Here’s the list of agents and presenters for the conference.
Amina Akhtar is a novelist and former fashion editor. Her debut novel, #FashionVictim, drew rave reviews and acclaim and was covered in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly, Fashionista, Book Riot, CrimeReads, and more. Akhtar’s second book, Kismet, took on the stunning and creepy world of wellness and all the crystals that go with it. Her third novel, Almost Surely Dead, will be published by Mindy’s Book Studio in February 2024.
Akhtar has worked at Vogue, Elle, the New York Times, and New York Magazine, where she was the founding editor of the women’s blog The Cut. She’s written for numerous publications, including Yahoo Style, Fashionista, xoJane, Refinery29, Billboard, and more. She currently lives not too far from the Sedona vortexes.
Keir Alekseii is an associate agent with Azantian Literary Agency. She is an educator and anti-GBV activist born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, a twin island country in the West Indies. Keir is a writer, gamer, lover of folklore, and former research scientist. As a neurodivergent, queer woman of color, Keir is invested in discovering engaging work with similar representation, and is passionate about creating space for voices not often recognized. She is especially interested in stories from BIPOC who are born and raised in the Global South.
New York Times bestselling author Mateo Askaripour aims to empower people of color to seize opportunities for advancement, no matter the obstacle. His first novel, Black Buck, takes on racism in corporate America with humor and wit. Askaripour was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly’s “10 rising stars to make waves,” and Black Buck was a Read With Jenna Today Show book club pick. He lives in Brooklyn. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @AskMateo.
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. Before diving into the world of publishing, she graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a degree in Creative Writing. Though she grew up upstate, she currently resides in Woodside, Queens with her husband and cat.
Christopher Combemale is an associate agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. He is looking for literary fiction and bold upmarket fiction with an unexpected hook. In non-fiction he is interested in essay, cultural criticism, narrative non-fiction, and expert driven projects across subject areas but with special attention to pop psychology, science, and food. He represents the 2023 Carnegie Medal winner Manon Steffan Ros, Polish radical Agnieszka Szpila, scholar Thomas Dai, among others. As a Singaporean/French/American born and raised in London, he is interested in international, cross-cultural perspectives and work in translation. He graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar.
Maggie Cooper has been an agent with Aevitas Creative Management since 2018, representing fiction and select nonfiction animated by imagination, empathy, and joy. Based in Boston, she holds a degree in English from Yale University, attended the Clarion Writers Workshop, and earned her MFA in fiction from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she served as an editor for The Greensboro Review. She is actively seeking genre-bending literary fiction; beautifully told queer stories; and smart, feminist vacation reads. Her other passions include unclassifiable book projects, books about food and cooking, and well earned happy endings—particularly for characters underrepresented in mainstream publishing.
Jon Darga is a literary agent at Aevitas, where he represents both fiction and nonfiction. Prior to Aevitas, he worked as an editor at Crown, a division within Penguin Random House. He attended the Columbia University Publishing Course and holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.
Sian-Ashleigh has been at WME since 2018. She hails from the suburbs of New York and goes by her full first name. Representing Nonfiction and Fiction across the YA and adult spaces, her authors are tastemakers, experts, world-builders, and everyday people with something to say. In Nonfiction she’s looking for books that provide new perspectives for the people and places around us, help us master a new skill, or bring us one step closer to a better version of ourselves. In Fiction, she’s looking for anything in the upmarket, commercial, and sci-fi/fantasy spaces that makes her laugh, cry, and/or marvel at the capacity of written word to move you.
Melissa represents award-winning and best-selling fiction and nonfiction. In fiction, she gravitates towards page-turners with intellectual and emotional heft. In nonfiction, she is particularly interested in conversation-changing books including journalism, science, technology, business/finance/economics, memoir/narrative, essays and cultural criticism. Melissa’s authors have won numerous awards including the Pulitzer, the National Book Critic Circle Award, the Whiting Award, the Windham Campbell Prize, the Rona Jaffe Award, the Hugo Award, n + 1 writer’s fellowship and The Nation’s Ridenhour Prize among others.
David Forrer began his career in publishing in 1997 after receiving a Masters in Creative Writing (fiction) from Boston University. He has been an agent with InkWell Management since it was created in 2004. His areas of interest and representation range from literary, commercial, historical and crime fiction to suspense/thriller, humorous non-fiction and popular history.
Jon Gingerich is the author of the novel The Appetite Factory (Turner Publishing Company). His short stories have been published in the Saturday Evening Post, The Malahat Review, Pleiades, Grist, Stand Magazine, The Oyez Review, Helix Magazine and others. His essays have been published in The Guardian and The Saturday Evening Post. Since 2006, Jon has served as the editor of O’Dwyer’s magazine. He additionally teaches fiction writing at the Gotham Writer’s Workshop. He’s a graduate of The New School’s creative writing MFA program. He lives in New York.
Serene Hakim is an agent at Ayesha Pande Literary. She represents authors in a variety of genres, from MG fantasy to adult literary fiction to contemporary YA. Serene is particularly interested in both YA and adult fiction that has international themes, highlights a variety of cultures, and focuses on underrepresented and/or marginalized voices. Specifically, she’s looking for writing that explores different meanings of identity, home, family and parenthood/motherhood. Her educational background is in French and women’s studies, and she holds an MA in French-English translation from New York University.
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.
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.
Ann Napolitano’s newest novel, Hello Beautiful, was an instant New York Times bestseller and the 100th Oprah Book Club pick. Her previous novel, Dear Edward, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna selection, and was released as an Apple TV+ series starring Connie Britton. Napolitano is also the author of the novels A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. She received an MFA from New York University.
Roma Panganiban joined Janklow & Nesbit in 2019, where she represents a broad range of literary/upmarket fiction & narrative nonfiction, including work that embraces genre elements—speculative, historical, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy—and that which defies categorization altogether. She values thoughtful, clear, clever, and beautiful prose; compelling, idiosyncratic voices; and fresh, unexpected perspectives, particularly from marginalized and underrepresented writers. She is a member of the American Association of Literary Agents (AALA).
Sharon Pelletier joined Dystel, Goderich & Bourret in 2013 after working for Europa Editions and Barnes & Noble. While her interests are broad, Sharon is especially seeking upmarket fiction, including unexpected suspense fiction and smart, complex women’s fiction. On the nonfiction side Sharon is eager for compelling, fierce narrative nonfiction by journalists, experts, and emerging voices with a growing platform. In all categories she particularly welcomes marginalized voices.
Dani is a Literary Agent at Carol Mann Agency. She hopes to work with authors from diverse backgrounds. Her typical preferences include narrative nonfiction, contemporary fiction, memoir, women’s fiction, popular culture, and lifestyle. Prior to Carol Mann, she was a junior agent at New Leaf and an editorial assistant at HarperCollins Publishers. She holds a BA in Journalism and Political Science from Boston University's College of Communication.
Alexa Stark joined Writers House in 2022, after ten years at Trident Media Group. On the fiction side, she is particularly drawn to debuts with a singular voice and perspective, stories about dysfunctional friendships and families, novels that engage with social issues, underrepresented voices, and fiction that delves into the surreal or plays with genre in fresh or subversive ways. She gravitates towards the humorous, the bold, the off-beat, and the tender, and is drawn to emotionally acute fiction that centers around intimacy and fervor.
JL is the founder of Next level Literary. She is adding to her non-fiction list in both YA and adult categories with smart pop-culture, style, health & wellness, self-help, and memoir and more. She's looking for voices that reflect the world as it changes, stories that share the human experience of life, love, growth, and achievement. And they don’t have to all be serious–having fun is important!
Arlaina Tibensky is the author of the novel And Then Things Fall Apart (Simon & Schuster). Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in One Story, SmokeLong Quarterly, McSweeney's, Madison Review, The Dinner Party Download, New Stories from the Midwest 2018 (New American Press), the New York Times, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University.
