Meet the Agents & Editors: Virtual Pitch-O-Rama 2023

Saturday, April 29, 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM PT

Have you been anxiously waiting to meet the agents and editors attending this year’s edition of Pitch-O-Rama? With April soon approaching, Pitch-O-Rama will be just around the corner, so we’re eager to share the talents who will provide their expertise to those attending.

Haven’t registered yet? Head on to this page to register for Pitch-O-Rama 2023!

Meet the Agents and Editors for Pitch-O-Rama 2023:

 

Rachel Hiles is a Senior Editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco. She acquires and edits a wide-range of visually-driven Lifestyle titles, including books on personal growth, nature, mindfulness, parenting, women’s empowerment, and gardening.

Some recent highlights include The Nap Ministry’s Rest Deck, Flowers for All, Women and Water, and New York Times bestseller How We Heal.

Chronicle Books is an independent publisher based in San Francisco that has been making things since the Summer of Love. We are inspired by the enduring magic of books, and by sparking the passions of others.

 

Natalie Obando is a graduate from California State University, Long Beach with a BA in journalism emphasizing public relations and a minor concentration in creative writing. For nearly two decades, she’s worked in the world of books as a book publicist. Natalie is the founder of Do Good Public Relations Group and the grassroots organization, Women of Color Writers Podcast and Programming. She is the current national president of the 105 years old non-profit, the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA), overseeing all eleven chapters across the nation. As the first Latina president of the national organization, her goal has been promoting diversity in publishing via strategic grassroots efforts. Her dedication to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the book world led her to found and chair Authentic Voices—a four-month long program that immerses people from marginalized communities in a master class of writing, editing, marketing, and publishing. Always looking to amplify BIPOC writers and create community and discussion around diversity in publishing, she recently joined the Ladderbird Literary Agency team. As a literary agent, she hopes to further usher BIPOC writers into careers as authors.  FICTION, YA/NEW ADULT ROMANCE Non-Fiction

Viveca Shearin is a co-publisher of Not a Pipe Publishing, an indie publishing house based in Oregon (though she lives and works in NYC). An avid reader since childhood, her tastes in books have changed throughout the years. However, she is still a lover of fantasy, magic, and all things dark and mysterious. As she searches for her new talent, Viveca is looking for YA and Adult fiction projects in these genres: fantasy, speculative, paranormal, supernatural, mystery and thriller, science fiction, and retellings of fairy tales and mythology (Greek and Japanese). Viveca is especially interested in BIPOC representation and acquiring BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices. She’s drawn to stories that feature strong female characters (lead and secondary), stories with a diverse and eclectic cast of characters that all shine in their own ways, stories that feature found families, and stories that stay with her long after the last page is turned. She will not read stories that feature Black trauma, abuse, or anything of that vein. So please do not send these to her. Aside from working for Not a Pipe, Viveca also works as a sensitivity reader.

Zeynep Sen graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing. Following graduation, she honed her skills as an agent at the Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency. A few years later, Zeynep moved to WordLink Literary Agency, where she now works as a senior agent and foreign rights agent. At WorkLink, Zeynap represents her own lists of authors..

She primarily focuses on non-fiction works and Young Adult books. Her list of authors include Nabila Ramdani, Jaha Dukureh, Erik Edstrom, Elvira Gonzales, Elora Dodds, Airy Sindik, and Asli Pelit. Fluent in Spanish and Turkish, Zeynep is drawn to literary and historical works of fiction and narrative non-fiction of international appeal.

Mary E Knippel is an intuitive writing mentor, international speaker, best-selling author, and journalist for over 35 years. She helps women bring their transformational stories to life in the international bestselling Amazon collaboration book series “Written In Her Own Words-Wise Woman Wisdom”. Mary guides her clients through every aspect of the writing journey, from identifying their story to crafting and editing it into their chapter, to bringing their stories to the world. She believes everyone has a unique story to tell and encourages daily journaling.

Her memoir, “The Secret Artist-Give Yourself Permission to Let Your Creativity Shine,” came about as she shared how she coped with her breast cancer experiences. You can learn more about how to become an author in the next collaboration book, attend one of her workshops, join her at the next Elite Women’s Writing Retreat, or sign up to receive writing tips on her website: https://yourwritingmentor.com.

Lyzmarie Fernandes scouts for Yellow Pear Press, a San Francisco-based independent boutique publisher of beautifully designed books aimed to inspire and delight book lovers who appreciate distinctive, insightful, witty, and playful journals, nonfiction and fiction.

 

Please follow our social media feeds where we will be posting news and glimpses into what’s in store on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

 

 

Kat Neff, Senior Publicist at Llewellyn Worldwide, the oldest and largest publisher in the mind/body/spirit genre, has over 20 years of experience in book publishing. She has helped countless authors achieve national and international media bookings by creating successful broadcast, online, and print media publicity. Kat is also a frequent speaker on various aspects of book publishing.  A long-time publishing professional, Neff has worked as Associate Editor and Marketing Manager at Cleis Press & Viva Editions, Insight Editions and Red Wheel Weiser & Conari Press. 

 

Dr. Kate Gale is co-founder and Managing Editor of Red Hen Press, Editor of the Los Angeles Review.  She teaches in the Low Residency MFA program at the University of Nebraska in Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction. Located in Southern California, the mission of Red Hen Press is to publish works of literary excellence, to foster diversity, and to promote literacy in our local schools. We seek a community of readers and writers who are actively engaged in the essential human practice known as literature.

 

 

Peter Rubie has been in New York publishing as an agent, editor, and published writer for nearly forty years. He is the CEO of FinePrint Literary Management, a NYC based literary agency with 5 active agents, and began in publishing working as a freelance reader and freelance editor for major “Big Six” publishers (as they were then) before becoming the adult fiction editor at Walker & Co. from 1985 to 1991. He became an agent in 1992 and formed his own agency in 1998.

Besides working in publishing as an agent and editor, he was also an adjunct professor in the New York University publishing faculty for 10 years, where he taught the only university-level course in the country on how to become a literary agent. He is known for working closely, editorially, with his clients to bring projects to its fullest potential before submitting them. Over the years, several of his authors have become NY Times bestsellers and award-winning writers.

Peter represents a broad range of high-quality fiction and non-fiction. He specializes in children’s book, particularly middle grade, and some picture books. For adult books, he specializes in narrative non-fiction such as memoirs; biographies; history and current affairs; books on business; popular science and technology; parenting; music; food; and in adult fiction, crime novels; thrillers; commercial woman’s fiction; fantasy; science fiction; and some literary fiction.

 

Leland Cheuk is a MacDowell and Hawthornden Castle Fellow and award-winning author of three books of fiction, most recently the novel NO GOOD VERY BAD ASIAN (2019). Cheuk’s work has been covered in Buzzfeed, The Paris Review, VICE, San Francisco Chronicle, and has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as NPR, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, among other outlets.

He is the founder of the indie press 7.13 Books, which publishes debut book-length fiction. Cheuk is looking for quality works of fiction and short story collections, favoring literary comedies and genre-bending submissions, as well as work from the queer and/or POC writing community.

 

Georgia Hughes is editorial director at New World Library, publisher of the Joseph Campbell Library and The Power of Now. She acquires and edits nonfiction books in the areas of spirituality, sustainability, animals, business, women’s issues, and personal growth. Recent acquisitions include, Spiritual Envy by Michael Krasny, Dreaming the Soul Back Home by Robert Moss, Dogs and the Women Who Love Them by Allen and Linda Anderson, Right-Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee, and The Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner.

 

Aya de León is an award-winning author of nine novels and a creative writing teacher at UC Berkeley. She is the acquiring editor for Fighting Chance Books, the new climate justice fiction imprint at She Writes Press. Fighting Chance will published novels for adults by writers of all genders that tell stories of people taking collective action in the here and now to solve the climate crisis. She is currently acquiring titles for their 2023/24/25 lists and is eager to take pitches from both agented or unagented authors.

Fighting Chance is open to all popular genres: crime fiction, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, women’s fiction, urban fiction, and beyond. Fighting Chance will have a zero-carbon footprint model with only e-books and audiobooks. In spring 2022, she organized a conference titled “Black Literature vs. the Climate Emergency” (available on YouTube).

 

Michael Larsen co-founded Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents in 1972. For over four decades, the agency sold hundreds of books to more than 100 publishers and imprints. The agency has stopped accepting new writers, but Mike loves helping all writers. He gives talks about writing and publishing and does author coaching.

He wrote How to Write a Book Proposal and How to Get a Literary Agent, and coauthored Guerilla Marketing for Writers. Mike is co-director of the San Francisco Writers Conference and the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference. 

 

Becky Parker Geist is CEO of Pro Audio Voices and has been in the audiobook industry since 1981. As an audiobook publisher and producer, Becky has produced and narrated hundreds of titles, helping authors leverage their content through audio – even if it’s their book’s only published format. Typically, working with authors and publishers comes with the challenge of reaching the widest possible audience, which the Audiobook Marketing Program™ intends to resolve.

Becky serves as President of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association and is a Chapter Leader of Nonfiction Authors Association.

 

Randy Peyser sells non-fiction manuscripts in all genres and speaks nationally about how to earn book deals. She also serves as faculty for CEO Space International, where she teaches about writing book proposals. She is the author of The Write-a-Book Progra; Crappy to Happy as featured in the move Eat, Pray, Love; and The Power of Miracle Thinking.

Her clients’ books have appeared in Oprah, Time Magazine, the bestseller lists of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, in airport bookstores, Office Max and FedEx stores, and on Hallmark TV. Her work is featured in: Healing the Heart of the World, The Marriage of Sex and Spirit, Secrets of Shameless Self-Promoters, and the national bestsellers, Networking Magic Guerilla Publicity and The Profit of Kindness.

 

Eric Lincoln Miller is the founder of 3ibooks Literary Agency in Reno, Nevada. 3ibooks is a different kind of literary agency that solely focuses on authors and their needs. Their agency looks for fiction of any genre (romance, horror, mystery/crime, women’s fiction, erotica, science fiction, historical, and fantasy).

Other genres of interests are picture books, young readers, intermediate, and young adult fiction and nonfiction. Additionally, 3ibooks are also interested in art, photography, film and TV, business, mind-body-spirit, and memoirs.

 

Camille Kantor is an agent at Kimberley Cameron & Associates. She completed her master’s degree in evolutionary biology and graduated from the renowned Columbia Publishing Program at Oxford.

Camille is searching for fiction or nonfiction titles to inspire the public to engage with nature, imparting fascinating knowledge about our planet and its inhabitants. She has a particular interest in science non-fiction where the author’s commanding voice feels less like lecturing and more so storytelling, which includes books like Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and An Immense World by Ed Yong.

 

Brenda Knight began her career at HarperCollins, working with luminaries Paolo Coelho, Marianne Williamson, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She was awarded IndieFab’s Publisher of the Year in 2014 at the American Literary Association. Knight is the author of Wild Women and Books, The Grateful Table, Be a Good in the World, and Women of the Beat Generation, winner of the American Book Award. 

She is Editorial Director at Mango Publishing and acquires for all genres in fiction and nonfiction, LGBTQ, as well as children and photography books. She is the immediate past President of the Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter, and an instructor at the annual San Francisco Writers Conference.

 

Laurie McLean spent 20 years as the CEO of a publicity and marketing agency and 8 years as an agent and senior agent at Larsen Pomada Literary Agents in San Francisco. Following a stint as the CEO of a successful Silicon Valley public relations agency bearing her name, Laurie switched gears to immerse herself in writing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the State University of New York and a master’s degree at Syracuse University’s prestigious Newhouse School of Journalism.

Laurie specializes in middle grade, young adult, and adult genre fiction (romance, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, thrillers, suspense, horror, etc.). 

 

Kat Georges is co-director of Three Rooms Press, a trade publisher based in New York City driven by diversity, dada, punk, and passion. Founded in 1994, it has more than 100 titles currently in print, including LGBTQ+ young adult fiction, genre fiction, especially literary-leaning mystery and science fiction by diverse authors, biographies of significant women and people of color that history has overlooked. In addition, the press publishes an annual journal of contemporary dada writing and art. Three Rooms Press welcomes authors of all ages and career points; its youngest author was 16 at the time his book came out; its oldest author is nearing 90. Kat is currently looking for LGBTQ+ fiction and young adult fiction that deal directly with current anti-queer attitudes, mystery that centers on bold and daring diverse main characters, and riveting women of history who need to have more attention given to them. An author and poet, as well as graphic designer and editor, Kat welcomes voices that have something different to say, that inspire readers, and that show the power of innovative, compelling writing. To see the latest Three Rooms Press releases, visit threeroomspress.com.

 

Johanna Maaghul, a two decade career as a technologist and business analyst, Johanna continues to dedicate her time to her real childhood passion of reading and (now later in life) midwifing into the world non-fiction books. Her deep ability to recognize value in new concepts and quickly sift out meaning in today’s vastly growing sea of non-fiction are skills she has refined through her many years of reading, writing and coaching successful writers and artists. With deep industry experience in online marketing, web content development and digital publishing, Johanna combines her career expertise to help promote authors as well as assist them in navigating the rapidly changing worlds of traditional and digital publishing. While Johanna’s primary focus is on non-fiction, she has been known to take on works of fiction when she can’t put them down. Visit her agency:  waterside.com 

 

In addition to these agents and editors, Amanda McTigue will be attending as a Writer Coach.

Amanda McTigue enrolled in the fourth class of women at Yale University in 1973, initially intending to become a professional singer and actress. But the story of her life offered a surprise ending. Although McTigue has served as a stage director throughout her career, her true calling turned out to be writing and storytelling, for both the stage and the page. Her first novel, Going Home, was published in 2012.

 

 

 

Don’t forget to register for Pitch-O-Rama 2023!