Writers' Conference Panelists

GARY BADDELEY is the President of The Disinformation Company, publisher of non-fiction books and producer and distributor of documentary films on home video. For more information see www.disinfo.com.

RUBEN BOLLING (a pseudonym for Ken Fisher) is the author of the weekly comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug, which appears in about 75 newspapers (including the Washington Post and The Village Voice) and Salon.com. Tom the Dancing Bug won the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' award for Best Alternative Cartoon in 2002 and 2003. Bolling is the author of three compilation books: Tom the Dancing Bug (HarperCollins, 1992); All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats (NBM Publishing, 1997); and Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories (Andrews McMeel, 2004). He just optioned one of his Tom characters, Harvey Richards, Lawyer for Children, to New Line Cinema for a feature film. He is also a banker with a New York financial institution.

MARIO BOSQUEZ joined CBS 2 as reporter/anchor in January of 2003. He anchors CBS 2 News This Morning. Bosquez has won numerous awards for his work, including an AmeriCares award, which was presented to him by President and Mrs. George Bush, and the Sí Se Puede! Award from the National Puerto Rican Forum. He was also recognized by the City of New York for his work as a Latino in the media and is the recipient of two honors from the Latino Coalition for Fair Media. His book, The Chalupa Rules: A Latino Guide to Gringoland, will be released by Plume Books in May. His full-length play, Los Duendes (The Restless Spirits), was a finalist in the 2000 Paul Green Playwrighting Competition and a semifinalist in the Southwest Festival for New Plays/Latino Division.

TIM W. BROWN is the author of two published novels, Left of the Loop (2001) and Deconstruction Acres (1997). He recently completed another novel set in 1830s America, which is represented by literary agent Marcy Posner. His poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in over two hundred publications, and he has received several state and local arts grants plus a writer's residency fellowship. From 1986-1996 he taught English and humanities at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Mr. Brown currently works as a technical writer for corporate clients in New York City and Chicago.

CATHERINE BRUNO is currently the new Manager of Grants & Services to Cultural Organizations at the Westchester Arts Council headquartered in White Plains, New York. Her position involves managing four of the Arts Councils grant programs as well serving as the liaison to cultural organizations in Westchester providing technical and capacity building assistance. Catherine specializes in grant administration. She has worked as a grant writer researching and writing grants for a not-for-profit that provided services to low-income families. She was also an assistant grant officer for the New Jersey Historical Commission assisting in administering over 6 million dollars in grants to historical organizations throughout New Jersey. Catherine has a B.S. from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey as well as a MBA from Monmouth University.

JANET BYRNE is the author of A Genius for Living: The Life of Frieda Lawrence (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury), a New York Times Notable Book of 1995. An essayist and reviewer for the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times since 1987, she has written about Newt Gingrich, the Royal Danish Ballet, and biography scholarship. She is a member of the editorial organization Words into Print. As writer, researcher, or editor, she has contributed to The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume III (W. W. Norton, 2005), American Writers (Gale/Scribners, 2003), Supernatural Fiction Writers (Gale/Scribners, 2003), The Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography (Scribners, 2000), British Writers (Gale/Scribners,1997-[ongoing]), and other books. She is the recipient of residencies at the Wurlitzer Foundation (1989-1992) in Taos, New Mexico.

SHANNON BYRNE is a Senior Publicist at Little, Brown and Company Publishers, where she has worked for five years. Some of the authors she works with, in addition to Dave King, include Michael Connelly, David Sedaris, David Foster Wallace, and Rick Moody. She is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

MICHAEL CADER is the creator of Publishers Lunch and PublishersMarketplace.com. Over the past 15 years, his book packaging company Cader Books has created and produced hundreds of trade books and calendars.

PJ CAMPBELL is the Director of Events for John Wiley & Sons, the fifth largest publisher in the book publishing industry. She oversees and organizers 300-400 events annually for all product lines throughout North America. She is also a writer with published articles in national and local magazines and newspapers.

DAVID CARRADINE, artist, musician, sculptor, writers, composer, Kung-Fu master, stage, film, and television icon, is most recently known for his role in Taranitino's Kill Bill, Volumes 1 & 2. Born in Hollywood, California, Carradine graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.S. in Music Theory and Composition. Carradine received the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Film Review, Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Woodie Guthrie in Bound for Glory (1976), and won critical acclaim for his work as Cole Younger in The Long Riders (1980). He has written three books, the philosophical Spirit of Shaolin, his autobiography Endless Highway, and The Kill Bill Diary, due out this fall from HarperCollins.

CANTARA CHRISTOPHER is an off-off Broadway playwright, memoirist, indie actress of the 1970s, and editor of CityFables. She is listed in the University of Pennsylvania's Celebration of Women Writers as well as the Internet Movie DataBase. CityFables was established in 2001 primarily as the publisher of the novels of Michael "The Mad Mick" Matheny, eccentric social philosopher and urban fabulist, now a writing instructor in Manhattan at the monthly Speculative Fiction Fair. Her web address is www.cantarachristopher.com.

MARY HIGGINS CLARK is the author of an astonishing 28 bestselling books. Her first novel, Where Are the Children?, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1975 and quickly became a bestseller. After twenty years, the novel remains in print and is currently in its 75th printing. Her most recent novel, No Place Like Home, was published this month. Clark has won dozens of awards and honors, including being named Grand Master of the 2000 Edgar Awards by Mystery Writers of America. Her influential style and enormous success led Simon & Schuster in 2001 to launch a Mary Higgins Clark Award to be given to authors of suspense fiction writing during the Mystery Writers of America's annual Edgar week. She is known to the world as the "Queen of Suspense."

MICHAEL CONNELLY is a former journalist and the author of the bestselling series of Harry Bosch novels, along with the bestselling novels Chasing the Dime, Void Moon, Blood Work, and The Poet. Connelly has won numerous awards for his journalism and novels, including an Edgar Award. Michael Connelly's books have been translated in 31 languages. He will publish The Closers on May 16, 2005 and The Lincoln Lawyer, his first legal thriller, on October 3, 2005. He is the president of the Mystery Writers of America.

JENNY DAVIDSON is the author of a novel, Heredity (published by Soft Skull in the US and Serpent's Tail in the UK); her academic book Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen was published by Cambridge University Press. She teaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and has recently been awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for 2005.

RACHEL DONADIO is a writer and editor at The New York Times Book Review. In addition to reviews, she writes and edits reported pieces, essays, and interviews covering the book publishing world. She was formerly the media/publishing reporter for the New York Observer.

MARCELLA DURAND is the author of Western Capital Rhapsodies (Faux Press, 2001) and The Anatomy of Oil (Belladonna, forthcoming). She was the founder and editor of the online Tiny Press Center at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church from 1998 to 2000 and the editor of the Poetry Project Newsletter from 2003 to 2005. She was also the poetry editor and co-publisher for (the invisible city), an anthology of poetry and art inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. At present, she is the co-editor for an anthology of contemporary French poetry, forthcoming from Talisman House in 2006, and a co-curator for the Broadsides Reading Series at the Center for Book Arts in Chelsea.

JAKE ELWELL is an Agent and President of Wieser & Elwell, Inc., a New York Literary Agency. His clients include Steven Levenkron, Jim DeFelice, Michael DiMercurio, Bill Kent, H. Paul Jeffers, Dewey Lambdin, Rafael Alvarez, Edwin P. Hoyt, Bert Randolph Sugar, Charles Coulombe, the estate of William Goyen, the estate of Ben Lucien Burman, the estate of Douglas C. Jones, and the estate of Karl Shapiro.

JAMES FITZGERALD has been a literary agent since 2000. He has run his own agency since 2003. His authors include Sonny Barger of the Hell's Angels, Andy Greenwald, Osho, Ed Sanders, David Carradine, Blair Tindall, Dale Maharidge, and Legs McNeil, Sarah "Ultragrrrl" Lewitinn, The Village Voice, True West magazine, Spin magazine and Vice magazine. Prior to being an agent he was an editor at St. Martin's Press where he edited Generation X, John (Rotten) Lydon's autobiography and four of Leni Riefenstahls's books, Sarah Vowell and Ice-T. Prior to that he was an editor at Doubleday where he worked with Papa John Phillips, David Bowie, Ruth Montgomery, Arnold Palmer and Robert Crumb. He is interested in pop culture, good stories, good writing and chilled soups that utilize purees of baby carrots as a base stock.

BILL GOLDSTEIN is Founding Editor of NYTimes.com/books

KIM GOLDSTEIN is a literary agent at the Susan Golomb Agency. Prior to that she worked as an agent and foreign rights manager at the Carol Mann Agency. Her career began in magazines working with Rolling Stone, The Golfer, and The Sporting Life. Her recent literary sales include The Ha-Ha (Little, Brown), Mind Your X's and Y's: The Top Ten Strategies to Reading Today and Tomorrow's Buyers (The Free Press), White City: A Novel (St. Martin's Press).

ANDY GREENWALD is a Senior Contributing Writer at Spin and the author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo (St. Martin's Press, 2003) and the forthcoming novel Miss Misery (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2006). His writing has also appeared in GQ, Entertainment Weekly, the Washington Post, and the Village Voice. He lives in Brooklyn and hosts a vibrant community at www.andygreenwald.com.

RYAN FISCHER-HARBAGE edited books for Little, Brown & Company, Plume, Dutton, and Viking before joining Simon & Schuster to help create and launch a new imprint, Simon Spotlight Entertainment. The first book published by SSE, He's Just Not That Into You, was an instant bestseller and has two million copies in print. He just launched the unprecedented partnership between S&S and ABC News, The Story of My Life, a search to discover and publish the next great American memoir. Ryan edited Peter Singer's New York Times bestseller, The President of Good & Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush and the Pulitzer Prize winning Boston Globe Spotlight Team's Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, among others. His opinions on books and writing have appeared in The International Herald-Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Poets & Writers, Publishers Weekly, and others.

KURT HEINTZ is a writer, performer, and media artist. He is an advocate of aural literacy, and has published performance poetry and related materials on the web since early 1995, first as Telepoetics/Chicago and since 1998 as the e-poets network (e-poets.net). E-poets' Book of Voices streams a diverse library spoken word of over 70 esteemed artists from the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. He served as a technical consultant for the Electronic Literature Organization (eliterature.org) from its inception to 2002. He chaired the Guild Complex's first three Poetry Video Festivals, and has juried for the Vancouver Videopoem Festival. Since 1993, he has produced two-way poetry video conferences using videophones and, later, the web.

ROBERT HERSHON is the author of eleven books of poetry, of which The German Lunatic (Winter 2000) is the most recent. A new collection, Calls from the Outside World, is scheduled for publication early in 2006. His work has appeared in more than 40 anthologies and in many journals. Hershon also serves as co-editor of Hanging Loose Press, one of the country's oldest independent publishers. Hanging Loose has published a magazine since 1966 and books since 1972, presenting the work of such writers as Sherman Alexie, Ha Jin, Kimiko Hahn, Hettie Jones, Tony Towle, Chuck Wachtel, Harvey Shapiro and Paul Violi.

JEFF HERMAN is one of the most highly-respected and successful book agents in the business. His agency has sold more than 500 titles, and represented authors such as Jeff Slutsky, Tom Hopkins, and Alan Weiss, and Joe Montana. Jeff works with dozens of publishers, including McGraw Hill, Henry Holt & Co., Simon & Shuster, and St. Martin's Press. Jeff Herman founded The Jeff Herman Literary Agency, LLC, in 1987. The agency has expanded rapidly and is one of the most dynamic and innovative agents in the business. Herman's agency has established a strong presence in general adult nonfiction, including business, general reference, commercial self-help, technology, recovery/healing, and spiritual subjects. Herman authored Herman's Guide to Book Editor's, Publishers and Literary Agents (more than 300,000 copies sold), and co-authored Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 Proposals That Sold and Why!, and, You Can Make It Big Writing Books.

BOB HOLMAN is Publisher of Bowery Poetry Press and Proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club. His eighth and ninth books are A Couple of Ways of Doing Something, a collaboration with Chuck Close (Art of this Century/Pace Editions), and Carved Water (Tin Fish), his translations of the poetry of Zhang Er. He is Visiting Professor of Writing at Columbia University. He is Artistic Director of Study Abroad on the Bowery, an applied poetics program launched.

RONA JAFFE is the author of sixteen books, including the bestselling internationally acclaimed novels The Road Taken, The Cousins, Family Secrets, Mr. Right is Dead, Mazes and Monsters, The Last Chance, and Five Women, as well as the classic bestsellers Class Reunion and The Best of Everything. She is the founder of the Rona Jaffe Foundation, which presents a national literary award to promising female writers. She lives in New York City.

LLOYD J. JASSIN is a publishing and entertainment attorney based in New York City. His clients include authors, agents, publishing companies, playwrights, television and theatrical producers, film and television personalities, public relations firms, advertising agencies, entertainment and publishing executives. Besides individual and corporate clients, he also represents trade and industry groups such as the Audio Publishers Association (APA) and Publishers Marketing Association (PMA). Mr. Jassin achieved national prominence with his book, The Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook (John Wiley & Sons), coauthored with Steven C. Schechter. Mr. Jassin's pro bono activities include serving as Vice Chair of the Small Press Center and as a Vice President of the Media Coalition, a first amendment advocacy group. The Law Offices of Lloyd J. Jassin are located at 1560 Broadway, Suite 400, New York, New York 10036, (212) 354-4442 (voice), (212) 840-1124 (fax), Jassin@copylaw.com. The firm also has offices in Madison, N.J.

DENNIS LOY JOHNSON is the proprietor of one of the Internet's first and most prominent literary blogs, MobyLives.com, and he runs Melville House Publishing with his wife, Valerie Merians. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, his writing has won numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts award, and has appeared in publications from USA Today to Salon, and on the BBC and the Associated Press newswires. His most recent book is The Big Chill: The Great, Unreported Story of the 2000 Bush Inauguration Protest.

KAYLIE JONES is the author of five novels, including A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (Bantam, 1990), which won a New York Public Library Young Adult Fiction Award. The novel was adapted as a Merchant Ivory Film directed by James Ivory and starring Kris Kristofferson, LeeLee Sobieski, Barbara Hershey and Jesse Bradford, in September of 1998. Working on the screen adaptation of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory increased Kaylie's passion for film writing. She and her husband recently co-wrote two screenplays for Terrence Malick and Intermedia Films. Her latest novel, Speak Now, was released in hardcover by Akashic Books in October 2003, along with a new paperback edition of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. Speak Now will be published in France by Belfond in 2005. Her novels have been translated into many languages including French, Dutch, German, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish.

JONATHAN KARP is Senior Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of Random House, where he has worked since 1989. Among the books he has worked on are Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley, Cheat and Charmer by Elizabeth Frank, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, The Baker by Paul Hond, Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss, Sleeping With Schubert by Bonnie Marson, The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl, What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson, The Last Don by Mario Puzo, and The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner. He has written the book and lyrics for an original musical comedy, How to Save the World and Find True Love in 90 Minutes, as well as articles for GQ, The American Scholar, and the Washington Post.

ALLISON KELLEY has served as the executive director of Romance Writers of America since 1995. Romance Writers of America is a national non-profit writers' association-the largest of its kind in the world. It provides networking and support to individuals seriously pursuing a career in romance fiction. RWA has more than 9,500 members worldwide, 1,600 of whom are published in book-length romantic fiction. As executive director, Allison coordinates and attends Board meetings, handles member communications and relations, administers the association's two national writing contests and the RWA annual conference. She also works with RWA's professional consultants to ensure regulatory compliance and to minimize the association's exposure to risk. Allison serves as RWA's representative to the Authors' Coalition and on the RWA's Summit Team. In 1999, she coordinated the first meeting for fiction writers for the purpose of networking and exchanging ideas and information with other writers' groups. Allison, a native Houstonian, lives in northwest Harris County with her husband and two sons. She is a graduate of the University of Texas, a member of American Society of Association Executives, and presently serves as President-Elect of Houston Society of Association Executives.

DAVE KING holds a BFA in painting and film from Cooper Union and an MFA in writing from Columbia University. He has been published in The Paris Review and Big City Lit, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in New York. For more about the author, visit www.davekingwriter.com.

JESSIE KOESTER is the director of Information Services at Poets & Writers, where she dispenses information to beginning and emerging writers on the business of writing and getting published. Prior to working at Poets & Writers, she worked at the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and in the online marketing world. She has an MFA in fiction writing from the New School University and is currently at work on a novel.

MARK KOHUT is a publishing consultant, sales and marketing dimensions. He has worked with major companies and distributors adding POD and small presses recently. Starting as a bookseller, he spent his corporate years in publishing with Simon & Schuster (twice Salesman of the Year), Houghton Mifflin, William Morrow and Holtzbrinck Publishers. He should soon have his own POD reprint company.

JODY KOLODZEY is Co-Chair of the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Writers Union (NWU), and a former organizer for The Newspaper Guild. Before going freelance, Jody worked on the staffs of The New York Times, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer. She has also served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

RICHARD KOSTELANETZ is the author of many books, including Soho: The Rise and Fall of an Artist's Colony. He has received a wide variety of prestigious grants including: Pulitzer Fellowship in critical writing; Guggenheim Fellowship; NEA Visual Arts Services Grants; NEA Visual Arts Planning Grant for art in public places; NEA Visual Arts senior fellowship in book-art; Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation; Fund for Investigative Journalism; CCLM Editors Fellowship; The Kitchen Media Bureau; American Public Radio Program Fund; NYSCA Media Services (through Future Press); Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek; Inter Nationes, the German translation agency; NEA Media Arts Program; Finishing Funds Award; Experimental TV Center; ASCAP Standard Award in music composition; and the Pollock-Kraser Foundation.

JEANNE KRAMER is a former Vice President & Publisher of Random House Reference and current adjunct professor at the NYU Publishing Program. Her extensive career in book publishing began in the Prentice-Hall Trade Division's publicity department where she assumed additional responsibilities including special sales manager and marketing positions. She accepted the position of Director of Marketing in Simon and Schuster's Reference Division and was soon tapped to assume the responsibility of Vice-President, Director of Sales and Marketing Communications for the Simon and Schuster Distribution Service's Division. She was recruited by Random House to lead new business development at Fodor's Travel Publications. Most recently, she has served as Vice-President and Publisher of the Random House Reference Group.

MEG LA BORDE is the Executive Vice President of Greenleaf Book Group. She has worked with more than three hundred authors and publishers since 1998, and she has helped build Greenleaf Book Group since 2000. Before joining the company, Meg worked at a literary publicity firm, where she represented more than thirty authors, including four with bestsellers. Meg booked interviews with major media outlets such as Oprah, CNN, and Fortune as well as radio, television, and print outlets in local markets around the country. She applied her publicity experience to Greenleaf's distribution model to close the gap between exposure and sales. Meg designed the successful supply marketing programs and built the infrastructure that supports the company's rapid expansion. Formerly based in San Francisco, Meg now manages the Austin operations.

ROBERT LASNER is the publisher of Ig Publishing, an independent press based in Brooklyn, NY that is committed to publishing original literary fiction and political non-fiction. His first novel, For Fucks Sake, was published in 2002.

JEFFREY LEPENDORF serves as Executive Director of the Literary Ventures Fund, Inc. and Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. An experienced development professional, his former posts include Development Director for the Creative Capital Foundation and Vice President of Development for Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project. His "Masterpieces of Western Music" audio course appears next month through Barnes & Noble's "Portable Professor" series.

NANCY D. LEWIS has been active in the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators since 1987 and Regional co-Advisor to the Metro NY Region since 1994. She is pursuing a career in children's book writing, mainly focusing on middle grade fiction and non-fiction. She makes her living as a computer programmer and is currently working for the Interactive Telecommunications Program of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

ERIC LORBERER holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and has published poems in such journals as American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse, and Volt. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he edits the quarterly Rain Taxi Review of Books, a winner of Utne's Independent Press Award for Best Arts and Literature Coverage.

DALE MAHARIDGE is the author of Dennison, Iowa, which will be published this fall by The Free Press/Simon & Schuster. He is the co-author with Michael Williamson of Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass (The Dial Press, 1985) and And Their Children After Them (Pantheon, 1989), which won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1990. He is the author of Yosemite: A Landscape of Life (1990); The Last Great American Hobo (1993); and The Coming White Minority: California's Eruptions and the Nation's Future (1996, 1999); and Homeland (Seven Stories Press, 2004). He teaches journalism at Columbia University and Stanford University.

MALACHY MCCOURT first became a published author at age 66 with his bestselling memoir, A Monk Swimming (1998). He has long been admired as a teller of tall tales, salty jokes, and personal anecdotes of growing up poor in Limerick, Ireland. Among other things, he has been a longshoreman, an actor, and radio talk show host. McCourt also owned New York City's first single's bar, Malachy's. As an actor, McCourt appeared in the films Reversal of Fortune, Bonfires of the Vanities, and She's the One. He is also the author of Singing By Him Song, Danny Boy, Voices of Ireland, Harold Be Thy Name: Lighthearted Daily Reflections for People in Recovery, The Claddagh Ring, Bush Lies In State (a collection of published columns) and History of Ireland. He lives in New York City where he writes "Sez I To Myself," a column that appears weekly in the Manhattan Spirit, The Westdider, and Our Town. His play "A Couple of Blaguards," which he co-wrote with his brother Frank, has been produced all across the United States, as well as in Australia and the U.K. McCourt has been happily married to Diana for almost four decades and is the proud father of five children, and the grandfather of three.

DIANE MANCHER is Owner and President of One Potata Productions, Inc., a specialized public relations firm that designs and executes strategic campaigns for publishers and authors. She began her publishing career in 1977 at High Times magazine. In 1980, she left the magazine world to work at Stonehill Publishing, followed by ten years as an in-house publicist at St. Martin's Press. She also held senior positions at Dell Publishing and Avon Books. As an in-house publicist, Mancher handled the campaigns for such notable books as And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts, Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme by Mary Wilson, the controversial A Mother's Story by Mary Beth Whitehead and novelist Patricia Cornwell's first national bestseller, Body Of Evidence. One Potata Productions handles a broad range of non-fiction topics including current events, celebrities, cookbooks, pop culture, parenting, health, gay and lesbian and African-American interest, and commercial fiction. In addition to working on individual titles, the agency also handles special events, booksignings and publication parties.

BONNIE ROSE MARCUS is the Director of the Readings/Workshops and Writers Exchange Program at Poets & Writers. For 15 years Ms. Marcus has worked with over 20 community based organizations in the New York area conducting theatre/writing workshops for youth and training educators in the arts. A poet and theatre artist, Ms. Marcus has presented her poetry and theatrical pieces at a variety of venues in New York City, including ABC NO RIO, Cornelia Street Café, and Playwright's Horizon. She appeared in the Off Broadway show "Tony N' Tina's Wedding" for three years and most recently in the film segment of Synaesthetic Theatre's Arcana Cycle of the Fool. Her self published zine Miss Fit's Free Press is available at the Brooklyn Museum and Printed Matter. She also works as a hospice volunteer and facilitates classes in meditation.

KRISTIN MATTHEWS was named Book Editor of the CBS "Early Show" in January 2003. Previous to that she was a producer for the show for nearly three years - concentrating mainly on book-related segments. Kristin began her television career at NBC News - working at both "Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" and "The Today Show." She received a B.A. in English Literature from Smith College in 1991 and a Masters in Public Policy from Columbia University in 2001.

ESTHER MARGOLIS, Founder, President and Publisher of Newmarket Press, was formerly the senior vice-president of marketing and publicity, worldwide, at Bantam Books, where she worked with such authors as Jacqueline Susann, Leon Uris, Maya Angelou, Gail Sheehy, and E.L. Doctorow. At Newmarket Press, one of the few mainstream New York City trade publishing houses under independent, entrepreneurial ownership, now in its 23rd year, Ms. Margolis has launched such authors as Suze Orman, Lynda Madaras and her 2-million-copy bestselling "What's Happening to My Body?" series, and Gene Hackman, with his first novel. Newmarket Press has also published book tie-ins (screenplay books and illustrated companion books) to over 100 movies, many Oscar winners, including Sideways, Ray, Hotel Rwanda, Cold Mountain, Chicago, Gladiator and American Beauty. In addition, Ms. Margolis has served as publishing consultant for Columbia Pictures and Sony Entertainment and now consults for Revolution Studios and other independent film companies, creating such projects as book tie-ins and novelizations on the films 13 Going On 30, Hitch, Pearl Harbor, and Schindler's List.

MICHAEL MEZZO joined Little, Brown and Company in 2000 and in that time he has worked on a variety of literary fiction and nonfiction titles, including works by Pulitzer Prize nominee Joanna Scott, Whitbread Award winner Kate Atkinson, and bestselling authors Ian Rankin and Berke Breathed. Prior to working at Little, Brown he was an agent with the Clausen, Mays and Tahan Literary Agency, and a reader for several literary magazines.

DELAUNE MICHEL was raised in South Louisiana in a literary family. The first two stories she wrote won recognition in the Thomas Wolfe Short Fiction Award and later work won the Pacificus Foundation Literary Award. Her first novel, Aftermath of Dreaming, will be published by William Morrow in early 2006. She is currently working on her second novel. Ms. Michel is the founding producer of Spoken Interludes, a monthly salon of dinner and readings by award-winning, best-selling, and up-coming writers. Now in its ninth year, this literary institution has been covered extensively by publications ranging from The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, GQ Magazine, LA Magazine, LA Weekly, and has been heard on NPR. In 2000, she made Spoken Interludes a nonprofit arts organization, and created educational outreach programs for at-risk youth including: Spoken Interludes Next - a writing program for at-risk teenagers, and Spoken Interludes Read - a literacy program for at-risk fourth graders. Both of these programs continue to serve schools in the greater Los Angeles area. She has worked as an actor in theater (including her critically-acclaimed one-woman show, Southern Gothic) episodic television (such as NYPD Blue), and films (including Harry Shearer's Teddy Bears' Picnic).

LAURA MILLER is a journalist and critic living in New York. She is a co-founder of Salon.com, where she is currently a staff writer, and a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly and other publications. She is the editor of the The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors (Penguin, 2000).

PETER MILLER has been an extraordinarily active literary and film manager for more than 30 years. Known as "The Literary Lion," he and his company have successfully managed over 1,000 books worldwide and dozens of motion picture and television properties. These properties include eleven New York Times bestsellers and eleven produced films, (which Mr. Miller has managed or Executive Produced). In addition, he has a substantial number of film and television projects currently in active development. He spends most of his time in New York or Los Angeles, but frequently tours the country to speak at writer's conferences and workshops. Miller also regularly attends the BEA convention and the Frankfurt Book Fair, as well as various film festivals including Cannes, East Hampton, Sundance and the AFM. Peter Miller is President of PMA Literary and Film Management, Inc. and Millennium Lion, Inc.

SHAWN MILLER joined the staff of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) in June 2001. As a Senior Officer in the Awards and Creative Development department, he administers NYFA's Artists' Fellowship program and Special Opportunity Stipends (SOS). Previously, Mr. Miller worked as an Assistant Curator at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York. Mr. Miller attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio where he received his Bachelor's degree in Film and Video Production.

BOB MINZESHEIMER is the Book Reviewer and Publishing Reporter for USA Today. In 1997, after 25 years as a reporter and editor covering mostly politics, Minzesheimer convinced his editors at USA Today to let him write about books. He writes reviews, interviews authors (ranging from Philip Roth to Stephen King) and covers trends in publishing. He's a graduate of the New York City public schools, Colgate, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and was a Knight fellow at Stanford. He's on the Board of Trustees of the Ossining Public Library.

MADELEINE MOREL is a literary agent who has had her own business, 2M Communications Ltd., for over twenty years. She has always specialized in non-fiction, with particular expertise in the areas of health, pop-culture, cooking, parenting, personal growth, relationships and psychology. Madeleine is also a partner in Lowenstein-Morel Associates, an agency that specializes in books specifically aimed at the multi-cultural audience. Morel is currently establishing 2M Communications to become the first talent agency for ghostwriters. Her website is www.2communications.com.

MARK MOSKOWITZ is the Director, Producer, and Writer of Stone Reader, the documentary film which won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film (a first for a nonfiction narrative) and Special Grand Jury Honor (the festival's top prize) at the 2002 Slamdance Festival. The film is Moskwitz's first feature, though he's not a novice filmmaker. For over twenty years, Moskowitz has produced and directed commercials and short films for a clientele that includes agencies, corporations, government and non-profit organizations, and the television networks. Moskowitz specializes in real people and subjects that matter shot in a documentary style. Working with small crews, he's developed a carefully honed approach that permits him to capture his subjects with complete spontaneity. Moskowitz has managed budgets in excess of $5 million and filmed in 44 states. His work has been the subject of national television programs and he's been featured in diverse publications from Sports Illustrated to The Wall Street Journal. Mark Moskowitz was a 2003 Independent Spirit Award Truer than Fiction nominee for Stone Reader. Moskowitz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, is married, and lives with his family in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.

KAY MURRAY is General Counsel and Assistant Executive Director of the Authors Guild, Inc., the nation's largest membership association of published, professional book authors and freelance writers. She is also the Executive Director of the Authors Guild Foundation, a supporting organization recognized as tax exempt pursuant to Section 501 (c) 3 of the Internal Revenue Code. As well, she is the Executive Editor of the Authors Guild Bulletin, a quarterly publication of business and legal advice. She is co-author, with Tad Crawford, of The Writer's Legal Guide: An Authors Guild Desk Reference, 3rd Ed. (Allworth Press, 2002).

RICHARD EOIN NASH is the President and Publisher of Soft Skull Press. Since taking over at Soft Skull in mid-2001, he and an ever-growing and developing group of young and hard-working colleagues (all of whom are in their mid-twenties) have had LA Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post and Booksense national bestsellers. He has acquired titles such as Get Your War On (a phrase which has now entered the pop cultural lexicon), The Sleeping Father, and two forthcoming novels by 2003 PEN USA Award-winning novelist Lydia Millet. Six of his titles have been reviewed by The New York Times Book Review, all of which were trade paper originals, five of which were debut books, three of which received coveted Editors Choices in subsequent weeks.

SARA NELSON became the editor in chief of Publishers Weekly in January 2005. She was previously the publishing columnist for the New York Post and the New York Observer, and has written, reviewed and edited for dozens of magazines and newspapers. She is also the author of the memoir/reading guide So Many Books, So Little Time, (Berkley, October 2004)

AUDREY B. PASS has enjoyed an 18-year career as a corporate communications and public relations specialist and media strategist. Pass is currently the Director of Communications for WCBS-TV, the CBS Network's flagship television station in New York, where she oversees media relations and corporate communications for WCBS, including news, local programming, talent relations, community relations and public affairs. Pass joined CBS from Harpo Productions in Chicago, where she served as Senior Publicist for Oprah Winfrey, Oprah's Angel Network, Oprah's Book Club and Harpo, Inc. Before that, Pass was Director of Marketing and Public Relations for The Second City, Inc. and Assistant Director of Marketing and Press Relations for the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Pass serves on numerous Boards of Directors, including CRIS radio, a reading service for the blind, the Jr. Board of the Museum of Broadcast Communications and the Young Alumni Board of The George School. Since relocating to New York last year, Pass has joined the Advisory Marketing and Press Committee of the National Book Foundation and the Advisory Board of the Small Press Center. Pass served on the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, recognizing excellence in commercial and non-profit theaters and the League of Chicago Theatres Marketing Committee.

MARK PAWLAK has been an editor of Hanging Loose for almost 25 years. Before that he was an associate editor of West End Press. He has published four collections of his original poetry as well as translations from the German. He is the editor of a number of notable anthologies, including the 2004 anthology of contemporary American political poetry, Present/Tense: Poets in the World. Pawlak grew up in Buffalo, New York, and has lived in the Boston area for almost forty years. He has taught writing, science and mathematics at various levels and is presently Director of Academic Support Programs at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where he teaches mathematics

WILLIE PERDOMO is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime and Smoking Lovely, which received a 2004 PEN America Beyond Margins Award. His work has been included in several anthologies including Metropolis Found, The Harlem Reader, Poems of New York, and Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Bomb, and PEN America: A Journal for Writers and Readers. He is the author of a Visiting Langston, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book for Children, illustrated by Bryan Collier (Henry Holt/Books for Young Readers, 2002) and has been featured on several PBS documentaries including "Words in Your Face and The United States of Poetry" as well as HBO's Def Poetry Jam and BET's Hughes' Dream Harlem.

JANE PIRONE is the founder and publisher of the award-winning guidebook series, Not For Tourists (www.notfortourists.com). Jane received a BFA from the University of Michigan, an MS in Management from Polytechnic University, and is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies from the New School University. Jane currently teaches digital design and theory at Parsons, Pratt, Ramapo College, and The Maine Photographic Workshops.

MARCY POSNER, President of The Marcy Posner Literary Agency, spent 12 years at the William Morris Agency as an agent and as Vice President and Director of Foreign Rights. Before becoming an agent she was on the publishing side for 15 years, her last job was as associate Publisher at Pantheon. Prior to that she held positions in both marketing and editorial at Rodale Press, Harmony Books and Salem House. She has had her own agency for almost five years and represents both fiction and non-fiction.

LES POCKELL, Vice President & Associate Publisher of Warner Books, has also held editorial positions at St. Martin's Press, Doubleday, Kodansha International, and the Book-of-the-Month Club. He is generally involved in acquiring and editing backlist non-fiction titles (including in recent years Genius by Harold Bloom, and America on Trial by Alan Dershowitz), though he has been known to dabble in fiction, especially mysteries. In his spare time he is an anthologist, having edited, among others, The 100 Best Poems of All Time (Warner, 2001) and, with Adrienne Avila, The 101 Greatest Business Principles of All Time.

ROBERT POLITO directs the Graduate Writing Program at the New School. He is a poet, biographer, editor, and critic, and his books include a collection of poems, Doubles, and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. He writes a column for BOOKFORUM, "Shooting the Piano Player," and is currently finishing a new book of poems, and a new nonfiction book.

KRISTINE PUOPOLO has been an editor in book publishing for twelve years, and as held positions at Viking Penguin and Simon & Schuster. She is currently Senior Editor at Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Over the years Kris has acquired major bestsellers including the paperbacks of Dava Sobel's Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, and the National Book Award winner by Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea. She now edits nonfiction at Broadway with special interests in self-help, personal finance, psychology, and history. One of her books, The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, spent fourteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Another book she edited, Gulag by Anne Applebaum, was awarded last year's Pulitzer Prize.

LIAM RECTOR is a member of the PEN American Center's Freedom-to-Write Committee. He founded, directs, and teaches poetry in the graduate Writing Seminars at Bennington College and has administered literary programs at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), The Folger Shakespeare Library, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His books of poems are American Prodigal and The Sorrow of Architecture. He has received Guggenheim and NEA fellowships in poetry and has edited books on the poetry of Donald Hall and Frank Bidart. He lives in New York City.

BRANT RUMBLE is an editor of fiction and nonfiction at Scribner. His list includes Spin senior writer and Esquire columnist Chuck Klosterman, ESPN.com's Rob Neyer, and multi-talented writer and performer Jonathan Ames. Brant's most recent publications include Michael Leahy's When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan's Last Comeback, Mark St. Amant's Committed: Confessions of a Fantasy Football Junkie, and Dallas Hudgens' debut novel Drive Like Hell. Brant lives in Brooklyn with his wife and enough CDs to choke a dying music industry.

MARLY RUSOFF, a former publishing executive at Houghton Mifflin, Doubleday and William Morrow, is currently president of Marly Rusoff & Associates, Inc., an author representation agency based in Bronxville, New York. Her list includes fiction by writers such as Pat Conroy, Arthur Phillips, Adam Langer, Cassandra King, Ron Rash, Daniel Hayes, and Lisa Tucker. Her non-fiction list include works by the NBC Today Show's psychiatrist Dr Gail Saltz, history by Alice Kaplan, memoirs by Patricia Hampl and Kris Ohlson, and psychology by David Walsh and Dr. Salman Akhtar. The list of authors with whom she has worked as a publicist and/or marketer includes Margaret Atwood, Thomas Cahill, Ethan Canin, Pat Conroy, Alex Kotlowitz, Tim O'Brien, Dennis Lehane, Bill Moyers, Sena Jeter Naslund, and Paul Theroux. While at Doubleday, Rusoff also created the first Reading Group Guide specifically aimed at book groups, a popular marketing tool now widely used by publishers to encourage both sales and reading through active community interaction with books.

JONATHAN SACKNER-BERNSTEIN, M.D. is the Director of Clinical Research, Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathy Center and Director, Heart Failure Prevention Program of the Clinical Scholars Program at North Shore University Hospital. Dr. Sackner-Bernstein graduated from the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania prior to being awarded his M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College. He completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and was subsequently board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. His current research focuses on fatigue and cognitive dysfunction in people with heart disease as well as the role of potassium balance as it relates to impaired strength and endurance in heart failure patients. While his research has resulted in numerous publications and he serves as an editorial reviewer for several medical journals, Dr. Sackner-Bernstein is particularly proud to be the author of Before It Happens To You, a layperson's guide to preventing heart disease (and a popular ebook download from www.ChangeThis.com).

KATHARINE SANDS is a literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency in New York City. She represents a wide range of authors in a broad range of categories including legal nonfiction and literary fiction. She has represented the literary estate of Norman Wexler, Academy Award nominee for Saturday Night Fever, XTC: SongStories, and Under the Hula Moon by Jocelyn Fuji (as co-agent). Katharine has been a guest speaker on writing and publishing topics for lawyers and other writers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, New York University and the New York State Council on Arts. Her books have appeared in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times Book Review. She is the author of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent's Eye.

BEN SCHAFER is a Senior Editor at Da Capo Press, where he publishes in the areas of popular culture, music, and history. He has worked as an editor at William Morrow, HarperCollins, Hal Leonard Corporation, and Hanuman Books. He was Series Editor for the 2001 edition of Da Capo Best Music Writing and edited The Herbert Huncke Reader, a collection of writings by the legendary Beat storyteller.

JACKIE SHEELER has two books in print and a third in the birth canal, somewhat on hold while she tries to change the world by touring and recording with her activist rock & roll band, Talk Engine. She is also the founder and publisher of www.poetz.com and hosts a popular weekly reading series in Manhattan. Jackie has been the featured performer at festivals and clubs throughout the US, including Symphony Space, The Culture Project, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Austin International Poetry Festival, The Bowery Poetry Club and The Knitting Factory, and is a frequent performer on WBAI radio. She invites you to visit her personal website at www.shoutedword.com.

DANIEL SIMON is publisher of Seven Stories Press, an independent book publisher based in New York City that publishes works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Octavia Butler, Harriet Scott Chessman, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Martin Duberman, Alan Dugan, Annie Ernaux, Barry Gifford, Stanley Moss, Peter Plate, Charley Rosen, Ted Solotaroff, Lee Stringer, Martin Winckler and Kurt Vonnegut, among many others, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including Tom Athanasiou, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Shere Hite, Robert McChesney, Phil Jackson, Ralph Nader, Gary Null, Benjamin Pogrund, Project Censored, Luis J. Rodriguez, Barbara Seaman, Vandana Shiva, Leora Tanenbaum, Koigi wa Wamwere, Gary Webb and Howard Zinn. While an assistant editor at W.W. Norton in 1983, Simon began editing books for Glenn Thompson of Writers and Readers. Mr. Thompson offered Simon an imprint the next year, to allow him to reissue the works of Nelson Algren, which at that time were completely out of print; these books were published under the "Dan Simon/Four Walls Eight Windows" imprint. For the next eleven years, Simon edited and published books independently. In 1995 he founded Seven Stories Press, with many of the writers he had published in the prior decade. In 1996 Simon was named a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, by order of the French Minister of Culture.

BRANDO SKYHORSE is an editor at Grove Atlantic. A graduate of UC Irvine's MFA Writer's Workshop, he has worked in publishing for several years.

NEIL SODERSTROM is a part-time author agent (adult and children's), with emphasis on photo-illustrated nonfiction. He is also a writer, editor, photographer, and book producer. As agent, he has sold books to Abrams, Andrews & McMeel, Blackbirch, Crown, Knopf, Meredith, Prentice Hall, Scholastic, Sterling, and Wiley. A former Editorial Director at Grolier and a former Senior Editor at Times Mirror and at Creative Homeowner, he developed, acquired, and edited about 100 heavily illustrated adult books, mostly in nature, gardening, and home how-to, as well as a score of children's books. He is the author of three adult books and countless magazine articles. Since going freelance full-time in 1999, he's sold more than 1500 photos to magazine and book publishers, mainly in gardening. His web site: www.agpix.com/soderstrom

DAVID THALBERG is Senior Vice President of Planned Television Arts/Ruder Finn. He joined Planned Television Arts in 1987, and since has created, managed and implemented a broad range of public relations and marketing projects, including those in the fields of publishing, consumer, healthcare, technology and entertainment. He has worked with a variety of clients, including top CEOs, best selling authors, television and movie stars, and "internet startups." David now heads the PTA Entertainment division, developing celebrity identity programs for corporations. His connections with the top Hollywood talent community and both professional, amateur and retired athletes are second to none. He has and continues to work with large publishers, small presses, independent authors, and those using "Print-On-Demand" (POD), developing top publicity campaigns.

CARRIE THORNTON is the Publishing Manager of Three Rivers Press, the trade paperback imprint of The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House. She has been at Crown for five years. Prior to working for Crown, she was a member of the editorial staff at the Touchstone/Fireside imprint at Simon and Schuster. As an editor she has shepherded through such books as The New York Times Bestseller Whatever You Say I Am by Anthony Bozza, How Soon Is Never by Spin Senior writer Marc Spitz, Johnny Cash by the editors of Rolling Stone, Off Season by award-winning travel writer Ken McAlpine, and Prime and Liquor by Poppy Z. Brite. Her upcoming titles include Superstud by Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig, Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, a biography of Russ Meyer by New York Times bestselling author of Shakey, Jimmy McDonough, a book based on the hit Off-Broadway show The Marijuana-Logues, and 20 Years of Alternative Music with Spin magazine. She is a graduate of The College of William and Mary.

BLAIR TINDALL, a journalist and musician, is the author of the forthcoming Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music (Grove/Atlantic Monthly Press, July 2005). She writes about classical music for the New York Times and has performed, toured and recorded with the New York Philharmonic and presented a critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall solo debut recital. She completed Mozart in the Jungle, her first nonfiction book, during a 2004 fellowship at The MacDowell Colony. Tindall has been a staff business reporter for the Hearst San Francisco Examiner, and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Yoga Journal, Harvard's Nieman Reports, Art & Antiques, Business Week, and the International Herald Tribune. In addition to BM and MM degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, Tindall holds an MA in communication from Stanford University, where she has taught journalism while teaching oboe at the University of California-Berkeley. She recently completed a writing residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, where she began work on a second book.

KAREN TORRES is the Vice President of Sales & Marketing at the Time Warner Book Group.

JEANNETTE WALLS grew up in the south west and in West Virginia. She lives in New York and on Long Island, and is married to writer John Taylor. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC and has worked at several publications including Esquire, USA Today and New York Magazine.

DEB WERKSMAN joined Sourcebooks in 1998 as Editorial Manager of Gift Books after 5 years owning her own press. She acquires and develops books that are geared to sell both in the trade and in the alternative markets.

JOSEPH WEISBERG is the author of the novel 10th Grade, a New York Times Notable Book, Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Novel of 2002, and winner of a Young Adult Library Association Alex Award for Adult Novels That Appeal To Teenage Readers. He is currently at work on his second novel, Girls Underwater. By the time you read this, he may have a day job.

MEG WOLITZER published her seventh novel, The Position, in March 2005. She graduated from Brown University in 1981. Her debut novel, Sleepwalking, was released within the following year, hailing the beginning of a successful publishing career. Since then, she has written Hidden Pictures, This Is Your Life, Friends for Life, Surrender, Dorothy, The Wife and The Position; taught writing at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and Skidmore College; and written several screenplays.

For more information, call 212.764.7021 or email the Small Press Center.

An Educational Program of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York. © 2006 Small Press Center 20 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036 212.764.7021