May 9th to the 15th: “What’s the one thing you love most about working with your authors?”

May is agents and publishers month at The Big Thrill! This week we ask Janet Reid, Jeff Kleinman, Molly Lewis, Victoria Sanders, Sandy Lu, Jill Grosjean, Kristin Lindstrom and Donna Bagdasarian what’s the one thing they love most about working with their authors? You won’t want to miss it!

Janet Reid is a literary agent at FinePrint Literary Management specializing in compelling fiction, particularly crime fiction, and narrative non-fiction.  She’s always on the lookout for fabulous projects. Her publishing background includes fifteen years in book publicity with clients both famous and infamous. In her spare hours she drinks scotch and stalks Jack Reacher.

Jeff Kleinman is a literary agent, intellectual property attorney, and founding partner of Folio Literary Management, LLC, a New York literary agency which works with all of the major U.S. publishers (and, through subagents, with most international publishers).  As an agent, Jeff feels privileged to have the chance to learn an incredibly variety of new subjects, meet an extraordinary range of people, and feel, at the end of the day, that he’s helped to build something – a wonderful book, perhaps, or an author’s career.  His authors include Garth Stein, Robert Hicks, Charles Shields, Bruce Watson, Neil White, and Philip Gerard. He looks for very well-written, character-driven novels; some suspense, thrillers; otherwise mainstream commercial and literary fiction.

Sandy Lu is a literary agent at the L. Perkins Agency and is seeking submissions that draw her in with a unique voice and a good yarn that will make her miss her subway stop and keep her up at night. In fiction, she is looking for dark literary and commercial fiction, mystery, thriller, psychological horror, paranormal/urban fantasy, historical fiction, and YA.  In particular, she is looking for historical thrillers or mysteries set in Victorian times and has recently fallen in love with steampunk.

Molly Lewis serves as the Publisher for ZOVA Books and is a partner with ZOVA, Inc., the parent company of ZOVA Books. Her vision for the company is to create the next generation business model for independent publishers by focusing on the partnerships between all parties involved. Her keen focus on finding talent, promotion of literacy and love for books drives ZOVA. Molly’s business acumen has been honed from working at all levels of the retail book industry, including being a published author. Molly received her Master’s Degree in literature from the University of Edinburgh.

A literary agent for well over a decade, Victoria Sanders counts among her illustrious clients the New York Times and internationally bestselling thriller author, Karin Slaughter, whose last five thrillers have debuted on the London Times, New York Times, Der Spiegel and Dutch Bestseller Lists and two American Book Award winners (Jeff Chang and Cecelie Berry). Ms. Sanders represents a multi-cultural roster of clients, who offer diverse styles, viewpoints, and storytelling. She finds it most rewarding discovering, fostering, and ushering great new voices into publication.

Jill Grosjeanhas been a literary agent for the past fourteen years, the last eleven as the head of her own agency. Prior to becoming an agent, Jill managed an influential independent bookstore for many years. She also worked at one of the top New York advertising agencies and in publishing. Jill’s interests are in literary fiction, thriller, mystery, suspense and women’s fiction, both historical and contemporary.

Kristin Lindstrom established Lindstrom Literary Management in 1993 and represents a range of fiction and nonfiction clients. She works closely with writers to prepare manuscripts and proposals for the scrutiny they will receive at a publishing house, and pulls upon a total of 30 years of experience as a literary agent, editor and marketing and advertising consultant.

Donna Bagdasarian is the President and founder of Publication Riot Group, Inc. She is particularly interested in almost all fiction: literary, women’s, historical, mainstream, ethnic, with the exceptions of sci-fi and fantasy. Her interests in non-fiction range from pop-culture to academic, sociological, scientific, political and memoir.