Publishing Intensive

This full-day class offers an introductory overview of the publishing business and is geared toward writers of literary fiction and nonfiction. The class will feature guests who are leaders in the publishing business. While the lineup isn't finalized, recent guests have included literary agents Ayesha Pande and Michelle Brower, as well as senior editors from Random House, Pantheon, and Graywolf presses. Students will be broken into small groups to pitch their books to one another and offer feedback on those pitches. All students will receive an extensive packet with resources.

Guest Speakers

– Anjali Singh is a literary agent at Pande Literary, where she represents Bridgett Davis, Susan Abulhawa, Nawaaz Ahmed, and Rachel Harper, among others. Formerly Editorial Director at Other Press, she has also worked as an editor at Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Vintage Books. She grew up between New Delhi and Alexandria, VA, graduated from Brown University, and holds a diploma in French language and literature from the Sorbonne. 

– Lisa Lucas is a senior vice president at Penguin Random House, overseeing Pantheon and Schocken. From 2016-2020, she was the executive director of the National Book Foundation, the organization that runs the National Book Awards and promotes reading and writing. Prior to that, Lucas was the publisher of the beloved literary magazine Guernica.  

– Ethan Nosowsky is Editorial Director at Graywolf Press, where he shapes Graywolf’s prose lists and acquires fiction and nonfiction titles. He began his career at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and was most recently an editorial director at McSweeney’s. He has edited books by Jeffery Renard Allen, Hilton Als, Deborah Baker, David Byrne, Geoff Dyer, Dave Eggers, Stephen Elliott, J. Robert Lennon, and Jenny Offill, among many others. He has taught in the creative writing program at Columbia University and contributed to Bookforum, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and Threepenny Review. 

Registration dates:

March 13: Scholarship Donation Day (Learn more.)

March 14: Member registration opens

March 21: General registration opens

Peter Mountford

Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction), and The Dismal Science (a NYT editor's choice). His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Southern Review, The Atlantic, The Sun, Granta, and The Missouri Review. He is currently on faculty at Sierra Nevada University's MFA program, teaches at Creative Nonfiction, Hugo House, and is a writing coach and developmental editor. Peter's former students and clients have gone on to publish numerous books and stories and articles, and include two NYT best-selling novelists (Tara Conklin and Rachel Griffin).

Teaching Style and Philosophy: I believe the best I can do for students is help free them from the tyranny of talent and the whims of inspiration, which are fair-weather friends. Instead, I want you to hone your personal aesthetic, and to develop an authorial voice, and most importantly develop fluency with the elements of craft. One you can control what's happening on the page with ease, producing publishable work is no longer a mysterious fluke, but a familiar and non-scary process.

Website: petermountford.com