Katherine Pelz has spent the past 3 years at the Berkley Publishing Group, and wouldn’t have it any other way. A lifelong bookworm, she’s thrilled to play an active role in discovering new authors and bringing fabulous books to the hands of readers.

A native of a small town in Western New York State, Katherine spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book. She continued to read as an English and Psychology major at Cornell University. After acquiring her B.A., she moved to Manhattan and now acquires for the Berkley Sensation, Heat, Prime Crime and InterMix lines.

Katherine is currently seeking submissions in romance (contemporary, historical and erotic), cozy mystery, women’s fiction and historical fiction.

Millicent Bennett is a Senior Editor at Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. She acquires the majority of the imprint’s fiction, and is interested in smart, beautifully written, and emotionally authentic literary fiction and upmarket commercial fiction, as well as narrative nonfiction, memoir, social and cultural history, biography, and women’s issues.

Her Free Press authors include Will Allison, Susannah Cahalan, Marjorie Celona, Chitra Divakaruni, Katie Kitamura, Eve LaPlante, Philip Lopate, Scott O’Connor, Anuradha Roy, Brando Skyhorse, Teddy Wayne, and Elizabeth Winthrop. Prior to joining Free Press, she worked at Knopf, Ecco, and Random House.

Carlie Webber refused to major in English in college because no one would let her read Stephen King or R.L. Stine for class. She took her love of young adult and genre fiction to the University of Pittsburgh, where she obtained a Master of Library and Information Science, and worked as a YA librarian and reviewer for publications including Kirkus Reviews. Wishing to explore her interest in the business side of books, she decided to switch from librarianship to publishing and enrolled in the Columbia Publishing Course.

Now she is building her agenting career on her favorite genres: young adult, women’s fiction, romance, horror, mystery, suspense, thrillers, and contemporary speculative fiction. Her ongoing submissions wishlist includes but is not limited to high-concept YA, literary suspense, grunge era nostalgia and things that go bump in the night.

See the interview by Theresa Rizzo.

Amanda Ng started her career in publishing at GamePro magazine in San Francisco where she wrote and edited video game reviews. Books have always been her true love, however, and she moved to New York to pursue a career in trade publishing.

After completing NYU's Masters in Publishing program, Amanda joined The Berkley Publishing Group and is actively looking to grow her list. She is interested in acquiring fantasy, science fiction, general fiction, thrillers, and mysteries.

See the interview by Theresa Rizzo.

CHRISTIAN TRIMMER is a senior editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. He edits books by folks like Mo Willems (the New York Times best-selling The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and the Elephant and Piggie series) and Rick Riordan (The Red Pyramid, The Graphic Novel and the forthcoming The Sea of Monsters, The Graphic Novel), as well as the Ghost and the Goth trilogy (by Stacey Kade), the Touch series (by Laurie Faria Stolarz), the Carter series (by Brent Crawford), and The Classroom: The Epic Documentary of a Not-Yet Epic Kid (by Robin Mellom). Christian works on various formats: picture books, graphic novels, and middle grade and young adult fiction.

Christian is looking to acquire more novels about kids in real world situations: romantic comedies, family dramas, road trips, coming-of-age tales. An original voice and strong character development are key to him.

See the interview by Theresa Rizzo.