Our advisory board of publishing professionals teaches workshops and consults one-on-one with our students.
George Geers, a long-time career journalist, is Executive Director of the New Hampshire Writers'' Project. He is also the founder and publisher of Plaidswede Publishing, which specializes in New Hampshire and New England books of fiction and non-fiction. He is Clerk of the Academy of New England Journalists and was presented the Academy's Yankee Quill award for lifetime achievement in 2005.
Anna Ghosh started her career as an agent in 1995 and was made partner at Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency in 2008, where she represents a wide variety of adult fiction and nonfiction books, particularly literary nonfiction, history, science, and books on social and cultural issues. Some of her recent books include ''How it Began: A Time Traveler's Guide to the Universe'' (Norton) by Dr. Chris, ''More Powerful than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives and Yew York's Year of Anarchy'' (Bloomsbury) by Thai Jones, ''A Country Called Amreeka'' (Free Press) by Alia Malek, and ''Family of Shadows'' (HarperCollins) by Garin Hovanissian. She has led workshops and panels on publishing at various institutions and organizations including Columbia University, New York University, Goucher College, University of Wyoming, Northwestern University, Asian American Writers Workshop, South Asian Journalists Association, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Esmond Harmsworth is a founding partner of Zachary Schuster Harmsworth Literary Agency of New York and Boston. For fiction, Harmsworth represents literary, mystery and crime, mainstream, and young adult and middle grade. Some of his fiction authors include Sabrina Murray, George Harrar, Laura Dietz, Sarah Stewart Taylor, Alicia Metcalf Miller, Donald Hays, Michelle Hoover, and Jeanne Mackin, writing under the name Anna Maclean. His nonfiction clients include Jonathan Haidt, Keith Sawyer, Dave Balter, John Butman, Gerry O'Neill, and Dick Lehr. He has been a featured panelist or speaker at the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Breadloaf Writers'' Conference, Bouchercon, and the Iowa Writers'' Workshop. He is a board member of PEN/ New England and on the Advisory Council of Grub Street, Inc.
Beth Ineson is Director of Field Sales at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She has previously held positions in the sales and marketing departments at Yale University Press and Globe Pequot. Since 2005, she has been an adjunct professor at Emerson College in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing department.
Michelle Nagler is the Editorial Director of Bloomsbury Children's Books, overseeing a diverse list of picture books through teen. As an acquisitions editor, she has a special fondness for commercial fiction, and is a passionate advocate for books that truly make children want to read. Recent projects include: the New York Times bestselling ''Need'' series by Carrie Jones; the uproarious ''A Whole Nother Story'' by Dr. Cuthbert Soup (an Al Roker Today Show Pick); Tonya Bolden's acclaimed ''Finding Family''; the hip and stylish ''Too Purpley!'' picture book series; Leslie Margolis's ''Maggie Brooklyn Mysteries''; and ''Our Children Can Soar, winner of the 2010 NAACP Image Award for Children's Literature. Previously, Nagler helped establish the teen list at Simon Pulse, and edited paperback series and licensed properties at Scholastic.
Katherine Nintzel is a senior editor with William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins. In her ten years at Morrow, she has acquired and edited a number of award-winning and New York Times best-selling authors, including NBCC-nominated Laura Kasischke, Booker-nominated Sarah Hall; New York Times Best Sellers Melissa Marr, Michael Gross, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Mark Di Vincenzo; national best-sellers John Searles and Jessica Anya Blau; and Edgar-nominated Hallie Ephron.
Lorin Rees, with the Rees Literary Agency in Boston, represents both fiction and nonfiction authors. Some of the books and authors he has represented include The New York Times Best Sellers ''Words That Work'' by Frank Luntz, and ''The Ultimate Sales Machine'' by Chet Holmes; the critically acclaimed short story collection, ''You Know When The Men Are Gone'' by Siobhan Fallon; ''Busy Monsters'' by William Giraldi; ''Travel Writing'' by Peter Ferry; ''BrandSimple'' by Allen Adamson; and ''Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green'' by Johnny Rico. The Rees Literary Agency, founded almost 30 years ago, considers literary fiction, mystery and thrillers, and other types of mainstream fiction. Nonfiction interests include business, current affairs, health, inspiration, psychology, history, biography, memoirs, and humor.
Janet Silver, the Literary Director of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth agency, brings to the program a highly distinguished career of over thirty years as both an acclaimed editor and publishing executive. She spent 24 years at Houghton Mifflin Company, where she led the adult trade editorial group for more than a decade, capped by six years as Vice President and Publisher. The roster of celebrated novelists whose work she acquired and edited includes Philip Roth, Tim O'Brien, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cynthia Ozick, Jonathan Safran Foer, Anita Desai, John Edgar Wideman, and Robert Stone. Two of her authors won the Pulitzer Prize: Lahiri in 2001 for her debut story collection, ''Interpreter of Maladies,'' and poet Natasha Trethewey for ''Native Guard'' in 2007. Many of the writers she discovered won national awards and honors, including Monique Truong (''The Book of Salt'') and Peter Ho Davies (''The Welsh Girl''). In addition to publishing numerous New York Times Best Sellers (including Cheryl Strayed's ''Wild''), she championed works that garnered the national Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and many other honors.
Lissa Warren is Vice President, Senior Director of Publicity, and acquiring editor at Boston's Da Capo Press – a member of the Perseus Books Group (Publishers Weekly's 2007 Publisher of the Year). Recent books she acquired and edited for Da Capo include David Wolman's, ''The End of Money''; Doug Stewart's, ''The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare''; and Jaed Coffin's, ''A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants.'' Prior to her current position, she worked at David R. Godine and Houghton Mifflin. The author of ''The Savvy Author's Guide to Book Publicity'' (Carroll & Graf, 2004) and a Poetry Editor for Post Road literary magazine, she's a frequent speaker at book festivals and writers'' conferences, and since 2003 has been an adjunct professor at Emerson College in its Writing, Literature, and Publishing program, teaching Book Publicity, Book Editing, and Book Publishing Overview courses.
Ken Wright, Vice President and Publisher of Viking Children's Books, has been in book publishing for 25 years. Before joining Viking, Wright was a literary agent at Writers House in New York, where he represented authors and illustrators of children's books in all categories, as well as a small group of adult book authors. His list includes Printz Medalist and Honor winners, Caldecott Medalist and Honor winners, Newbery Honor winners, Sibert, Boston Globe - Horn Book, Morris, and YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction winners, and best-sellers of The New York Times. He regularly appears as a panelist or speaker at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' conferences, the meetings of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and The New School, speaking on all aspects of the publishing industry. Wright began his career in publishing at Oxford University Press and held editorial and executive positions at Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Henry Holt, Routledge, and before joining Writers House he was an editorial director and the vice president/associate publisher at Scholastic.