An Evening with the Book Champions: A Publishing & Publicity Roundtable

Join us for an evening of all things CNF publishing and publicity. This year, we’re putting a new spin on what we typically called An Evening with the Editors. We’re still focusing on book champions, but we’re centering the conversation on what agents are looking for — and how to get your book noticed with the help of an in-house or independent publicist.

Hippocampus Magazine associate editor Rae Pagliarulo will moderate a discussion with a group of publicists, literary agents, and other publishing professionals. You will:

• get a behind-the-scenes look at the book submissions process
• find out what they’re looking for their respective lists and agencies
• diver into the writer-agent and writer-publicist relationship
• explore a timeline for book publicity
• learn the various moving parts of a book marketing/publicity campaign
• ….and so much more

There will be plenty of time for audience questions at the end.

This is ONE OF FOUR main events we’re hosting the weekend of the 15-16th! Read about all of them here.

Meet Our Panelists

[Additional authors and moderator to be confirmed soon]

Michelle Blankenship

Michelle Blankenship spent 16 years as an in-house publicist working at John Wiley & Sons, Picador USA, Harcourt Trade Publishers, and Bloomsbury Publishing specializing in literary fiction, poetry, and a variety of nonfiction topics. During her time as an in-house publicist, she served as director of publicity for Harcourt and as an associate director of publicity at Bloomsbury. She has worked with Jesmyn Ward, Eimear McBride, Barney Frank, Martha S. Jones, Senator Sherrod Brown, Ana Castillo, James Forman Jr., Drew Gilpin Faust, and Mitchell S. Jackson, among others. Blankenship has also been on the board of the Publishers Publicity Association (PPA) since 2007, and she currently serves as the PPA president.

Ashley Lopez

Ashley Lopez is a literary agent at Massie McQuilkin & Altman Literary Agents with over a decade of publishing experience. She received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and represents both adult fiction and nonfiction as well as select Young Adult and poetry titles.

Cassie Mannes Murray

Cassie Mannes Murray believes in cold emails and cold pizza. She is the founder and director of Pine State Publicity, a publicity firm for independent and small press books. You can always find what she’s up to in the Pine State newsletter. Her mom calls it “weirdly rambling.” Before launching Pine State she was a literary agent, earned her MFA in creative nonfiction, designed book interiors, edited for literary mags, taught high school, and once even worked as a laundromat drive-thru gal. When she isn’t talking books, she’s a mom to three kids, married to the guy she met on Myspace in high school, and living under some big oaks in North Carolina.

Isabella Nugent

Isabella Nugent (she/her) is a senior publicist at Page One Media, where she manages publicity campaigns for authors and experts across a wide range of subject areas, including history, philosophy, sociology, and more. Some of her recent campaigns include Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, McNamara at War by Philip Taubman and William Taubman, winner of the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, and Making the Presidency by Lindsay Chervinsky.

TICKET OPTIONS

You may purchase a ticket for just this event ($30) below, or register for the entire weekend, here ($75).