I earned my MA in Publishing & Writing from Emerson College, where I took courses in book editing, copyediting, marketing, and publicity. As a culmination of my graduate work, I created an independent study on literary agenting. Studying under author and literary agent Lana Popović Harper (Payback's a Witch) and NEIBA executive director Beth Ineson, I studied the art of creating effective query letters, editorial letters, editor submission lists, and pitches to publishers.
I worked for four years as a reader for Lana Popović Harper(previously of Chalberg & Sussman). I read dozens of queries per day, forwarding projects with potential for the agent to consider. I read existing and new client manuscripts and wrote reader reports with an eye toward selling each book to publishers. I created editor submission lists for titles ready for submission to publishers and wrote pitch letters that would form the basis of the agent's pitch to publishers.
For six years, I worked for the University Press of Florida in various capacities, primarily as subsidiary rights manager and publicist. My roles involved pitching books to national media, securing author events, and selling subsidiary rights to domestic and foreign markets for motion picture and audiobook adaptation and translation.