Irene Goodman will be our Saturday lunch keynote speaker. Her agenting career began over twenty-five years ago, when, as an editorial assistant, she defied her boss at a publishing company and walked a check request into the president’s office. She hasn’t looked back since. Established in her own agency in 1978, she is particularly interested in women’s voices, historical fiction, thrillers, graphic novels, mysteries, and literary fiction. Her non-fiction passions include narrative history, education, social commentary and issues, memoir, cooking, animals, 19^th century American authors, Anglophilia, Francophilia, and Judaica.  Especially adept at career building, she works with authors at all levels, from New York Times bestsellers to talented newcomers. She is known for holding “power summits,” in which she meets with an author and the editor, publisher, marketing director, publicist, and the author’s personal publicist to focus intently on the author’s career and specific plans for continued success.  She loves to take authors with good careers and turn them into bestsellers with great careers. Her clients include New York Times bestsellers Linda Lael Miller, Sharyn McCrumb, Shirlee Busbee, and Katherine Stone, USA Today bestsellers Lori Handeland, Susan Donovan, Cheryl Holt, and Celeste Bradley, graphic novelist Barbara Slate, memoirist Hannah Nyala, historical fiction authors Amanda Elyot, Diane Haeger, Elsa Watson, Carrie Bebris and John Cooney, literary playwright and author Meir Ribalow, and history professor Kenneth Stow. Other authors with whom she has worked include Debbie Macomber, Joan Johnston, and Deborah Smith.

ATTENDING EDITORS:

Hope Dellon is an executive editor at St. Martin’s Press in New York.  Her parents, who met while pursuing advanced degrees in history, did their best to pass their love of the subject along to their children through lively discussions at the dinner table and enthusiastic visits to small-town historical societies on family vacations.  This unfortunately backfired with Hope, who avoided the formal study of history as much as she could.  She did, however, find herself drawn to novels that seemed to go beyond historical facts to bring earlier eras to life.  After graduating from Yale with a B.A. and M.A. in English literature, she joined St. Martin’s in 1975.  She has been privileged to work with many wonderful storytellers, including Bernard Cornwell, Margaret George, Anne Perry, and Brenda Rickman Vantrease, who have taught her most of what she knows about history to this day.  Her main areas of interest in historical fiction include mainstream novels and historical mysteries/thrillers.

Senior Editor Allison McCabe joined the Crown Publishing Group (Random House) in New York in 2005 to expand Crown’s very successful historical fiction program.  Before joining Crown, she was at Penguin Group (USA) where she acquired and edited both fiction and nonfiction.  Prior to that, Allison was an editor at HarperCollins, where she worked with New York Times bestselling authors Susan Isaacs, Jeffrey Archer, Anne Rivers Siddons, Tony Hillerman, Simon Winchester, Jerry Oppenheimer, and Sister Wendy Beckett.  At Crown, in addition to historical novels, she is acquiring commercial fiction, memoirs, historical biographies, and quirky nonfiction.  Upcoming nonfiction projects include Privilege and Scandal, a biography of Harriet Spencer, ancestor to Diana, Princess of Wales, and sister to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.  Her editorial interest in historical novels is mainstream only.  No subgenres.

Jackie Swift has been an editor at McBooks Press in Ithaca, New York since 2001.  Before that she attended graduate school in creative writing; taught literature, composition, and creative writing; and worked as a freelance journalist, writer, and editor.  Her goal as a freelancer was to explore as much of the world as possible while doing research for thoughtful articles on environmental, social, and cultural issues, very often presented with the historical background to make sense of the modern situation.  A lover of history from an early age, she no longer has cable TV because she spent too much time watching the History Channel and A&E historical mini-series.  As an editor at McBooks, Jackie has been fortunate to work with many first-time authors of historical fiction, as well as to oversee the American publication of British authors such as Alexander Kent and Julian Stockwin.  At McBooks the emphasis is on action-oriented historical fiction that appeals primarily to men, with a strong secondary appeal to women, set in any time period.  Recent acquisitions include novels of Ancient Rome, Colonial America, and WWII Europe.

ATTENDING AGENTS:

Dan Mandel has been a successful literary agent with Sanford J. Greenburger Associates in New York City for over ten years.  His list includes books by academics, experienced authors, and first-time novelists writing a wide-range of commercial and literary fiction.  His historical fiction and nonfiction clients include Cara Haycak (Red Palms), Michael Abrams (Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers: Wingsuits and the Pioneers Who Flew in Them, Fell in Them, and Perfected Them), and Lamar Herrin (Romancing Spain).  He represents both contemporary and historical fiction and nonfiction writers and is open to mainstream historical fiction as well as historical mysteries and thrillers.  He is a graduate of Cornell University.

With over ten years of publishing experience, Kirsten Manges spent the last eight years prior to opening her own agency with Curtis Brown, Ltd.  There, she cultivated a strong stable of writers in the tradition of one of the oldest and most highly regarded literary agencies, while developing a firm understanding of the many steps involved in building an author’s career.  Now with her own agency, Kirsten continues to aggressively and energetically represent both longstanding relationships and new writers.  Her interest in historical fiction runs the gamut, with the exception of strict genre romance and fantasy.  A graduate of Oberlin College, she is a member of the AAR and lives in NYC with her husband and cats.

Jessica Regel has been with the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency in New York for five years.  She agents her own list of children’s and adult books while also working in the subsidiary rights department, concentrating on film rights and handling permissions and children’s magazine submissions.  Jessica is interested in mainstream historical fiction for adults as well as middle grade and young adult, including all subgenres: any story with a great voice and original plot.  At the moment, she is on a mission to find a narrative nonfiction book on social or historical issues targeted toward young adults (12-18)--think The Kite Runner or Random Family for a younger demographic.  She received her BA degree in English Literature from Hunter College.

Karen Solem has been a literary agent for over ten years.  Karen began her agenting career at Writers House in New York and opened her own agency, Spencerhill Associates Literary Agency, based in Chatham, New York in 2001.  Prior to her career as a literary agent, Karen was Editor-in-Chief of Silhouette Books from its launch in 1980 through 1989.  She then joined HarperCollins, where she was Associate Publisher and Editorial Director of Harper Paperbacks.  Karen represents a broad range of commercial nonfiction and fiction, including women’s fiction, historical novels, thrillers, and mysteries.  She also represents works in the inspirational/religious market.  Karen’s a huge fan of historical novels and is looking to expand her list.  For the conference, she would like to see straight historical fiction as well as historical romance and mystery.

Andrea Somberg joined Harvey Klinger Inc. in the spring of 2005. Previously she was an agent at Vigliano Associates and the Don Maass Agency. She handles a wide range of projects, both fiction and non-fiction, including literary, commercial, young adult, memoir, pop-culture, how-to, self-help, humor, interior design, cookbooks, and health and fitness. Recent titles include Bruce Benderson's memoir and winner of the Prixe de Flore, The Romanian (Tarcher), Tammar Stein's Light Years (Knopf Childrens - nominated for Best Book for Young Adult 2006 by ALA), Justine Musk's Blood Angel, Mitchell Bartoy's noir mystery, The Devil's Own Ragdoll (St. Martin's), Paula Jolin's In the Name of God (Roaring Brook, fc), and Paula Quinn's historical romances (Hachette/Warner).