Event
April 4, 2017
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and hosted by Beth Kephart
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
How does a book make it from the author's hand to your bookshelf? And what role does an agent play in this? Beth Kephart led a panel of writers and agents at the Kelly Writers House to dig into the business of publishing and marketing a book.
PARTICIPANTS
Beth Kephart (our host) is the award-winning author of 21 books in multiple genres, with two new books on the way. Published by large presses (including W.W. Norton, HarperCollins, Penguin, Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, and Berrett Koehler) and small ones (including Temple University Press, New World Library, Shebooks, and Egmont USA), Kephart has achieved unexpected results by taking a chance on slush-pile submissions and by navigating opportunities with agents.
Janet Benton's first novel, Lilli de Jong, is the diary of an unwed mother in 1883 Philadelphia, and it will be published by the Nan A. Talese imprint at Doubleday in May 2017. Her shorter writings have been published in the Modern Love column of the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Writers' Digest, Glimmer Train, and other publications; two recent short stories were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She has taught writing at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the University of California in Davis, the University of the Arts, and Temple University, and mentors writers through her business, the Word Studio, located outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Stephanie Feldman's debut novel, The Angel of Losses (Ecco), is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection and winner of the Crawford Fantasy Award. Stephanie teaches fiction writing in the Arcadia University MFA program and lives outside Philadelphia with her family.
Josh Getzler (CAS '90, English/Creative Writing) left Harcourt in 1993 to get an MBA from Columbia Business School. He then spent 11 years owning and operating a minor league baseball team (the Staten Island Yankees), left baseball in late 2006 and rejoined the book world on the agent side. In May 2011 he partnered with Carrie Hannigan and Jesseca Salky to form HSG Agency, and has been actively and happily running his list. Josh represents more than 60 authors, particularly in women's fiction, historical fiction, thrillers and mysteries, middle grade fiction, contemporary/funny books about kids, and a range of nonfiction, including history (including micro-histories), business, and political thought.
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best Horror of the Year, and elsewhere, and her story "The Husband Stitch" was nominated for the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lives in Philadelphia with her partner.
Sara Sligar is a novelist and critic based in Philadelphia. Her debut novel, The Image of Her, follows a young archivist who becomes obsessed with a photographer's mysterious death. Sligar is represented by Alexandra Machinist at ICM Partners. She is currently at work on her second novel.