Melissa Manlove

Melissa Manlove is Assistant Editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco. She has been with Chronicle for four years. Some of the books she has served as editor for are Emily’s Balloon by Komako Sakai, Tools by Taro Miura, Tales from the Brothers Grimm by Cooper Edens, and Make a Wish by Roseanne Thong, illustrated by Elisa Kleven. She is a member of the SCBWI and has 10 years of children’s bookselling experience.

Sam Douglas

Sam Douglas has been an editor at Picador USA since 2006. Before that hewas at Henry Holt, and before that he was a newspaper reporter,copywriter, technical writer, and freelancer in various capacities in Boston and New Hampshire. At Picador he works on literary fiction and nonfiction, including books by John Banville, Per Petterson, Sigrid Nunez and Mario Vargas Llosa. He lives in New York City and has no pets at the moment.

David Cashion

David Cashion is a Senior Editor at Penguin Books. He has worked in the publishing industry for fifteen years including stints at Hyperion and Dell Books. He graduated from NYU with a degree in Film and English Literature.

Michelle Theall

Michelle Theall is the editorial founder and publisher of Women's Adventure magazine and books and the group publisher of the Big Earth magazine division. She's also the author of two non-fiction books and a magazine writer for adventure, sports, and health titles. She has appeared on NBC, The Travel Channel, Fox Sports Network, and Montel. Women's Adventure books is looking to publish three new titles in 2009, and the magazine division is seeking authentic and inspirational article pitches. Theall welcomes new voices and is available to review proposals and pitches and to speak to writers about their platform and growth in the industry.

Agents

Doug Stewart

Douglas Stewart joined Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. in 2003; he has worked as a literary agent since 1996. His primary interests are literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, and young adult fiction. Doug's clients include bestselling writers Carolyn Parkhurst, David Mitchell, Alison McGhee, Jane O'Connor, T Cooper, and Lindsay Moran, among others.

Katharine Sands

A literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Katharine has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books. Highlights include XTC: SongStories; Make Up, Don't Break Up with Oprah guest Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil; The Complete Book on International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child; Writers on Directors; Ford model Helen Lee's The Tao of Beauty; Elvis and You, 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. For compelling reads in faction, memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed; for fiction, she wants to be compelled and propelled.

Joelle Delbourgo

Joelle Delbourgo is currently President of Joelle Delbourgo Associates, a boutique literary management company based in Montclair, New Jersey, just 15 miles from the heart of New York City. She has been consistently astute in identifying and developing talent, first in her executive posts at HarperCollins and Random House, and more recently, through her agency, founded in 1999. Her primary goal in all of her roles in publishing has been the strategic management of authors' careers, with an eye to both front-list success and enduring backlist sales.