Mentors 2017 | wpwritersretreat

THANK YOU

to Our 2017 Mentors

Karen Boss, Associate Editor, Charlesbridge Publishing

Karen is an associate editor at Charlesbridge where she works on fiction and nonfiction picture books and middle grade novels. She holds an MA in Children’s Literature from Simmons College and regularly acts as a mentor for its Writing for Children MFA program. Karen also has an MA in higher education administration and worked at colleges and in the nonprofit sector for the first 15 years of her career. She still works part-time in development at Hyde Square Task Force, a nonprofit that works with at-risk youth in Jamaica Plain. Some authors she’s currently working with are David L. Harrison, Jane Yolen, Nancy Bo Flood, Rich Michelson, and debut author Tami Charles. Her favorite children’s book is The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White, and she thinks that Holes by Louis Sachar is quite possibly the best thing ever written. In her free time, Karen saves her pennies so she can travel to a new country each year (recent trips include Ecuador, Portugal, and Colombia), and she often plans “Auntie Karen adventures” to expose her three nieces (Sonia, 8; Sage, 5; and Olive, 1.5) to new experiences.

Photo Credit: Pam Vaughan

Linda Camacho, Literary Agent, Prospect Agency

Linda is an agent with Prospect Agency. She attended Cornell University and in her time since graduation has created a great background for a career as an agent. She interned at Simon & Schuster and Writers House Literary Agency, worked at Penguin in production, and happily settled into children’s marketing at Random House before making the move to agenting. Simultaneously, she earned her MFA in creative writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She's especially interested in middle grade and young adult fiction across all genres (she's especially dying for an amazing YA fantasy). Very select picture books and graphic novels (namely, author-illustrators) will also be considered. You can find her on Twitter at @LindaRandom.

When Linda isn't reading, she's watching way too much TV for her own good. Her current fave shows are Stranger Things, Outlander, Orange is the New Black, The Walking Dead, Parks & Recreation, and Bob's Burgers.

Sara Crowe, Senior Agent, Pippin Properties

After attending the Radcliffe Publishing Course, Sara started her career at the Wylie Agency in New York, and after two years, moved to their London office as a foreign rights agent. At Trident Media Group in New York, she was a foreign rights manager. She joined Harvey Klinger Literary Agency in 2005. Sara's authors have been nominated for Edgars and the Morris Award and have been on the ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults list and in the Top Ten. In 2016, Sara made the move to Pippin Properties as a senior agent.

Photo Credit: Carter Hasegawa/Long River Photo

Erin Dionne, Author

Author of several middle grade and tween novels, including Ollie and the Science of Treasure Hunting and the Edgar Award finalist Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking. Erin is a dynamic presenter and writing coach. An assistant professor of liberal arts at a small college north of Boston, Erin also teaches courses and presents workshops on novel writing and revising at the Writers’ Loft in Sherborn, Mass.

Photo Credit: Aran Gilmore

Alison Weiss, Senior Editor, Sky Pony Press

Alison S. Weiss is an editor at Sky Pony Press, where she works on picture books through YA. Some of her childhood favorites include Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Eloise, Anne of Green Gables, and Paddington. As a grownup, favorites (that she has not edited) include Barkbelly, The Goose Girl, Circus Mirandus, The Penderwicks, and Savvy. She loves assassins and spies and sleuths, friendships that feel like they’ll last forever, and love stories that will twist you in knots before they’re through. She’s especially eager to find a middle grade with a cozy feel, and a voice-driven, sweeping, romantic YA.

Recent and soon-to-be released projects include Jessica Taylor’s Wandering Wild, Kristina McBride’s A Million Times Goodnight, the Project Droid series by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Krulik, Amanda Burwasser, and illustrated by Mike Moran, Dotwav by Mike A. Lancaster, Timekeeper by Tara Sim, Monsterville: A Lissa Black Production by Sarah S. Reida, Fear the Drowning Deep by Sarah Glenn Marsh, and It’s a Mystery, Pig Face! by Wendy MacLeod McKnight. She has worked with New York Times best-selling author Jessica Verday (Of Monsters and Madness), Agatha Award winner Penny Warner (The Code Busters Club series), YALSA Award winning Sarah Cross (Kill Me Softly and Tear You Apart), ITW Award Finalist Kristen Lippert-Martin (Tabula Rasa), Amalie Howard, and Sarah McGuire, among others. She also assisted on Christopher Myers’s H.O.R.S.E., which won a 2013 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award and the 2014 Odyssey Award. Follow her on Twitter @alioop7.