EDITORS and AGENTS

TRISH TODD will be our Saturday lunch keynote speaker.  Trish Todd is vice president and editor-in-chief of Touchstone Fireside, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Among the historical novelists she has edited are New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Other Queen), New York Times bestselling author Kathleen McGowan (The Expected One, The Book of Love), Anne Easter Smith (A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, The King’s Grace), Rose Melikan (The Blackstone Key, The Counterfeit Guest), Jack Todd (Sun Going Down), and Patricia O’Brien (The Glory Cloak, Harriet and Isabella).

STEPHANIE CABOT spent nine years at the William Morris Agency in London, the last five as Managing Director, where she represented many international bestselling and prize-winning authors. She moved back to the States in 2005, joined The Gernert Company, and is now selectively adding American writers to her list. In addition to working with her own clients, she also draws on her international publishing experience as the agency’s Foreign Rights Director. It’s very likely that she majored in History at Harvard because, as a child, she read Katherine by Anya Seton and The King Must Die by Mary Renault. Among the fine historical novelists she represents are Catherine Delors (Mistress of the Revolution), Mark Mills (Amagansett), Belinda Starling (The Journal of Dora Damage), and Nicholas Griffin (Dizzy City). Historical novelists to be published in 2009/2010 include Matthew Flaming (The Kingdom of Ohio), Sarah Blake (The Postmistress) and Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Wench).

SHANA DREHS is a senior editor at Sourcebooks, Inc. She started her career at Crown/Random House, where she acquired/edited four New York Times bestsellers. After more than five years she moved to Sourcebooks (publishers of historical novelists as diverse as Georgette Heyer, Winston Graham, R. F. Delderfield, Helen Hollick, Linda Berdoll, and Susan Higginbotham), where in addition to nonfiction, she's acquiring a broad range of historical fiction. Among the historical novelists she's working with are Alan Cheuse (To Catch the Lightning) and Elizabeth Chadwick (The Greatest Knight, Lords of the White Castle), and she has experience in giving new life to fabulous older historical fiction (works by Margaret Campbell Barnes, Margaret Irwin).

SUSANNA EINSTEIN is one of the founding agents at LJK Literary Management. She started her publishing career in the editorial department at Warner Books (now Grand Central Publishing) in 1995. During her six years there, she edited crime fiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction and non-fiction, and worked with authors like Charlotte Carter, James Ellroy, Karen Essex, Pete Hamill, Christian Jacq, Maureen Tan and David Foster Wallace. In 2002, Susanna became a senior scout at Maria B. Campbell Associates, an international scouting agency. Susanna represents historical fiction authors Maggie Anton (the Rashi’s Daughters trilogy), Edith Felber (Queen of Shadows), and Cecelia Holland (Great Maria et al, and the upcoming The Secret History of Eleanor of Aquitaine). She would love to find some wonderful historical crime fiction or historical adventure. She is primarily interested in good characterization and storytelling, and is no doubt less interested than she should be about the historical accuracy of the fiction she enjoys. It’s great when the history is painstakingly researched, but it’s terrible if the research shows, or, to quote Ellington/Mills, “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”

ALEXANDRA MACHINIST joined the Linda Chester Literary Agency in March 2007. A native New Yorker and perennial Janklow & Nesbit college summer intern, after graduating from the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia School of Law, Alexandra practiced corporate law for a couple of years before delightedly returning to the literary fold. She is a promiscuous reader whose interests span a huge range of genres, with the common element being a superlative and engaging voice. She is actively building her list and looking for literary fiction, historical fiction, pop-culture (particularly science and nature), narrative nonfiction, and anything that explores an unknown subculture or subtext. In historical fiction, her interests span a most time frames and settings, though she is reluctant to read much more in the Civil War or World War II eras. She is particularly keen on fictionalized stories of real historical characters, women’s stories, and narratives set in exotic or lesser-known locales. Recent historical fiction sales include Erica Eisdorfer's The Wet Nurse’s Tale, a neo-Victorian novel in the tradition of Sarah Waters and Michel Faber (Putnam), and J. Sydney Jones’ The Empty Mirror, the first in a series of Vienna historical thrillers (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne).

BARBARA PETERS is Editor at Poisoned Pen Press.  Poisoned Pen Press, now distributed by Ingram Distribution Services, ideally publishes 36 original mysteries each year. Our focus is on well written, well crafted mysteries, not thrillers, books often termed "mid-list." We are not looking at thrillers, speculative fiction, or, sadly, at previously published authors which includes self- or co-published authors as well as those published at other houses, at this time.  Looking specifically at historical mysteries, nearly any period in history is of interest except the 20th century as our list already contains authors working in this area. I can also say that right now the market is so crowded with what I call the Tudor Industry I would take a pass on this era. Submission guidelines, which are strictly observed, are posted at www.poisonedpenpress.com. We encourage unagented authors to submit work; we offer one standard contract to all our authors which is not negotiable, and we do not accept simultaneous submissions or books going to auction.

PAM STRICKLER was senior editor for sixteen years at Ballantine Books and is now working as an authors’ representative with her own company.  Her web page is at www.pamstrickler.com for current information.  Pam is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR).  She started her agency in 2001 and previously was associated as an independent agent with the Scovil Chichak Galen Agency of New York. As an agent, Pam has represented first novels such as Dorothea Benton Frank’s Sullivan's Island (with SCG), and the recent sale to Berkley of Kate Quinn’s Mistress of Rome, a saga of ancient Rome pitched as Bernard Cornwell for women. While on staff at Ballantine, two of Pam’s bestselling authors won the prestigious Western Writers of America Spur award for their frontier epics:  Lucia St. Clair Robson and James Alexander Thom.  Pam also worked there with historical romance authors such as Fern Michaels and Jennifer Wilde.  Now, Pam Strickler is seeking to represent historical fiction of all types, particularly those in the tradition of Philippa Gregory, and also mainstream historical romance.