Many of the nation’s best-known and best-loved agents will be in The Big Easy this year to review and consult with you. Enjoy this closer look at our agent and editor faculty.
Brettne Bloom is an agent at The Book Group, a full-service literary agency located in the heart of Manhattan. Launched in 2015 by publishing industry veterans Julie Barer, Faye Bender, Brettne, and Elisabeth Weed, The Book Group shares a singular passion: to seek out and cultivate writers, and to serve as their champions throughout their careers. They represent a wide range of distinguished authors, including critically acclaimed and bestselling novelists, celebrated writers of children’s literature, and award-winning historians, food writers, memoirists and journalists. Most recently, her author Jennifer Steil’s book, The Ambassador’s Wife, has been optioned for a television series, with actor Anne Hathaway signed on to star and co-produce!
Brandi Bowles is an agent at Foundry Literary + Media, a full-service literary and media-development agency in New York. Brandi represents idea and platform-driven nonfiction in all categories, but she’s particularly interested in humor, narrative nonfiction, and big-idea books that change the way we think about the world. Some of her upcoming books include The Hollow Bone: Secrets From the Life of a Reiki Master, The Vice Lords: A History of Wayward Writers, and a memoir from Youtube sensation Ted Williams, the most honest and inspiring story about homelessness you’ll ever read. Brandi also represents literary fiction, commercial fiction, women’s fiction, and YA, particularly novels that feature strong female bonds, as well as psychological or scientific themes. Previously, she was an agent with Howard Morhaim Literary Agency in Brooklyn, NY and an editor at Three Rivers Press. She represents a wide range of authors, from burlesque performers to archeologists, as well as illustrators, professors, CEOs, chefs, rappers, folk musicians, and fitness gurus. As Brandi said in one interview, “I really love big idea books, and books about broad sociological phenomena, but will only consider them if they are written by experts in their fields. I love books that shed new light on something in pop culture, media culture, and everyday life. In terms of fiction, I like Southern fiction, experimental fiction, and cross-cultural novels. Quirky, funny, edgy, or naughty book ideas are always welcome in my inbox, and bonus points go to any authors that can make me laugh.”
Elise Capron is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, which was established over 30 years ago and is known for guiding the careers of many best-selling fiction and non-fiction authors, including Amy Tan, Lisa See, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chitra Divakaruni, Eric Foner, Marcus Rediker, and many more. A graduate of Emerson College, Elise holds a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing. She has been with the Dijkstra Agency since 2003.On the fiction side, Elise is interested in serious character-driven literary fiction with unforgettable writing, a terrific narrative voice/tone, and memorable characters. She loves novels with an unusual or eccentric edge, and is drawn to stories she has never heard before. On the non-fiction front, she is looking primarily for well-written narrative nonfiction, particularly history. She aims to work with writers who are getting their work published regularly in magazines and who have a realistic sense of the market and their audience. A few of Elise’s recent and soon-to-be-published books include Courtney Brkic’s The First Rule of Swimming (Little, Brown), Tiphanie Yanique’sThe Land of Love and Drowning (Riverhead) and How to Escape From a Leper Colony (Graywolf), Jane Vandenburgh’sThe Wrong Dog Dream: A True Romance (Counterpoint), Jonathon Keats’ Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age (Oxford University Press), Maureen McHugh’s After the Apocalypse (Small Beer Press) which was picked as a “Top Ten Book of the Year” by Publishers Weekly, Billy Smith’sShip of Death: The Voyage That Changed the Atlantic World, Jack Shuler’s upcoming The Noose: A History (Public Affairs), and many more.
Deborah Grosvenor has more than 25 years’ experience in the book publishing business as an agent and editor. During her career, she has edited or represented several hundred nonfiction books. As an editor, she acquired Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October. Her distinguished client list includes nationally prominent writers, New York Times bestselling authors, and prize-winning historians and journalists. Among them are Stephen Coonts, Eleanor Clift, Morton Kondracke, Thomas Oliphant, Charlie Engle, Harrison Scott Key, John Sexton, Henry Allen, Aaron Miller, Scott Wallace, Curtis Wilkie, Nina Burleigh, Thomas Fleming, Jonathan Green, Jay Rubenstein, Willard Randall, Mark Geragos, Peter Cozzens, Meg Noonan, Barbara Dreyfuss and Elizabeth Pryor. Deborah is interested in narrative nonfiction in the categories of history, biography, politics, current and foreign affairs, memoir, food, the South, humor, Italy, the environment, and travel. For fiction, she is simply interested in great storytelling, especially in an historical context. Deborah is the recipient of the TWIN award (Tribute to Women in Industry), given by the YWCA and industry to “outstanding women who have made significant contributions to their companies in managerial and executive positions.” She has been a part of the Faulkner Society’s annual fall festival since Word & Music was created and regularly judges a category of the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition.
Jeff Kleinman is a literary agent, intellectual property attorney, and founding partner of Folio Literary Management, LLC, a New York literary agency which works with all of the major U.S. publishers (and, through subagents, with most international publishers). He’s a graduate of Case Western Reserve University (J.D.), the University of Chicago (M.A., Italian), and the University of Virginia (B.A. with High Distinction in English). As an agent, Jeff feels privileged to have the chance to learn about an incredible variety of new subjects, meet an extraordinary range of people, and feel, at the end of the day, that he’s helped to build something – a wonderful book, perhaps, or an author’s career. His authors include Garth Stein, Eowyn Ivey, Robert Hicks, Charles Shields, Bruce Watson, Neil White, and Philip Gerard. His interests include Nonfiction, especially narrative nonfiction with a historical bent, but also memoir, health, parenting, aging, nature, pets, how-to, science, politics, military, espionage, equestrian, and biography; and Fiction: very well-written, character-driven novels, some suspense, thrillers, mainstream upmarket commercial (i.e. book club), and literary fiction. He has absolutely no interest in children’s, romance, mysteries, westerns, poetry, screenplays, novels about serial killers, suicide, or children in peril (kidnapped, killed, raped, etc.). For more information about Jeff (including interviews, books sold, and so forth), please visit him at his site.
Jennifer Weltz is a Literary Agent at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. As President of JVNLA, Jennifer Weltz has sold books domestically, internationally, and for film for nearly two decades. Coming from a mediation background, Jennifer sees herself as a liaison between her author and the editor and publishing house that acquires her author’s work. This role takes on a myriad of forms — business manager, confidant, taskmaster, preliminary editor, and matchmaker — to name a few. Since Jennifer takes up an author’s career and not just a project, she is very careful and selective about signing on new authors. Read more…