Agents and Editors

Ginger Clark (www.curtisbrown.com) has been a literary agent at Curtis Brown LTD since the Fall of 2005. She represents science fiction, fantasy, paranormal romance, paranormal chicklit, literary horror, and young adult and middle grade novels. Previously, Ginger worked at Writers House for six years as an assistant literary agent.

Jessica Regel (www.jvnla.com) has worked at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. for five years. She's always looking for strong commercial fiction, literary fiction, edgy hip fiction, young adult, and middle grade novels, children's nonfiction, and narrative nonfiction. She doesn't handle practical nonfiction, inspirational or religious, genre science fiction or fantasy, or political thrillers.

Elaine P. English is an attorney and literary agent in Washington, D.C. As an attorney, for more than twenty years, she has focused her practice on literary, media and entertainment law, with a special emphasis on publishing. She regularly advises authors on matters involving contracts, copyright, trademark, libel, privacy and other issues relating to the publishing business. Her clients also include some small publishing companies, including several electronic publishers, photographers, and television and video production companies. For the last six years, she has also been representing authors as a literary agent. As an agent, she handles only commercial fiction, including women’s fiction, romances (of all types), mysteries and thrillers. For further information, see her website at www.elaineenglish.com.

Assistant Editor Tessa Woodward has been with Avon since September 2005. She works with Carrie Feron on her impressive list of bestselling authors including Teresa Medeiros and Eloisa James, in addition to Karen Ranney and Mary Castillo. She is looking to acquire all genres of romance — especially Regency and Victorian historicals with strong heroines and sexy heroes.

Melanie Donovan is an executive editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont and a master’s from the University of Denver. She began her publishing career as a publicity assistant at Golden Books, then moved to William Morrow as Children’s Books Marketing Manager before becoming an editor for their Lothrop, Lee & Shepard imprint. She joined the editorial staff at HarperCollins when Harper purchased William Morrow.

Melanie’s interests span the children’s book spectrum from nonfiction to picture books to novels. She has particular weaknesses for fantasy and humor, both of which are present in her recent acquisition of a fantasy trilogy by Sarah Prineas. Among the many authors and artists she has worked with are Lynne Reid Banks, Hilari Bell, Nicki Grimes, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Kadir Nelson, Helen Oxenbury, Jerry Pinkney, Rosemary Wells, and Stan, Jan and Michael Berenstain. Melanie also oversees the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out science series and publishing programs with the Emily Post Institute and the Smithsonian Institution under the Collins nonfiction imprint.

Paul Stevens is an Associate Editor with Tom Doherty Associates. He acquires a wide range of books, including science fiction and fantasy for Tor Books. Some of his recent books are Gil’s All Fright Diner and A Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez, and Fashionably Late by Nadine Dajani. Paul is also interested in humor projects, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as fiction dealing with Middle Eastern issues.

Paul took an unusual route to become an editor. After graduating with a degree in Arabic from Ohio State University, Paul landed a job in investment banking where he worked for several years and hated every minute of it. In 1998, Paul moved to New York City for yet another investment banking job, but immediately began his move into publishing by taking courses at New York University. Paul joined Tor in 2000.

Ginjer Buchanan is Senior Executive Editor and Marketing Director at the Berkley Publishing Group. She acquires science fiction and fantasy, mysteries, and pop culture and nonfiction.

Ginjer was born in Pittsburgh and earned degrees from Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh. She moved to New York City in the early '70s, where she made her living for over a dozen years as a social worker. During that time, she also worked as a freelancer for various SF publishers, including Pocket Books, where she was the consulting editor for the Star Trek novel program, and The Science Fiction Book Club, for which she did outside reading. In 1984, she was offered a full time job as an editor at Ace Books. In 1987, she was promoted to Senior Editor; in 1994, to Executive Editor, SF and Fantasy; and in January of 1996, to Senior Executive Editor and Marketing Director.

Jane Friedman is editorial director at F+W Publications in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she oversees the publication of more than 50 nonfiction titles each year, under the imprints of Writer’s Digest Books, HOW Books, BetterwayBooks, and TOW Books. She is interested in looking at materials appropriate for any F+W imprint/division, which spans many categories (www.fwpublications.com). F+W does not publish fiction, poetry, or children’s lit.

Her editorial resume includes turns at Writer's Digest magazine, North Light Books, and The Evansville Review. In addition to her acquisitions work at F+W, she also serves as contributing editor at IdentityTheory.com and teaches composition at the University of Cincinnati. She holds a BFA in creative writing and a master's in English. During pitch sessions, Jane will be considering all nonfiction works except memoir and narrative nonfiction.

After eight years at Berkley Publishing, Kim Lionetti left her position as Senior Editor to join BookEnds in March 2004.  Having worked with a variety of genres, she was eager to pursue the areas that interested her most and build authors’ careers from the ground up.  Her extensive editorial background and keen eye make for a very hands-on approach with her clients’ work.   She currently represents women’s fiction, mysteries, true crime, pop culture and all types of romance.