Jennifer Alton is an editor at Counterpoint Press, where her projects have included books by Sands Hall, Nell Irvin Painter, Alton Logan with Berl Falbaum, and Ismail Kadare. She holds an MFA from San Francisco State University, where she was Assistant Fiction Editor of Fourteen Hills, co-curator of the Velvet Revolution Reading Series, and taught undergraduate creative writing. A returned Peace Corps volunteer, (Ukraine 2011-2013) she lives in the Bay Area. She will be joining us as a Special Guest.
2018 Agents & Editor
Reagan Arthur is Executive Vice President, Publisher of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, which she joined in February of 2020, after nearly 20 years at Little, Brown. Writers she’s worked with include Kate Atkinson, Ian McEwan, Tina Fey, Ian Rankin, Attica Locke, Megan Abbott, Joshua Ferris, Nathan Hill, and Bono. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers.
Photo credit: Brett Hall Jones
Michael Carlisle, a founder of InkWell Management, has been involved with the Community of Writers for many years. His fiction and nonfiction client list includes prize-winning as well as debut authors. A former director of the Association of Author’s Representatives, a not-for-profit organization of independent literary and dramatic agents, Michael is an active member of PEN. He directs the Nonfiction Program of the Community of Writers and serves on the Board of Directors. http://inkwellmanagement.com/staff/michael-v.-carlisle
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.
Joy Harris established her own literary agency in 1990. She works primarily with literary fiction, strongly-written commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction across a broad range of topics, memoir and biography, and is drawn to a clear, original voice, an engaging point of view, and strong characters. She takes great pleasure in finding new literary voices, and over the course of her career has had the joy of representing many bestselling and acclaimed authors from the time of their first published work. www.joyharrisliterary.com.
Joy Johannessen has been an editor at Chelsea House, Grove Press, and Oxford University Press; a senior editor at HarperCollins Publishers; and the executive editor of Delphinium Books. She has worked with hundreds of writers, among them Rabih Alameddine, Dorothy Allison, Amy Bloom, Harold Bloom, Michael Cunningham, Larry Kramer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur Miller, Ralph Nader, and Héctor Tobar. She is the co-editor, with Roxanne Coady, of The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them. She currently freelances.
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Cal Morgan is an executive editor at Riverhead Books. His authors include Akwaeke Emezi, Eula Biss, Lidia Yuknavitch, Kristen Arnett, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Edward Carey. Previously with HarperCollins and St. Martin’s Press, he also serves on the board of the Center for Fiction, the only organization in the country devoted exclusively to the promotion of fiction.
Photo credit: Cassie Jones Morgan
BJ Robbins established her Los Angeles-based agency in 1992 after a multifaceted career in book publishing, from publicity at Simon & Schuster to Marketing Director and later Senior Editor at Harcourt. She represents commercial and literary fiction, as well as a wide array of nonfiction, including memoir, history, pop culture, and science. Her client list includes award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, Renee Swindle, Nafisa Haji, Max Byrd, J. Maarten Troost, James Donovan, John Hough, Via Bleidner,, Mary Volmer, Mel Watkins, Adam Nimoy, and the late James D. Houston.
Andrew Tonkovich is the editor of the Santa Monica Review, and founding editor of Citric Acid. He is the author of two story collections, and co-author with Lisa Alvarez of Orange County: A Literary Field Guide. He has written reviews and commentary in the Los Angeles Times, LA Review of Books, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Ecotone, Juked and OC Weekly. He is also the host of KPFK’s Bibliocracy Radio. [F]
Photo Credit: Brett Hall Jones
Oscar Villalon is the editor of ZYZZYVA, a recipient of the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. His work has been published in several publications, including The Believer, Stranger’s Guide, Alta, and Lit Hub, where he is a contributing editor. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and their son.