Working with authors and being a champion of their work has always been my passion. The excitement that comes from discovering a terrific new voice, or starting a wonderful new book from a favorite writer has never lost its power.
As Senior Vice President & Publisher of William Morrow, I became known as an indefatigable author advocate who has helped nurture the careers of many writers. I was lucky enough to work with numerous New York Times best selling authors, including novelists Brunonia Barry, Marisa de los Santos, Neil Gaiman, Andrew Gross, Kim Harrison, Joe Hill, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Laura Lippman, Gregory Maguire, Christopher Moore, Sena Jeter Naslund, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kimberla Lawson Roby, James Rollins, and Neal Stephenson; and nonfiction writers T. J. English (Havana Nocturne), Bruce Feiler (Where God Was Born), Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), John Grogan (Marley & Me, The Longest Trip Home), Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Freakonomics), Slash (Slash), James Swanson (Manhunt), U2 (U2 by U2), Robert Wagner (Pieces of My Heart), and Frank Warren (Lifetime of Secrets: A Postsecret Book), among others.
My marketing background still comes to the fore in assessing new projects, and focusing on the central challenge for the book business: in a world with many distractions and many other ways that a potential reader can spend their time and their entertainment dollars, how do we connect an author and book we love, to those potential readers? Authors and readers, and connecting the two – irrespective of the format or device – will always be my mission.
Before joining William Morrow in 2000, I moved to New York in 1998 to open the U.S. office of Bloomsbury Publishing, having worked in their London office for several years before that. Born and raised in England, I was educated at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, UK.
As an agent, what am I looking for? I represent both fiction and non-fiction writers, and I am actively seeking new clients who are great storytellers, delivering both narrative urgency and dramatic tension, combined with multi-faceted characters and a transporting sense of place. Whilst I am inevitably attracted to the same kinds of books I was passionate about as a publisher – accessible literary fiction, quality commercial women’s fiction, crime fiction, engaging narrative non-fiction from a fresh perspective – I know that sometimes it is a book that you don’t know that you are looking for that becomes the one you can’t put down.