Panelists, Washington Writers Conference 2015

Program bios (alphabetical)

Karren LaLonde Alenier co-leads The Word Works, a national literary organization publishing contemporary poetry and presenting public programs. She is author of six poetry collections, including Looking for Divine Transportation, 2002 winner, Towson University Prize for Literature.  Forthcoming from MadHat Press is The Anima of Paul Bowles. 

Charles Babcock is a veteran investigative reporter and editor, for The Washington Post, Bloomberg News and, most recently, on projects for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In 2011, he received the prestigious Loeb Award for outstanding business and financial journalism.

Monica Bhide is an engineer turned writer based out of Washington, D.C. She has published three cookbooks, a short story collection and is actively published in top tier media, including: Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Saveur, The Washington Post, Health, The New York Times, Ladies Home Journal, AARP-The Magazine, Parents, and many others.

Carrie Callaghan lives, reads, and writes in Maryland with her spouse, two children, and talkative cat. Her fiction has appeared in the Silk Road Review, Floodwall, the MacGuffin, Weave Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the Senior Assignments Editor for the Washington Independent Review of Books. 

Maud Casey is the author of a collection of stories, Drastic (Harper Perennial) and three novels, most recently The Man Who Walked Away (Bloomsbury). She teaches at the University of Maryland and lives in Washington, DC.

Ruben Castaneda is the author of S Street Rising, his memoir of covering the crime beat for The Washington Post while struggling with his own crack addiction. The Post placed S Street Rising on its list of 50 notable works of nonfiction published in 2014. The book is also a portrait of a city in crisis. 

Grace Cavalieri is a poet and playwright. She founded and still produces/hosts “The Poet and the Poem” for public radio, now from The Library of Congress. 2015 marks her 38th year on-air with the series. Among honors, she holds two Allen Ginsberg Awards for Poetry (1993 & 2013) and CPB’s Silver Medal.

Kirstin Downey is the author of two biographies, Isabella, the Warrior Queen, about Queen Isabella of Castile, and The Woman Behind the New Deal, about Frances Perkins, both published by Random House. She is also editor of FTC:WATCH, a newsletter that follows the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department. For 20 years, Downey was a reporter at The Washington Post, where she wrote business stories about the changing economy and chronicled the rise of toxic mortgages that led to the collapse of the banking system in 2008.

Tom Dunkel is a longtime freelance writer whose credits include the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and Smithsonian. His first book, Color Blind - the true story of an integrated baseball team during the Depression, was named a Top Ten Sports Book of 2013 by Booklist.

Marina Ein has specialized in media public relations and literary representation for over three decades.  Her work for The New Republic Magazine from 1980 to 1998 included representation of The New Republic Books imprint.  Additionally, she has worked to advance visibility for non-fiction authors including Robert Wright, Jacob Weisberg, Martin Anderson, Kitty Kelley and Michael Smerconish. She launched her career in the public affairs division of NBC News.

Martha Ertman is a University of Maryland law professor whose forthcoming book, Love’s Promises, weaves her personal memoir about three gay parents raising their son with st ories of other families and how contracts can shape their relationships. The Family Equality Council named it the Family Week book club pick for its annual retreat for LGBT parents.     

John Feinstein is an American sportswriter, commentator and best-selling author of 24 books, including several young adult novels, all revolving around sports. In 1995, he authored a best seller, A Good Walk Spoiled, about a year on the PGA Tour as told through the stories of 17 players. His book A Season on the Brink chronicles a year in the life of the Indiana University basketball team and its coach, Bob Knight. He continues to write occasional sports columns for The Washington Post, where he began his career in 1978.

Deborah Grosvenor worked as an editor before establishing her agency, her best known acquisition being Hunt for Red October. She represents fiction and narrative nonfiction: history, memoir, biography, politics, food, adventure, science. Clients include Tom Oliphant, Eleanor Clift, Curtis Wilkie, Henry Allen, Scott Wallace, Tom Dunkel, Peter Cozzens and Stephen Coonts, among others.

Michael Isikoff is an award-winning journalist and author who joined Yahoo News in 2014 as Chief Investigative Correspondent .He previously served as national investigative correspondent for NBC News between 2010 and 2014 and for Newsweek magazine between 1994 and 2010. Isikoff is the author of two New York Times best-selling books: Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War, written with David Corn and Uncovering Clinton.

Kitty Kelley is America's bestselling investigative biographer. Her in-depth and revealing examinations of high profile subjects include Oprah, the Bush family, the British Monarchy, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Her most recent books are Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the March on Washington and Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys.

Caitlin Kelly frequently writes for The New York Times, where she has published more than 100 stories. Other clients include Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Smithsonian and More. Winner of a Canadian National Magazine Award, she is a former reporter for The Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette and New York Daily News.

Emily S. Keyes is a literary agent at Fuse Literary. She joined Fuse Literary in 2013 after working as an agent at the L. Perkins Agency for 2 years. Before that, she worked in the contracts department of Simon & Schuster, Inc. and graduated from New York University’s Center for Publishing. 

Eugenia Kim is a professor at Fairfield University’s low-residency MFA Creative Writing Program. Her debut novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter, won the Borders Original Voices Award, and was a Washington Post Critic’s Pick and Best Historical Novel. 

Linda Lear has been writing biography since 1994. Her prize-winning books include Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature and most recently Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. Lear has had a long academic career as an environmental historian.

Adele Levine spent seven years working as a physical therapist in the amputee section at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – the Army’s premier combat hospital. Adele’s humor writing has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Psychology Today, and the Washingtonian. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Kristen Lippert-Martin is a Young Adult author and mom of four. She received her MFA from Columbia University. She's worked at Time magazine, the Brookings Institution, and did a stint as a stand-up comic before turning to writing full-time. Her debut novel is TABULA RASA (Egmont USA, 2014) and will be followed by the sequel, INCOGNITA, in 2016.

Michel Martin, a print journalist for newspapers and TV correspondent for “Nightline” earlier in her career, is best known for her insightful, informative work at National Public Radio. From “Tell Me More” to “Talk of the Nation,” she’s lent her voice to some of NPR’s most distinctive programs.

Meg Medina writes picture books, middle grade, and young adult fiction that examines how cultures intersect, as seen through the eyes of young people. Her Young Adult novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, earned the 2014 Pura  Belpré medal. In 2014, Meg was named one of CNN’s 10 Visionary Women in America for her work to support girls, Latino youth, and diversity in children’s literature.

Eugene L. Meyer is a former Washington Post reporter and editor and the author of Chesapeake County-Second Edition, recently published by Abbeville Press, and Maryland Lost and Found…Again. He serves on the board of the Washington Independent Review of Books and is the editor of the quarterly B’nai B’rith Magazine and a contributor to the New York Times.

James McGrath Morris writes primarily biographies and works of narrative nonfiction. His newest works are Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press and the best-selling Kindle Single Revolution by Murder.  He is currently working on a new work The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway and Dos Passos--Literary Lives in War and Peace. 

Marc Pachter is the Director Emeritus of the National Portrait Gallery and has also been Interim Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. As an early advocate of biography's strength as a literary form, Pachter edited the ground-breaking "Telling Lives" and for 25 years has moderated the sessions of the Washington Biography Group. 

Niko Pfund is President of Oxford University Press, USA, and Publisher for Oxford’s Global Academic division.  Previously he was Director of New York University Press.

James Rada, Jr. is a multi-award-winning freelance writer who has written a number of history and historical fiction books. His articles have appeared in more than 120 newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and web sites, such as The History Channel Magazine, USAToday.com, and Boys’ Life.

David Rowell is the deputy editor of the Washington Post Magazine. He has taught literary journalism in the MFA department at American University. The Train of Small Mercies, his debut novel, was published in 2011.

Salley Shannon, who is currently finishing a ghost-written book and preparing a health-related book proposal, also provides content for websites such as Creditcards.com and ExxonMobil.com. She recently researched and wrote a "white paper" report for a foundation. Her work has been commissioned by Reader's Digest, Parents, Parenting, Smithsonian, Woman's Day, Fitness and other national magazines. Locally, she writes for The Washingtonian. 

Laura Shovan is poetry editor for Little Patuxent Review. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. Laura edited the Maryland Writers’ Association anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire. She teaches for the Maryland State Arts Council’s Artists-in-Residence program. Her novel-in-verse for children will be published by Wendy Lamb Books/Random House in 2016.   

Jonathan Sisk is Vice President and Senior Executive Editor at Rowman & Littlefield. He specializes in trade books related to American Government, American History, Philosophy, Public Policy, and Political Theory. His many authors include Frances Beinecke and her book, Clean Energy Common Sense: An American Call to Action on Global Climate Change (foreword by Robert Redford). 

Holly Smith, managing editor of the Washington Independent Review of Books, is a longtime freelance writer and editor. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, CNBC.com, Salon, Maryland Life, More Mirth of a Nation, Brain, Child and other publications. She recently co-authored Seafood Lover's Chesapeake Bay, which was published by Globe Pequot Press in Dec. 2014.

David O. Stewart, the president of the Washington Independent Review of Books, is the author of four works of history. His most recent, Madison’s Gift:  Five Partnerships That Built America, was released in February 2015.  His best-selling first novel, The Lincoln Deception, was released in August 2013. A sequel, The Wilson Deception, will be published in autumn 2015.  

Robert Timberg has been a reporter, editor, and writer for four decades.  As a Washington correspondent for the Baltimore Sun he covered Congress and the Reagan presidency. The most recent of his four books, Blue-Eyed Boy, chronicles the rebuilding of his life after suffering disfiguring wounds as a Marine in Vietnam.

Tim Wendel, a writer-in-residence at John Hopkins University, is the author of 11 books, including Summer of '68, Castro's Curveball, Habana Libre and Down to the Last Pitch. Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss called Wendel's work "a winning mix of science, biography and mythology." The New York Times said Wendel's writing is "sensitive and scrupulous."

Karsonya (Kaye) Wise Whitehead is Assistant Professor of Communications and African and African-American Studies at Loyola University. She received the Letitia Woods Brown Award for best-edited book in African-American history. She is the author of three books, including Notes From a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis and Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial America. Her fourth book, The Emancipation Proclamation: Race Relations on the Eve of Reconstruction, will be published in November.

Gregg Wilhelm founded the literary arts organization CityLit Project in 2004 and serves as publisher of its CityLit Press imprint.  He has worked for several independent presses and has taught writing and publishing courses at several universities. In 2014, Gregg earned an MFA from the University of Tampa and won a Rubys Artists Project Grant for his novel-in-progress.

Roger S. Williams comes to agenting from many publishing industry perspectives. He has worked in publishing for over 35 years. He has been a bookseller, library sales rep, Manager for Independent Retailers at Bantam Doubleday Dell, co-owner of a bookstore a developer of one of the Industry’s first websites, and V.P. of Field Sales at Simon and Schuster.

Helen Zimmermann started her publishing career about 20 years ago in the marketing department of Random House. She soon became the Director of Advertising and Promotion for one of their divisions, The Crown Publishing Group. She founded the Zimmermann Literary Agency in 2003 and enjoyed early success with the New York Times bestseller Chosen by A Horse. Her experience working at a large publishing house and an independent bookstore gives her a unique and invaluable insight into each project that she works on. She is well aware of the value of in-house buzz, online marketing, store placement, social media, author platform, etc. and works hard to make sure all of these marketing components are in place for each and every project.

The Washington Writers Conference, which takes place Saturday, April 25, 2015, at the Bethesda Marriott at Pook's Hill in Bethesda, Md., offers a full day of insightful conversations and panels with professional writers, agents, and publishers, along with an opportunity for aspiring authors to present their projects to an agent during face-to-face, one-on-one pitch sessions.

Find the full schedule of events here.

Check out the bios of our extraordinary panelists here.

A complete listing of agents and their bios are here.