film and tv business. From there he went to what is now Hachette Book Group and then at age 26, launched a book scouting agency where he spent the next 23 years representing a wonderful roster of international publishers and U.S. film/tv companies, before joining Massie McQuilkin and Altman in 2023 where he represents adult fiction and nonfiction
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Ashley Hong, an editor at Crown Currency, focuses on nonfiction, from business books steeped in practical wisdom to personal development that helps ambitious readers find their way amid chaos. Before joining Crown Currency, she was a literary agent at Gardner Literary and previously an editor at Convergent where she acquired and edited the New York Times bestselling A Rhythm of Prayer by Sarah Bessey and This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley.
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Emilia Rhodes is an Executive Editor at Atria Books/Simon & Schuster where she publishes romance and fantasy. Emilia’s list at Atria includes New York Times bestselling authors Chelsea Curto, Penn Cole, Ellis Hunter, Haley Pham, and more. Prior to joining Atria, Emilia has previously held positions at HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Alloy Entertainment, and Simon Pulse.
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Monica Rodriguez is senior literary agent and Director of Brand Management at Context Literary Agency. Her mission is to uplift underrepresented voices in publishing, specifically within the Latinx community. She’s mentored authors at The Writing Barn and led workshops at Inked Voices and SCBWI. She is a faculty member at The Manuscript Academy and at Gotham Writers Workshop. She runs a podcast called Find A Lovely Life.
MODERATOR-
As a publishing executive, editor, and New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nearly 50 books, Andrea Davis Pinkey has held leadership and executive roles at Disney Publishing Worldwide, Houghton Mifflin Company, Simon & Schuster and Essence magazine. She is currently Vice President, Executive Editor at Scholastic. Her publishing portfolio includes National Book Award winners, Newbery Honor books, and Coretta Scott King Award winners. Pinkney is a four-time NAACP Image Award nominee, New York Writers Hall of Fame inductee, and is among Good Morning America’s GMA “Who’s Making Black History Now?” notables.
CONCURRENT SESSION:
TREND SPOTTING: READING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR TO UNDERSTAND WHAT’S NEXT IN BOOKS
Katie Murphy Auditorium
In this fast-paced, data-driven presentation, Kristen McLean, Circana’s VP of Client Insights for Books and Entertainment, identifies the major forces that are shaping what people discover, buy, share, collect, and become fans of across entertainment, gaming, beauty, apparel, retail, social commerce, and other consumer markets—and how they offer important clues for book publishing—as well as where consumer demand grew, softened, or shifted across book categories
PRESENTER
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Kristen McLean, Vice President of Client insights, is the leader of the Circana Entertainment Knowledge Group, Industry Advisor for both the US Toys and Books businesses, and a widely recognized expert in licensing and cross-entertainment consumer behavior. She works with a range of Circana’s largest manufacturers, retailers, and media clients to uncover key cultural trends. She works with a range of manufacturers, retailers, and media clients to uncover key cultural trends.
CONCURRENT SESSION:
ROUNDTABLES SESSION 1
Great Hall
Intimate, peer-led discussions organized by genre and topic. Please note that you must sign up for a roundtable spot in advance via a link you receive upon registration and availability is on a first come, first serve.
11:10 AM - 12:00 PM
BEHIND THE BESTSELLER LISTS
CONCURRENT SESSION:
Haft Auditorium
What does it really take to become a bestseller? This insider conversation examines how bestseller lists are compiled, what happens in the critical weeks surrounding publication, what authors and publishers can do to improve a book’s chances, and what these influential rankings actually tell us about sales, visibility, and success.
PANELISTS-
Kevin Anderson, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Kevin Anderson & Associates (KAA), has edited or collaborated on more than 50 national bestsellers and his work and commentary have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Forbes, The Bookseller, and other major media outlets. KAA, which specializes in book planning, book coaching, editing, ghostwriting, publishing navigation, and bestseller-list strategy, has launched more than 6,000 authors and produced hundreds of national bestsellers across a wide range of genres, including multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers.
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Charlie Fusco, the founder of TGC Worldwide, has led launch strategy behind more than 100 bestselling titles, including six New York Times bestsellers in 2025. Her career began in direct-response media at 20, scaled into a multimillion-dollar agency, and evolved into what she does now: helping authors and public figures turn a single book into a broader commercial ecosystem. She understands how bestseller lists get made because she has been engineering outcomes against them for over a decade.
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Troy D. Johnson is the founder and President of the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC), the oldest and largest independent platform dedicated to books by and about people of African descent. He is the creator of the BLK Bestsellers List, the first national bestseller list dedicated exclusively to books by Black authors. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Independent Book Publishers Association and a founding board member of the National Association of Black Bookstores. Before launching AALBC full-time, Johnson held leadership roles at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
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Richard Rhorer is the founding publisher of Simon Element, which has placed more than 30 titles on the New York Times bestseller list since its inaugural list in 2022. Richard launched Simon Acumen in 2024 to specialize in books focused on professional growth. Previously, he spent a decade as Deputy Publisher of the Simon & Schuster imprint, directing publication strategies for Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat; Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk; and Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive along with dozens of others. Rhorer has held several marketing and publishing roles throughout his career.
MODERATOR-
As the founder of Kathleen Schmidt Public Relations, Kathleen brings 30 years of experience creating and leading impactful, strategic global media, marketing, and branding campaigns for politicians, A-list celebrities, athletes, and other high-profile personalities. To date, she has contributed to 50 New York Times bestsellers. Kathleen is the author of the widely read Substack newsletter, Publishing Confidential and of a forthcoming book about the book business publishing in 2028.
CONCURRENT SESSION:
MORE THAN MIDDLEMEN: OLD RULES, PRESENT REALITIES, NEW POSSIBILITIES
Katie Murphy Auditorium
The role of the literary agent is changing. Drawing on Laura McGrath’s Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction and findings from AALA’s membership survey, this conversation examines how longstanding rules are colliding with today’s realities and considers new models for greater transparency and collaboration, professional sustainability, broader access to the profession, and the evolving role of human judgment and advocacy in bringing consequential books into the world.
IN CONVERSATION-
Laura B. McGrath is Assistant Professor of English at Temple University and author of Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Literature (Princeton UP, 2026). McGrath’s writing on books, publishing, and data has appeared The Atlantic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Review of Books and Public Books, and writes the popular publishing substack, textCrunch. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian Institute of American History, and the New York Public Library.
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For over 20 years, Lynn Johnston has represented numerous New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and USA Today bestsellers and a multitude of “best of” honorees for their influence in business and society. Her authors have won the Pulitzer George Polk, Peabody, Global Teaching Prize (finalist) and GLAAD Award, to name a few. She served two terms on the AALA Board and currently serves on the Governance and Contracts committees.
CONCURRENT SESSION:
ROUNDTABLES SESSION 2
Great Hall
Intimate, peer-led discussions organized by genre and topic. Please note that you must sign up for a roundtable spot in advance via a link you receive upon registration and availability is on a first come, first serve.
12:10 pm - 12:45 pm
AALA AWARDS
Katie Murphy Auditorium
Join us in celebrating the individuals whose leadership, dedication, and service strengthen the Association of American Literary Agents and the literary agent community.
The Gailey Award, the highest service honor presented by the AALA Board of Directors, is named in honor of Gail Hochman, who served as president of the organization for two decades. Her extraordinary leadership and longstanding commitment helped shape and strengthen the association. The award is presented annually to a member who carries forward that legacy through exceptional leadership, sustained commitment, and distinguished service to AALA.
The AALA Impact Awards recognize committee volunteers whose contributions help advance the organization’s work and mission. These awards honor members who lead important initiatives, create programs and resources, support their colleagues, and contribute the time and expertise that allow AALA to serve and advocate for the literary agent community. The Impact Awards celebrate the essential work that often happens behind the scenes.
All conference attendees are invited to attend and celebrate this year’s honorees.
12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
LUNCH BREAK
Portable lunch boxes will be ready for pick up at the Katie Murphy foyer and in the Great Hall. There is limited seating in the Great Hall. But why stay inside? Enjoy your lunch in the fresh air with outdoor seating on the FIT campus on 27th Street or the Capitol Plaza park at 50 West 27th Street at 6th Avenue.
Well worth the 5-10 minute walk is the Highline. Take your lunch and find a seat along the elevated park, which is built on an old railroad line and features native plantings. It is free to the public. The nearest entrance is on 28th Street and 10th Avenue. For an elevator, use the entrance at 30th and 10th Avenue.
For those interested in NYC dining, the blocks around FIT feature a variety of cuisines and restaurants. Suggestions from committee members familiar with the neighborhood include Hey Yuet for dim sum at 251 West 26th; Ocabanon at 249 West 29th for french fare in a charming setting; and Cafe Chelsea in the famous Chelsea Hotel at 222 West 23rd. For fast food, try Smashburger at 31st and 7th Avenue, the hot food bar at Whole Foods at 24th and 7th Avenue or Pop Up Bagels at 30th and 7th Avenue.
Your break can be an opportunity to explore the iconic Chelsea neighborhood.. With the Village to the south and Madison Square Garden to the north, the area is perfect for wandering. Whatever you do, please plan to return to the conference by 2pm when we start our afternoon sessions.
2:00 pm - 2:50 PM
CONCURRENT SESSION:
WINNING BEFORE PUBLICATION
Haft Auditorum
A book’s trajectory can take shape long before publication day. Go inside the critical pre-publication window to see how publishers, retailers, platforms, and marketing partners build and assess demand, influence early orders, generate momentum, and make the decisions that can position a book to break through before it ever reaches the shelf.
PANELISTS
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Allen Befort, co-founder and CEO of Givington's, a bestseller-reporting retailer and direct-to-consumer ecommerce agency serving the publishing industry and content-driven brands. Founded in 2012, Givington's occupies a distinct position at the intersection of traditional publishing and modern DTC ecommerce and has been involved in hundreds of bestsellers and millions of direct-to-consumer orders in support of authors and content brands.
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Jules Herbert has more than 30 years of bookselling experience, beginning his Barnes & Noble career in the bookstores. As Campaign Manager for multiple high-profile subjects, he identifies the key priority titles and develops compelling and successful promotional strategies to support and maximize sales in stores and online.
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Jenn Northington has worked in publishing since 2004 wearing various hats, including bookseller, events manager, and book reviewer. She was formerly advertising and promotions manager at Edelweiss and earlier worked at Book Riot, WORD Bookstores, and other independent bookstores. She's the co-editor of two anthologies.
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Katie O’Callaghan is the Executive Director of Marketing at Harper Books, the flagship imprint of HarperCollins. At Harper, Katie works on executing creative marketing campaigns involving digital and social promotions, consumer marketing, bookseller outreach and much more. Katie has worked on notable campaigns for Ann Patchett, Louise Erdrich, Catherine Newman, Harper Lee and many more. Katie has worked at Harper for 15 years and previously held marketing roles at Ballantine Books for nearly a decade.
MODERATOR-
Bryan Christian is currently Account Director, Marketing for Midas Group, US, working with authors, publishers, and institutions, crafting marketing, social media, and branding campaigns. He has held several senior marketing positions with publishers including Little, Brown, HarperCollins, Hyperion, and Time Inc. and has worked with bestselling and award-winning authors including Michael Connelly, Stacy Schiff, Edward P. Jones, Jake Tapper, and many more. Additionally, he is a long-time adjunct faculty member in the NYU School of Professional Studies Center of Publishing, Writing, and Media, teaching marketing and branding.
CONCURRENT SESSION:
ROUNDTABLES SESSION 3
Intimate, peer-led discussions organized by genre and topic. Please note that you must sign up for a roundtable spot in advance via a link you receive upon registration and availability is on a first come, first serve.
3:00 PM - 3:50 pm
CONCURRENT SESSION:
WHO WROTE THIS? AI, AUTHORSHIP AND THE NEW TRUST TEST
Haft Auditorum
Generative AI is challenging fundamental assumptions about authorship, originality, and trust. This session examines disclosure, detection, copyright, licensing, and how publishers and platforms are using AI, while confronting the increasingly urgent question facing writers, agents, editors, and readers: What does it mean to be the author of a work now?
PANELISTS
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Bradley Emi is the co-founder and CTO of Pangram, a research lab that detects AI-generated content. He is an AI researcher and expert in building deep learning products in the industry. He previously led the deep learning research group at Absci, a generative AI drug discovery company, and previously was a member of the core computer vision team at Tesla Autopilot.
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Jane C. Ginsburg, U. Chicago (BA 1976, MA 1977), Harvard (JD 1980) Université de Paris II (DEA 1985, Dott. 1995) is the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at Columbia University School of Law. She writes about domestic and international copyright and trademarks law.
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Matthew Moore is General Counsel at Created by Humans, a platform on a mission to preserve human creativity and help it continue to thrive by working to solve the licensing, credit, and compensation issues in the AI era. Matthew has been a trusted legal leader for innovative, high-growth companies for more than a decade and has over 20 years of experience in the media and entertainment industries. Outside of the office, Moore is the proud dad of 13-week old, a published author, diehard music fan, and occasional NYC DJ.
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Todd Shuster, Co-CEO of Aevitas Creative Management, represents a broad range of nonfiction and fiction authors and has helped shepherd films to the big screen, including Wild, The Pursuit of Happyness, and the Netflix-released feature film The Midnight Sky, on which he served as executive producer. He co-founded the literary agency Zachary Shuster Harmsworth, which in 2016 merged with Kuhn Projects to form Aevitas. Todd is helping lead Aevitas’ development of ethically and legally appropriate AI-related policies and best practices in collaboration with the agency’s authors, its agents and staff, publishers and industry associations.
MODERATOR-
Bryan Walsh is senior writer and editor at Coefficient Giving, the philanthropic funder formerly known as Open Philanthropy. He joined Vox in 2021 as editor of Future Perfect. Before that he wrote the Axios Future newsletter and spent fifteen years at Time, where he served as Tokyo bureau chief. He is the author of End Times, a book about existential risk and how humanity might survive it — reporting that took him from asteroid-tracking observatories to biosecurity labs, and left him more optimistic than he expected.
CONCURRENT SESSION:
EVERYTHING BUT THE AUCTION
Katie Murphy Auditorium
Not every deal comes down to an auction or the highest offer. Agents and editors unpack the strategy behind preempts, options, exclusives, positioning, relationships, and other approaches that shape how books are bought and sold. The conversation explores how both sides evaluate opportunities, navigate competition, and make the strategic decisions that ultimately bring a deal together.
PANELISTS
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Donna Bray, Senior Vice Prsident and Co-Publisehr of Balzer +Bray, an imprint founded in 2008 and relaunched at Macmillan Publishers in 2024, has edited and published numerous groundbreaking, award-winning, bestselling books across categories and genres.
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John Cusick is an SVP and Literary Agent with Folio Literary Management, representing a diverse list of award-winners and New York Times bestsellers. He is the author of two young adult novels and a middle-grade duology from Candlewick Press and HarperCollins Children's, respectively. John is also a co-founder of Bittersweet Books, a story production and packaging company creatively helmed by NYT Bestseller Julie Murphy.
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Priya Doraswamy is the founder and sole agent at the Lotus Lane Literary agency. She is passionate and dedicated to the intentional expansion of diversity and inclusivity in the publishing and Film/TV industries. Her clients have won several prestigious awards including long listed for the Booker Prize, The National Book Award, and The Faulkner Pen America Prize. Priya is also an Oscar nominated Executive Producer of feature documentary To Kill A Tiger.
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Colleen Lawrie is editorial director of nonfiction at Bloomsbury. Previously, she was the editorial director at Hachette / PublicAffairs and has published New York Times bestsellers National Book Critics Circle Award finalists and winners and other notable titles. She lives in the spooky, literary town of Sleepy Hollow, New York.
MODERATOR-
Madeline McIntosh is cofounder, CEO and Publisher of Authors Equity, an independent publisher that shares the majority of profit with its authors. She is an independent director of Simon & Schuster and of Lee Enterprises, and President of the Board of Poets & Writers, the nation's oldest nonprofit dedicated to supporting writers. Previously, she was the US CEO of Penguin Random House.
4:00 PM - 4:50 pm
CLOSING SESSION:
POWER PAIRS: AGENTS & EDITORS ON HOW THEY COLLABORATE TO SHAPE BOOKS THAT WIN
Haft Auditorum
What does great agent-editor collaboration look like when it matters most? Through a series of real-world decision snapshots, agent-editor pairs take attendees behind the scenes of pivotal moments in a book’s journey, revealing the choices, competing considerations, risks, and trade-offs they navigated together. Each case offers practical insight into how trust, communication, editorial judgment, and market awareness inform consequential decisions that shape a book and move it forward.
THE POWER PAIR BEHIND YESTERYEAR BY CARO CLAIRE BURKE
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Jenny Jackson is a Vice President and Editorial Director of Fiction at Knopf; she joined the group in 2002. She publishes a range of literary and commercial fiction, from Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear to Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, to Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, to Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. Jenny is also an author and her novels, Pineapple Street and The Shampoo Effect, are published by Pamela Dorman Books at Viking. She is a graduate of Williams College and attended the Columbia Publishing Course.
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Lisa Grubka represents a variety of fiction and non-fiction authors. Her writers have won the National Book Award and the PEN American Literary Award, and she has represented dozens of New York Times Best Sellers. Her clients’ books have been successfully adapted for television and translated into more than 30 languages. Lisa joined UTA in 2023 after beginning her career at FSG, the William Morris Agency, and Fletcher & Co.
THE POWER PAIR BEHIND STRANGERS BY BELLE BURDEN
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Brettne Bloom is a founding partner of The Book Group, where she represents a wide range of authors, from #1 New York Times bestselling novelists and memoirists to award-winning historians. She started her career in 2002 working for the brilliant agent Jill Kneerim. From Jill, Brettne learned to relish every aspect of the agenting role, from finding new talent to nurturing seasoned writers.
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Whitney Frick, VP, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, The Dial Press. Whitney has focused her editorial career on helping to shape and amplify the voices of women. She has published several critically-lauded and bestselling books, including Strangers by Belle Burden;Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano; Isola by Allegra Goodman; On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen; I’ll Have What She’s Having by Chelsea Handler, and Untamed by Glennon Doyle. Whitney is proud to lead a team of passionate, expert editors at The Dial Press.
THE POWER PAIR BEHIND A CHILDREN’S SERIES THAT SOLD MORE THAN 24 MILLION COPIES
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Margaret Anastas has spent the past 30 years in children’s book publishing, working with some of the industry’s most celebrated picture book creators on brands such as FANCY NANCY, THE BAD SEED, and PETE THE CAT. She is currently Publisher of Flamingo Books at Penguin Random House, where she publishes a broad range of unskippable picture books
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Kirsten Hall is the Founder and President of Catbird, a boutique New York City agency represents clients whose works includes nearly 20 New York Times bestsellers, a Caldecott Medal winner, a Caldecott Honor book, and numerous other major industry honors. Kirsten is also an award-winning author.
MODERATOR-
Susanna Einstein started her publishing career in editorial at Warner Books (now Grand Central Publishing), and then worked as a literary and film scout for Maria B. Campbell Associates before becoming an agent in 2005, working first at LJK Literary, then at Einstein Thompson Agency, and then running Einstein Literary Management for ten years before joining Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.
5:00 pm - 7:00 PM
PEOPLE OF PUBLISHING RECEPTION
Great Hall
Opportunities are limited these days to meet publishing colleagues organically. Stay for the People of Publishing reception to compare notes about the day, catch up with people you know as well as those you just met, and connect in real life. Let’s celebrate together!