Elise Capron is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, which was founded over 40 years ago, and which is known for representing a wide range of fiction and non-fiction authors, including literary icons such as Amy Tan. Elise has been with SDLA for 16 years, and focuses primarily on adult literary fiction, as well as non-fiction such as cultural histories, science, medicine, and environment-focused projects by journalists and historians. She is keen to work with writers who are telling stories she has not heard before, and who have developed a strong narrative voice in their work.
2015 Writers Workshops Agents & Editors
Michael Carlisle began his career as a secretary in the literary department at William Morris Agency. Eighteen years later he left as a vice-president to start Carlisle & Company. Born in Paris, of Russian heritage, he graduated with honors from Yale College and holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School. The son of two writers, he brings a background of international law to his career. His best-selling authors have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pulitzer Prizes, The Man Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (fiction and non-fiction), the Templeton Prize, the British Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, the PEN Award for first non-fiction, the NAACP Image Award for Literary Fiction, and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award; one even has an asteroid named for her. A former director of the AAR, a not-for-profit organization of independent literary and dramatic agents, and a member of PEN, and the Council on Foreign Relations, Michael headed the non-fiction program at the Community of Writers until 2023, and serves on its Board of Directors.
Lucy Carson joined The Friedrich Agency in early 2008, where she has since built a list of fiction and non-fiction. In addition to brokering domestic publishing deals for her own clients, Lucy also oversees all Film, Television & Dramatic business for the agency list. During her ten years with The Friedrich Agency, Lucy has worked with such authors as Sue Grafton, Elizabeth Strout, Ruth Ozeki, Terry McMillan, and Karen Joy Fowler, while launching many debut careers as well. Her list is focused on Fiction & (mostly narrative) Non-Fiction for the adult trade audience.
Ann Close has been a senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf Publishers for almost fifty years, where she publishes fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry. Writers she has worked with include Alice Munro, Norman Rush, Mona Simpson, Jayne Anne Phillips, Philip Levine, Brad Leithauser, Gish Jen, Lawrence Wright, and Tony Hiss.
Laura Cogan is the editor of ZYZZYVA literary magazine. The San Francisco- based journal celebrates its 30th year in print in 2015.
Asya Muchnick is an Executive Editor at Little, Brown. She acquires literary fiction, upmarket crime fiction, and narrative nonfiction, including history, biography, cultural history, and popular science. Among the authors she has worked with are Naomi Alderman, Jo Ann Beard, Mark Childress, Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch, Nancy Goldstone, Pete Hamill, Richard Lange, Paul Lynch, Stephenie Meyer, Daniel O’Malley, Sebastian Rotella, Alice Sebold, David Sedaris, Anita Shreve, and Peter Trachtenberg.
Elizabeth Scharlatt is editor and publisher of Algonquin Books, a company founded in Chapel Hill in 1983 and publishers of general fiction and narrative nonfiction. Prior to joining Algonquin in 1989, she had worked as an editor at Random House and Macmillan. In 1994 she received the PEN Publisher’s Award.
Daniel Smetanka has worked in various aspects of the publishing industry for over twenty years. As an Executive Editor at Ballantine/Random House, Inc., he acquired and published many award-winning books including The Ice Harvest by Scott Philips, The Speed of Light by Elizabeth Rosner, Down to a Soundless Sea by Thomas Steinbeck, and Among the Missing by Dan Chaon, a 2001 finalist for the National Book Award. He currently serves as Executive Editor for Counterpoint Press. His projects include works by Linda Gray Sexton, James Brown, Janna Malamud Smith, Neil Jordan, Dana Johnson, Karen E. Bender, Joshua Mohr, Emma Woolf, Tara Ison, Maria Hummel, Andrea Portes, Kim Addonizio, and Lisa Bloom.
Peter Steinberg is a literary agent now at United Talent Agency (UTA) after he joined Fletcher & Company in 2021 from Foundry Literary + Media. He’s represented numerous New York Times bestsellers (including three #1 New York Times bestsellers) and clients have been nominated for or awarded Edgars, Pulitzer Prize, Story Prize, The Paris Review Discovery Prize, PEN/Faulkner and National Book Awards. Most recently, The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont was selected for Reese’s Book Club, and The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was a finalist for the National Book Award. His list includes commercial and literary fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, narrative non-fiction, memoir, self-help, history, true crime, pop culture, humor, and sports. Steinberg is a graduate of NYU film school and worked briefly in the film business prior to becoming a literary agent.
Andrew Tonkovich is the longtime editor of the Santa Monica Review and founding editor of Citric Acid: An Online Orange County Literary Arts Quarterly of Imagination and Reimagination. His writing has appeared widely, including in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Orange County Register, ZYZZYVA, Ecotone, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Los Angeles Times, Faultline, and Juked. He was for many years a contributing writer to the OC Weekly on books and politics. He is the author of two fiction collections, The Dairy of Anne Frank and More Wish Fulfillment in the Noughties and Keeping Tahoe Blue and Other Provocations. With Lisa Alvarez, he co-edited the landmark anthology Orange County: A Literary Field Guide. He taught at UC Irvine for twenty-five years, serving as president and grievance steward of the union representing adjunct faculty. Tonkovich hosts a weekly books show and podcast, Bibliocracy Radio, which airs on Pacifica Radio KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California, and edits the Community of Writers’ OGQ. [Fiction]