Lashanda Anakwah is an editor at Tiny Reparations Books acquiring fiction and select non-fiction titles. Before joining Tiny Reparations she worked at the Simon & Schuster flagship imprint where she co-acquired The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson, a Reese’s Book Club pick.
She is building a list that captures a wide array of human experiences, and is drawn to edgy voice driven literary, upmarket and commercial fiction centered on complicated unique characters. Smart immersive prose written with craft, intention, and depth of feeling is sure to capture her attention. As well as themes of geographic identity, culture, and coming of age.
Lashanda is also looking for transformative memoirs, in addition to narrative non-fiction that answers the “why” and “how” in regards to the socio-political-economic systems we are all mired in, with a clear vision of the way forward.
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, Carlisle headed the nonfiction program at the Community of Writers until 2023, and serves on its Board of Directors.
Lucy Carson joined The Friedrich Agency in 2008, and she has since cultivated a list of fiction and narrative nonfiction for the adult trade audience. In addition to brokering domestic publishing deals for her own clients, Lucy also oversees all Film, Television & Dramatic business for the wider agency list. During her 17 years with The Friedrich Agency, Lucy has worked with established bestselling authors such as Sue Grafton, Elizabeth Strout, Ruth Ozeki, Terry McMillan, and Karen Joy Fowler, while launching many debut authors as well, including Leila Mottley, Alison Espach, Rachel Harrison, Silvia Park, and Daria Lavelle.
Michael Mungiello is a literary agent at Inkwell Management who represents a range of literary fiction and nonfiction. His clients have received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Guggenheim, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Robert Penn Warren Lifetime Achievement Award, the Whiting Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and the 5 Under 35 prize from the National Book Foundation.
Tara Parsons is the Vice President, Deputy Publisher for the East Coast imprints of the HarperOne Group at HarperCollins Publishers. She is responsible for overseeing the business office of the Publisher and the marketing departments and branding for three of the HarperOne Group’s imprints: Amistad, HarperCollins Español, and HarperVia. In addition, she acquires and edits her own list of titles. She currently serves on the Board of Words Without Borders and works as an Adjunct Professor at NYU. Prior to HarperCollins, Parsons worked as Editor-in-Chief of Touchstone Books at Simon & Schuster and Editorial Director of Fiction at Amazon Publishing.
Photo credit: Lee Seidenberg
Todd Portnowitz is a translator of Italian literature and a senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf, where he publishes a range of history, pop culture, fiction, and poetry, with published and forthcoming books from Adam Ross, Ken Burns, Geoffrey Ward, Keza MacDonald, David Sibley, Jonah Mixon-Webster, Ed Conway, Mária Elena Morán, Philippe Sands, Lee Seong-bok, Fergus Bordewich, Zachary Small, Bud Smith, Peter Cozzens, and the Estate of Albert Camus. His prose translations include Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri (co-translated with the author), In Search of Amrit Kaur by Livia Manera Sambuy, The Greatest Invention by Silvia Ferrara, and Long Live Latin by Nicola Gardini; his poetry translations include the forthcoming Methods by Lorenzo Carlucci and Go Tell It to the Emperor by Pierluigi Cappello, for which he received a Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. He is a co-host of the writer-translator reading series Us&Them, and lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, son, and dachshund Gracie.
Photo credit: Michael Lionstar
BJ Robbins established her Los Angeles-based agency in 1992 after a multi-faceted career in book publishing in New York, in publicity at Simon & Schuster and later as Marketing Director and Senior Editor at Harcourt. Her clients include many bestselling and award-winning writers in both fiction and nonfiction including Stephen Graham Jones, J. Maarten Troost, James Donovan, Via Bleidner, Max Byrd, Nafisa Haji, Renee Swindle, and John Hough, Jr.
Oscar Villalon is the Editor of ZYZZYVA, the award-winning California literary journal. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, The Approach, Virginia Quarterly Review, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. A former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, he has served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction three times, including once as jury chair, and has served as a judge for the National Book Awards. He lives with his family in San Francisco, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Community of Writers.
Photo credit: Brett Hall Jones
Blaise Zerega is the editorial director of Alta Journal, an award-winning quarterly focused on the arts and culture of California and the West. At Alta, Blaise is responsible for print, online, events, and personnel; he personally edits all fiction and poetry. His journalism has appeared in the New Yorker, WIRED, Conde Nast Portfolio, and other publications. Zerega’s media appearances include Today, The View, NPR, and CNN. He attended the United States Military Academy, New York University, and the University of Texas, where he received a Michener Fellowship for fiction writing from the Texas Center for Writers.
