Here’s the list of agents and presenters for the conference.
Matt Belford is a Literary Agent at New Leaf Literary & Media. In the adult science fiction and fantasy realm, as well as the adult graphic novel space, he is looking for character-driven works that will resonate with him emotionally; he wants to laugh and cry with your characters. No matter the genre, Matt is looking for under-represented voices.
Matt received his MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, back when he thought he wanted to be a writer. He’s since learned the error of his ways and is thrilled to instead be working with authors to help bring their ideas to life. Prior to joining the team at New Leaf, Matt has worked at several literary agencies and publishers and joins the team with a decade of publishing experience across formats and genres.
Amy Bishop-Wycisk joined Trellis Literary Management in 2023 after eight years with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. She's cultivating a wide-ranging list in upmarket and book club fiction, light sci-fi and fantasy, speculative fiction, expert-driven narrative nonfiction, cultural criticism, history, and select YA, with a special interest in underrepresented voices, especially from the AAPI community. Her list includes titles such as A Crane Among Wolves by NYT bestselling author June Hur, the Daughter of Sparta series by Claire M. Andrews, and GAME FACE by award-winning author, Shari Green.
Susan Breen is the author of the novel The Fiction Class, and the Maggie Dove series of mystery books. She has published short fiction in American Literary Review, Chattahoochee Review, Nebraska Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, anderbo, and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Linda Camacho is a senior agent at Gallt & Zacker Literary, where she has the pleasure of representing an incredible roster of writers and illustrators. Over her two decades in publishing, she's held various positions at Simon & Schuster, Writers House, and Penguin Random House. Linda received her MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has a short story published in the YA anthology Every Body Shines by Cassandra Newbould.
Holley Cornetto is the author of the horror novel They Are Cursed Like You and the novella We Haunt These Woods. Her short fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Flame Tree Press Newsletter, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Collective Realms Magazine, among many others, and she is a regular reviewer for Horror Tree, Booklist and Ginger Nuts of Horror.
Like her Ground Rules Mystery series, Emmeline Duncan is based in Portland, Oregon. Her Ground Rules Mystery series includes Fresh Brewed Murder, Double Shot Death, Flat White Fatality, and Death Unfiltered, plus Fatal Brouhaha, which will be published in 2025. The first book in her Halloween Bookshop Mystery Series, Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop, came out in 2024, with more to come. Emmeline also writes for teens as Kelly Garrett. Her debut YA novel, The Last To Die, was an Oregon Book Awards finalist. She also received a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship. When not writing, she spends her time seeking out new coffee shops and hiking trails to explore, frequently accompanied by her Great Pyrenees sidekick. You can track her online at emmelineduncan.com.
Samantha Fabien is a literary agent at Root Literary Agency. After attending the Columbia Publishing Course in 2016, she went on to intern and work part-time at three agencies: Ayesha Pande Literary, Writers House, and Chalberg & Sussman. From there, Samantha fostered her love for sharing diverse, lasting, and inclusive stories with the world. Samantha also works with events and organizations like DVcon and The New York Writing Room among others.
Grady Hendrix is the New York Times-bestselling author of How To Sell a Haunted House, The Final Girl Support Group, My Best Friend's Exorcism, and many more. His history of the horror paperback boom of the '70s and '80s, Paperbacks from Hell, won the Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction. His books have been translated
into 23 languages and sold over two million copies.
In the spring of 2021, Kima joined Triangle House Literary as an agent. Her clients include David Haynes and Rochelle Spencer. She is interested in representing literary fiction, essay collections, memoir, hybrid texts, commercial fiction, poetry, speculative fiction, science fiction, and horror. She’s a developmental editor who brings more than a decade of marketing and publicity experience into her agenting negotiations. Kima is at work on her first book, Butch, a memoir, forthcoming from Knopf.
Natalie Kimber has worked with The Rights Factory since 2014. She appreciates authors who incorporate a strong vision into their writing, writers who fully understand the WHY of their book, and she encourages strong author connection with the writing community and broader readership. In fiction she is looking for: literary, commercial, and upmarket, LGBTQ+, international diversity, speculative, action/adventure, animal stories, modern mythology, nostalgic, transnational, historical, and collections with a strong theme.
Cleve Lamison is the author of the science fiction novel Full-Blood Half-Breed and he is a contributing writer to Suvudu.com, a science fiction and fantasy blog at Random House. He is a staff writer for the television show Craig Ross Jr.’s Monogamy, and he wrote and directed the feature film Following Bliss, which won Best Feature Film at the Global Arts International Film Festival. He holds a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Chad Luibl is an agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates. He comes from the workshop model of creative writing and has a hands-on editorial approach to agenting. For fiction, he is particularly drawn to novels that are more character or plot-driven, thrillers that are as inventive as they are suspenseful, speculative and historical fiction that offer a nuanced perspective on place, and graphic novels that push the boundaries of the genre.
Cassie Mannes Murray is the founder and director of Pine State Publicity, a former literary agent, and a writer who has received a notable in Best American Essays, as well as Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. Her writing has been published by Slice Magazine, StoryQuarterly, Reckon Review, Joyland, The Rumpus, Passages North, Fugue, and others. She earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from University of North Carolina Wilmington, and currently serves on the advisory boards for Lookout Books and Swing Magazine.
Cameron McClure is an agent at the Donald Maass Literary Agency. She specializes in fiction and is looking for all types of science-fiction and fantasy or anything with a speculative element. She's especially looking for projects that combine genre style plotting with literary quality writing, and provide us with a new perspective.
Kiki Nguyen started in publishing in 2015 with an internship with Wunderkind PR, independent book publishing PR company, working on campaigns with authors such as Ernest Cline. There, she discovered a practical industry for her codependent love of fiction. In 2016, Kiki went on to intern with DMLA where she soon joined the team full-time as an assistant literary agent. Kiki is now building her client list within young adult and adult fiction with a focus on queer and BIPOC authors. When not working, she is playing Among Us or shouting about film/tv on Twitter.
Monica Rodriguez is a literary agent and the Director of Brand Management at Context Literary Agency. Her mission as an agent is to help uplift underrepresented voices in publishing, specifically within the Latinx community. She’s mentored authors at The Writing Barn and is a faculty member at The Manuscript Academy. In children’s literature, she is actively looking for MG, YA & Graphic Novels. She also represents illustrators and comic artists. In adult fiction, she’s looking for contemporary romance, speculative, sci-fi, and book club fiction.
Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the nationally bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland, and the short story collection, Growing Things and Other Stories. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.
Michaela Whatnall is an agent with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, where they have worked out of the West Coast office since 2019. They have a degree in English and linguistics from Emory University, completed the Columbia Publishing Course, and in 2023 they were selected as a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree. Michaela represents middle grade and young adult fiction across genres; upmarket adult fiction and grounded fantasy; and select picture books, graphic novels, and narrative nonfiction.
