Pilar Garcia-Brown is an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, concentrating on voice-driven literary and commercial fiction and narrative nonfiction, with a focus on female stories, LGBTQ stories, and diverse representation. She's interested in books that tackle urgent, contemporary social and cultural themes in an engaging, irreverent way. Recent and forthcoming titles include: Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour; Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage; The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman; In Sensorium by Tanaïs; and NBCC award winner You Play the Girl by Carina Chocano, among others. She's from Los Angeles and now lives in Brooklyn.

Renée Jarvis is an agent at Triangle House Literary. Born and raised in New York City, she graduated from Brooklyn College with a BFA in Creative Writing. She previously worked as an assistant and agent at MacKenzie Wolf Literary and spent two years as a writing teacher at the non-profit organization Legal Outreach. Her interests include pop culture analysis, linguistics, and explorations of music, fashion, and art. She also loves plot-driven fiction featuring characters with a sense of humor, unique formats, and stories that explore friendship and family.

Iwalani Kim joined Sanford J. Greenburger Associates in 2018 after interning at Ayesha Pande Literary, Don Congdon Associates, and Kweli Journal. She was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i and graduated from Vassar College with degrees in Political Science and German Studies. 

Iwalani is seeking adult upmarket and literary fiction and select narrative nonfiction. In fiction, she loves coming-of-age narratives, family dramas, and stories that challenge systems of power. She gravitates toward lush prose, wry humor, irreverent characters, and a sense of yearning. In nonfiction, she is looking for literary memoir and cultural criticism. She is passionate about championing the work of underrepresented authors and would especially love to work with Pacific Islander writers.

Seema Mahanian is a Senior Editor at Grand Central Publishing, publishing primarily commercial and literary fiction, and some memoir, with a focus on books that look at identity and contemporary life through diverse voices and inclusive points of view. Her list includes Yusef Salaam’s BETTER, NOT BITTER and New York Times bestsellers WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS by Naima Coster and SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE by Tia Williams.  Prior to joining GCP, she worked with award-winning journalists at the publishing start up Pronoun, and at Pamela Dorman Books/Viking and Scribner. Before editing books, she got her start by selling them at a small seaside bookstore in Australia, which actually sounds like a good beginning to a novel. She lives in Brooklyn.

Jade Wong-Baxter joined the Frances Goldin Literary Agency in 2021. She previously worked for three years at Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents as a junior agent and foreign rights associate. A graduate of Vassar College, Jade got her start in publishing at Writers House, W. W. Norton, and Folio Literary Management. She is looking for adult literary/upmarket fiction and narrative nonfiction, with an emphasis on narratives by and about people of color, as well as the perspectives of marginalized identities. Her other areas of interest include magical realism, memoir, cultural criticism and Asian-American history.

What Do Agents and Editors Look For?