The Write to Pitch Conference 2024 faculty are actively looking for new voices in the genre categories of serious and light women's fiction, suspense women's fiction, mystery, crime, thrillers (all sub-genres), YA and adult science fiction and fantasy (all sub-genres), horror, suspense, historical (all eras), general fiction, upmarket, and literary.
Taken as a whole, they represent an eclectic mix of brilliance, senior experience, and productive ambition. What they have in common is their passion for books, not to mention the fact that they're THE BEST at what they do. We're honored to also include in the list familiar acquisition editors who have transitioned successfully to the book-agenting business, thus greatly increasing their ability to get writers published while still benefiting from their prior publishing house experience and networks.
Faculty workshop leaders and assistant editors can be found on this page, and the conference director here.
At a glance, Eddie Gamarra might be classified as an ambassador & translator between Hollywood and Publishing, but he is so much more. As a studio executive with deep expertise in book publishing and IP he has focused on scouting and negotiating the acquisition of 3rd party projects and possesses a broad range of deal making and contractual experience across media platforms. He has spent the past ten years working as a literary manager at The Gotham Group in Los Angeles with clients that include numerous NY Times best-selling authors and Annie, Emmy, Oscar, Caldecott and Newbury award winners. Additionally, Eddie has been an Executive Producer of both streaming and theatrical motion pictures (THE MAZE RUNNER trilogy from 20th Century Fox, Disney+'s production of Jerry Spinelli's STARGIRL, and Henry Selick's feature with Jordan Peele, WENDELL AND WILD, for Netflix) released worldwide. A former college professor, Dr. Gamarra received his BA from Vassar, a Masters from NYU and a MA/ PhD from Emory.
Vanessa Aguirre is an Assistant Editor at St. Martin's Press. In both YA and adult, Vanessa is looking for sharp, commercial stories that make her laugh, cry, and flinch--especially if on the same page. She has a soft spot for anything SFFH: fantasy, science fiction, horror, speculative, magical realism (especially if it honors its anti-colonialist Latin American roots), and all things in between. She is also actively looking for mysteries, thrillers, and select romances. Regardless of genre, if you have a story with characters who you'd (affectionately) say need therapy, she'll be hooked! If you think your book is a little weird, a little dark, and/or a little twisty, she would love to read it.
Matt Rusin is an Assistant Editor at Tor Publishing Group where he has worked for over four years. Building a list in commercial and upmarket science fiction and fantasy, his tastes include climate fiction, contemporary fantasy, light sci-fi, and tragicomedies. Authors he has worked with include Moses Ose Utomi, Seanan McGuire, Ray Nayler, and many more.
Mary Baker is an assistant editor at Berkley. She joined the editorial team in 2021 after starting her career in Penguin's subsidiary rights contracts department. Mary acquires swoony contemporary romance and romantic comedies, fantasy of both the heart-poundingly romantic and heartwarmingly cozy varieties, fresh book club fiction, and feel-good mysteries. Her upcoming projects include debut romances LOVE AND OTHER CONSPIRACIES by Mallory Marlowe and CROSS THE LINE by Simone Soltani. Mary is originally from St. Louis and a graduate of Emerson College.
Sareer Khader is an Editor at Berkley which she joined in 2019 after graduating from the Columbia Publishing Course. She is particularly keen to acquire more immersive romantasy with stunning worlds and swoony relationships, cozy fantasy with warmth and heart (particularly with themes of found family), diverse horror and thrillers, elevated contemporary romance and romcoms, and genre blending book club fiction. Some of her forthcoming projects are Nick Medina's INDIAN BURIAL GROUND, HAPPY MEDIUM by Sarah Adler, and SUNSHINE AND SPICE by Aurora Palit. Sareer was raised on Disney and Bollywood, and her cat is basically the feline version of Toothless.
Jeff Deverett is a producer, director, writer, and actor known for "Full Out 2: You Got This!" (2020), "ism" (2019), "The Samuel Project" (2018), "Kiss & Cry" (2017), "Full Out" (2015), "King of the Camp" (2008) and "My Brother's Keeper" (2004). Jeff's successful film and TV career began with distribution with New World Entertainment, Astral Communications, Anchor Bay Entertainment and his own company, Deverett Media Group.
Jane K. Cleland writes both fiction and nonfiction, including the long-running and multiple award-winning JOSIE PRESCOTT ANTIQUES MYSTERY series [St. Martin's and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine] and the Agatha-award winning bestsellers, MASTERING SUSPENSE, STRUCTURE AND PLOT, AND MASTERING PLOT TWISTS [Writer's Digest Books]--all recommended by Dan Brown, David Baldacci, Louise Penny, and Neil Gaiman. She is a member of the fulltime faculty at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York, a contributing editor for Writer's Digest Magazine, and the chair of the Wolfe Pack's Black Orchid Novella Award (BONA) in partnership with Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. She is a frequent workshop leader and guest author at writing conferences, association meetings, and MFA Residencies. Also, Jane offers free monthly virtual workshops on the craft and business of writing, and Mystery Masterminds, a series of small group virtual workshops. More details available on her website.
Tom Colgan
An Executive Editor at Penguin, Tom has worked in publishing for over thirty years. His specialties are general fiction, category fiction, mysteries, thrillers, and just about any high-concept marketable tale. Classic authors he has worked with in legendary times include Tom Clancy, Ed McBain, Clive Cussler, W.E.B. Griffin, and Jack Higgins.
Amy Collins
Amy Collins is an agent with the Talcott Notch Literary Services agency. With 30 years in the publishing industry as a book buyer, Sales Director for large non-fiction publisher and the founder and President of New Shelves Books, one of the largest book sales and marketing companies in the US. She is a USA TODAY and WALL STREET JOURNAL bestselling author and has spent her career working with Barnes & Noble, Target, and Books-A-Million, as well as bookstores and libraries. Collins is also a trusted expert, speaker, and recommended publishing consultant for some of the largest book and library retailers and wholesalers in the publishing industry. In her agent role, Collins focuses on non-fiction/ history, historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi.
Marisa Corvisiero
Marisa A. Corvisiero is the founder and CEO of the Corvisiero Literary Agency. She is a literary consultant, speaker and author, and continues to practice law in New York City and Red Bank, NJ with specialties in publishing, and other areas. She is actively looking for romance and women's fiction, thrillers, adventure, fantasy and science fiction, and any combination thereof. For middle grade and young adult she likes character driven stories with humor or grit, as well as high concepts in any time period and setting with authentic and standout voices and #ownvoices.
Gemma Creffield
Gemma has worked in the publishing industry in various roles for close to ten years. She is a lover of dystopian, feminist, literary-leaning, and message-driven fiction. She also loves steampunk, mystery, crime, fairytale/folklore and adventure-fantasy. During her career, she has commissioned tiktok-darling Stacey McEwan's bestselling GLACIAN TRILOGY for Angry Robot and #1 New York Times bestselling author, Kelley Armstrong, for Datura among many other favorites. She loves to champion new voices and bring out the very best in an author's potential. Find her on Twitter: @geebiegems
Dina Davis
Dina Davis is an Associate Editor for MIRA Books, a Harlequin imprint within HarperCollins. Before joining the team this April, Dina worked at Harlequin's Love Inspired and Love Inspired Suspense imprints for seven years. Dina enjoys an emotional story that has her immediately connecting with the characters - whether she loves or hates them. She's building her MIRA list, acquiring commercial and upmarket fiction across genres, including thrillers, suspense, light sci-fi and fantasy, historical fiction, women's fiction, horror, and rom-coms.
Mara Delgado-Sanchez
Mara is an acquiring editorial assistant for St. Martin's press. Her particular interests are Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Women's Fiction, and Young Adult. For adult, she is looking for all types of category romance, rom coms, and love stories, as well diverse and #ownvoices stories in both, adult and YA. In YA, she has a soft spot for fantasy, especially if non-Western. She loves fairy tale, legends and myth retellings, exploring other cultures, and twists to historical events. She is also looking for crossover fiction, whether contemporary or fantasy.
Brendan Deneen
Brendan Deneen is the Director of Media, TV and Film at Blackstone Publishing where he works as both an acquiring editor and book-to-film/TV producer. Previously, Deneen was an Executive Editor at Tor/Macmillan for nearly a decade, where he edited dozens of books, including the New York Times-bestselling WALKING DEAD novels. Over the last twenty years, he has sold book projects to nearly every major movie studio, television network, and streaming platform. Before Macmillan, Deneen was a book-to-film executive for Scott Rudin and at Miramax/Dimension Films. He started his career at William Morris, working for legendary literary agent Owen Laster. Deneen is also an author, with over a dozen books published so far, including work for both Marvel and DC Comics; and he is the Founder and CEO of Scout Comics.
Michaela Hamilton
Michaela Hamilton, executive editor at Kensington, acquires and edits commercial fiction including thrillers, mainstream mysteries, cozy mysteries, women's fiction, true crime, platform-driven memoirs, and nonfiction and fiction involving animals. Highlights of her publishing career include DONNIE BRASCO by Joseph D. Pistone, SMALL SACRIFICES by Ann Rule, JFK HAS BEEN SHOT by Dr. Charles Crenshaw, and AN UNEXPECTED GRACE by Kristin von Kreisler.
Lyssa Keusch
Executive Editor Lyssa Keusch acquires primarily commercial fiction for the William Morrow/Avon imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Her main focus is on rich, textured, thought-provoking commercial women's fiction, contemporary upmarket or historical fiction, and high-concept thrillers, mysteries and suspense. She has launched the careers of New York Times bestselling authors James Rollins and Julia Quinn, with whom she is thrilled to continue to work. Among her other authors are New York Times bestsellers J. A. Jance, Jefferson Bass, Samantha James, and Elizabeth Boyle, award-winners Jamie Freveletti, Sean Chercover, Robin Burcell, and Mary Daheim, and international bestsellers Kathryn Fox and Glenn Cooper. While her list is generally comprised of commercial fiction, she enjoys editing the occasional narrative nonfiction project as well, keeping an eye out for books in which the reader learns something fascinating, on topics ranging from popular science and nature to history to cultural explorations to memoir.
Katharine has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books including fiction, memoir, and non-fiction. When reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. Among the books she represents are THE APOTHECARY'S CURSE, nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2017 in the First Novel category by Barbara Barnett; and GIRL WALKS OUT OF A BAR, a memoir by Lisa Smith that was featured by People Magazine as Notable Nonfiction. For memoir, femoir, and himoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed. Katharine also likes books that have a clear benefit for readers' lives in the categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, life challenges and popular culture.
Amy Stapp
Amy Stapp received her BA from Samford University and MA from Georgia State University before beginning her publishing career at Macmillan, where she was an editor for seven years and had the privilege of working with numerous New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors. Amy is now actively building her list at Wolfson Literary, with an interest in women's fiction, mystery, suspense, upmarket book club fiction, historical fiction, mature young adult, upper middle grade, and select narrative nonfiction. She is particularly drawn to a high concept commercial hook, as well as polished, well-paced prose, immersive settings, and smart, multidimensional characters. As an editorial agent, she enjoys working hand-in-hand with authors to take their work to the next level. Find her online at WolfsonLiterary.Com.
Elizabeth Trout
Elizabeth Trout is an associate editor at Kensington Publishing. A graduate of Kenyon College and the Columbia Publishing Course, Elizabeth began her publishing career working for literary agents before moving over to the editorial department at Kensington in 2018. She is seeking voice-driven women's fiction with romance crossover, historical fiction, gothic fiction, mysteries that are not fully cozy but not procedural, and general fiction with a paranormal or magical realism tilt, but grounded in our world. Recent and upcoming books on her list include IN THE EVENT OF LOVE by Courtney Kae, A HALF-BAKED MURDER by Emily George, THE FIRST DATE PROPHECY by Kate & Danny Tamberelli, and HER LITTLE FLOWERS by Shannon Morgan.
Michelle Vega
Michelle Vega is an Editor with the Berkley Publishing Group, an imprint of Penguin Group, USA. She has a Master's degree in British and American literature and began her career with Berkley in 2005. She is interested in cozy, paranormal, traditional and historical mysteries. She also loves urban fantasy, thrillers, suspense, horror, and some YA, but she'll read anything with intriguing characters and a compelling plot. Her mystery authors are published under Berkley's New York Times bestselling Prime Crime imprint and she has also acquired for the Berkley, Ace, and Jove lines.
Scott Veltri
As the founder of STORRE PICTURES, Scott is currently in production on a feature documentary in collaboration with Mark Wahlberg's UNREALISTIC IDEAS ON THE RISE AND FALL OF MOVIEPASS for HBO, as well as a true-crime feature with Jessica Biel's Iron Ocean, and a Thai set pop-culture infused murder mystery. Doc projects are in the works with Participant Media, Oscar winning director Ross Kaufman, and Oscar nominated and Emmy winning director Jed Rothstein. On the scripted side he has projects in development with Universal Content Productions, Netflix, MGM, Apatow Productions, Augenschein Filmproduktion Germany, and Universal Intl. Studios. Storre's first original novel, EXIT BLACK, was published by Blackstone in February 2024. Previously Scott was a partner at Assemble Media where he Executive Produced John Michael McDonagh's THE FORGIVEN (TIFF 2021) starring Jessica Chastain, Ralph Fiennes, Matt Smith, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbey Lee and Christopher Abbott and Gia Coppola's MAINSTREAM (Venice 2020) starring Andrew Garfield, Maya Hawke, Alexa Demie and Jason Schwartzman. Prior to Assemble, Veltri was Head of Worldwide Sales at Magnolia Pictures where he handled the international launch on over 30 independent films including Sean Baker's TANGERINE, Crystal Moselle's THE WOLFPACK, Werner Herzog's LO AND BEHOLD, Steve James' LIFE ITSELF, Albert Maysles' IRIS, Morgan Neville's BEST OF ENEMIES, and LUCKY starring Harry Dean Stanton and David Lynch.
Jess Verdi
Senior Editor Jess Verdi joined Alcove Press and Crooked Lane Books in 2022, after well over a decade in commercial fiction and romance editorial, including six years as Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster and a recent turn in the cutting-edge world of mobile storytelling apps. An author herself, Jess has a 360-degree view of the publishing industry, and enjoys working with authors to bring exciting, thought-provoking, and heartstring-tugging stories to the world. For her Alcove list, she's especially drawn to laugh-out-loud and swoony rom-coms, stories exploring gender and sexuality in fresh ways, and novels featuring complex family and/or racial dynamics. For Crooked Lane, she's looking for feminist and progressive thriller, mystery, and suspense-edgy is great but nothing too dark or gory, please.
Tessa Woodward
Senior Editor Tessa Woodward edits a wide array of romance, women's fiction, and historical fiction. On the romance side, she edits authors across all genres, including the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers Tessa Dare, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Jennifer Bernard, and Maya Rodale. Her women's fiction titles range from USA Today bestseller Shelley Noble's beach-set novels, to Molly McAdams' New York Times bestselling New Adult stories, to Lisa Turner's psychological mysteries, and the New York Times bestselling historical ORPHAN #8, a debut from Kim van Alkemade. She is the US editor for international bestseller Paullina Simons.
Barbara Zitwer
BJZ Agency is a global literary agency that is based in New York City for over 22 years. Barbara J Zitwer's strength and expertise is in her ability to discover new writers and launch their international careers. She also works with established authors in their home countries like Korea, who want to break out into the world. At the beginning, Zitwer discovered Jerry Stahl, Eric Garcia, Sharon Krum, and THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB which was a NYTimes Bestseller for over a year, Jeff Noon, winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award for his debut VURT, among others. She is responsible for the Korean New Wave in global publishing which won her the 2016 International Literary Agent of the Year Award and launched the careers of Shirley Jackson Prize winner Hye young Pyun's THE HOLE, Booker International Prize winner Han Kang's THE VEGETARIAN and Kyung Sook Shin's PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM, Man Asian Prize winner and also became a NY TIMES Bestseller. And besides being a legendary literary agent, Barbara also carries the distinction of being the producer of one of Hollywood's greatest cult comedies of all time, "Vampire's Kiss," starring Nicolas Cage.