Agents
Meredith Kaffel, Sterling Lord Literstic
Meredith Kaffel is an agent with the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency, an affiliate agency of Sterling Lord Literistic, in New York City. She represents a mix of children’s (mostly YA and MG) and adult projects, fiction and non-fiction. For children’s literature, Meredith has a strong interest in edgy literary and commercial YA and MG fiction. She prefers mostly contemporary and realistic teen fiction, though she occassionally falls for YA and MG books with some historical or fantastical and/or paranormal elements. For adult projects, she is particularly interested in narrative non-fiction, history (especially non-American history and history showcasing extraordinary women), books which tell a macro story through a micro story, and contemporary literary fiction that not only steals her heart, but also complicates it.
Alexandra Machinist, Linda Chester Literary Agency
Alexandra Machinist has a B.A. in English (with a minor in Art History) from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. A native New Yorker, her passion for the written word was cultivated during college while working at Janklow & Nesbit Associates. A member of the New York Bar and the AAR, Alexandra is fluent in French and conversant in Spanish and German.
When her nose momentarily emerges from a book, she can usually be found hunting down the best noodle bar in New York or skiing fresh powder. Her literary interests run the gamut from swift-moving narrative non-fiction to Jane Austen to cyberpunk. She is looking to represent books in any of those veins including literary fiction, historical fiction, commercial fiction (specifically, up-market women's fiction, suspense, historical romance, paranormal romance), popular culture, narrative non-fiction, popular science, travel narrative, and anything and everything having to do with subcultures.
Recent and forthcoming titles include J. Sydney Jones's The Empty Mirror, Jillian Lauren's Some Girls, Nicole Dickson's Casting Off, Erica Eisdorfer's The Wet Nurse’s Tale and Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath.
www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/AMachinist/
Abigail Koons, Park Literary Group
Eager to work with emerging and established talent, Abigail Koons is currently looking to add to her list of diverse and engaging authors. She is seeking projects about popular science, history, politics, current events and art, while her passion for travel also makes her a natural fit for adventure and travel narrative non-fiction. She is also interested in working with commercial fiction, especially superb thrillers and mysteries. As the Foreign Rights Director, she continues to build on her prior experience with agent Nicholas Ellison, as well as her time with EF Education, a multinational corporation based in Sweden. Abigail is a graduate of Boston University.
Editors
Marysue Rucci, G.P. Putnam
Marysue Rucci is Vice President, Editorial Director at G.P. Putnam's sons. She acquires quality literary and commercial fiction, including suspense, narrative nonfiction and memoir. Prior to Putnam, Marysue spent 13 years at Simon & Schuster, where she acquired and edited a wide range of critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers, including the #1 bestselling novel Little Bee by Chris Cleave.
Some of her other New York Times bestsellers include: Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger; The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs; the Edgar- and Macavity-nominated Spellman series by Lisa Lutz; the Costa Award-winning novel The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney; The Starter Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer; and the memoir The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper, which was a Starbucks Pick and National Book Critic Circle award finalist. Additionally, she worked with the blockbuster suspense writers Jeffery Deaver and Sandra Brown; and literary icon Hunter S. Thompson. She attended Northwestern University and the Radcliffe Publishing Course.
Ellen Edwards, New American Library/Penguin
Ellen Edwards has been an executive editor at New American Library since the fall of 1998, focusing on commercial women’s fiction, including contemporary and historical novels, romance, and cozy mystery series. She began her career as an editorial assistant at Dell and has also held positions at Berkley and Avon. Current authors on her list include Lesley Kagen (national bestseller Whistling in the Dark and upcoming Tomorrow River), Catherine Anderson (New York Times bestselling romance writer), Karen Harper (Mistress Shakespeare and The Queen’s Governess), and Mahbod Seraji (Rooftops of Tehran).
Karyn Marcus, St. Martins
Karyn Marcus is an editor at Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. She has worked with such authors as Tina Brown, Jeffrey Toobin, Tim Weiner, and Madeleine Wickham. She edits both fiction and nonfiction.
Katie Ives
A graduate from the Iowa Writers Workshop, Katie Ives is the senior editor of Alpinist magazine. Her fiction, nonfiction and translations have appeared in Rock & Ice, Alpinist, Urban Climber, the American Alpine Journal, She Sends, The Mountain Gazette, Patagonia Field Reports, Circumference and 91st Meridian. In 2004 she won the Mammut/Rock & Ice Writing Contest, in 2005 she received a scholarship to attend the Banff Mountain Writing Program, and in 2008 she placed third in the UKC/Kendal Mountain Festival short-story competition.