Secrets of Publishing: A Conversation with Literary Agents, Editors, and Authors

P&T Knitwear, in conjunction with PEN America, is pleased to welcome back award-winning author Susan Shapiro for a panel discussion of insider tips and tricks for navigating the publishing world! Shapiro will be joined in conversation by author-editor Miya Lee (New York Times Modern Love), author and literary agent Alia Hannah Habib, editors Paul Whitlach (Penguin Random House) and Rachel Kahan (Harper Collins), vice-president and publisher of Legacy Lit Krishan Trotman, and author-and-teacher Rob Cameron.

This hybrid event will be held in-person with limited amphitheater-style seating, and will be available live over Zoom for the members of PEN America.

The cost of a $5 general admission ticket for both in-person and online can be applied towards your purchase of any book or product in P&T’s café the night of an event or through online purchase.

Speakers
Miya Lee is the editor of the Modern Love projects. In this role, she evaluates submissions to Modern Love, selects and edits Tiny Love Stories, oversees special projects and is involved in all other aspects of the Modern Love franchise. She lives in New York City, where she was born and raised and is the coauthor of Tiny Love Stories: True Tails of Love in 100 Words of Loss (Artisan Books.)

Alia Hanna Habib is a literary agent at The Gernert Company who represents narrative nonfiction, memoir and fiction including Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times’ 1619 Project’s forthcoming book series, Judy Batalion’s New York Times bestselling The Light of Days and Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. Her authors have won the Pulitzer Prize, NBCC Award and nominations for Edgars, PEN Awards and NBAs. Her debut book, Take It From Me: An Agent’s No-Nonsense Guide to Building a Nonfiction Career from Scratch comes out from Pantheon in 2026.

Paul Whitlach is a New York University graduate who worked as an editor at Hachette and Simon & Schuster where he worked on both fiction and nonfiction. He is currently the Editorial Director at Crown Currency, an imprint of Penguin Random House, specializing in nonfiction, business, technology, entrepreneurship, and personal success content. He oversees acquisitions for Crown Currency, directing editorial strategy and managing its editors.

Rachel Kahan is a graduate of William & Mary and Harvard University’s Radcliffe Publishing Course. She’s worked as an editor acquiring fiction and nonfiction at Putnam and Crown publishers, and is now Vice President/Executive editor at William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. She’s edited dozens of award-winning international bestsellers including Judy Batalion’s The Light of Days, Cara Hunter’s Murder in the Family, Susan Wiggs’s The Lost and Found Bookshop and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures which inspired the Oscar-nominated film.

Krishan Trotman, nicknamed “the Beyoncé of Books” is VP and Publisher of Legacy Lit, a Hachette imprint dedicated to voices marginalized, underserved, and overlooked. Her authors include congressman John Lewis’ Across That Bridge, Stephanie Land’s Maid, Ibtihaj Muhammad’s Proud and Zerlina Maxwell’s The End of White Politics. She’s been featured in the New York Times, Essence Magazine, New York Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Salon, Shondaland, CSPAN, is author of the PRH series Queens of Resistance (about AOC, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi & Elizabeth Warren) and mom to her son Bleu.

Rob Cameron is a teacher, linguist, organizer of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers and founder of Constellations Mentorship for the Octavia Project. He’s been a leader for the National Council for Teachers of English Annual Conference, guest author at the Dartmouth College Speculative Fiction Project, and guest lecturer at NYU. His poetry, fiction and essays have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Foreign Policy Magazine, Tor.com, Solarpunk Magazine, Apex, Clockwork Phoenix Five, and forthcoming in Lightspeed Magazine. This year, Daydreamer, his debut middle grade novel, was a finalist for the Andre Norton, the Nebula award for middle grade and YA (www.rob-cameron.com).

Susan Shapiro is the bestselling author/coauthor of books her family hates like Unhooked, The Forgiveness Tour, Five Men Who Broke My Heart recently optioned for a movie by Sony Pictures. A long-time member of PEN America, she freelances for the New York Times, Washington Post, WSJ, Slate, Salon, The Cut, Elle, Oprah and The New Yorker magazines online. An award-winning writing professor at NYU, The New School and Columbia University, she now teaches her popular “Instant Gratification Takes Too Long” writing/publishing classes on Zoom. You can follow her on Instagram at @profsue123. (https://susanshapiro.net)