Knight, Brenda

Brenda Knight is Associate Publisher of Cleis Press and founding editor of Viva Editions, acquiring over 50 books a year. Knight teaches a course on publishing for women at Book Passage University. An published poet and author, she won a national book award for Women of the Beat Generation.

Rennert, Amy

Literary agent Amy Rennert specializes in books that matter. She represents quality fiction and nonfiction writers—many of them award-winners and New York Times bestsellers.

Nosowsky, Ethan

Ethan Nosowsky is Editor-at-Large for Graywolf Press. He has been a fiction judge for the National Magazine Awards and has written for Bookforum, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Threepenny Review.

Hartman, Jay A.

Jay A. Hartman created the e-book publishing house Untreed Reads in February 2010 with partner K.D. Sullivan. For ten years Jay covered the e-book industry and was content editor for KnowBetter.com.

Gittins, Eileen

Eileen Gittins loves to leverage technology to do old things in new ways. Having been CEO of two venture-backed San Francisco companies, Personify and Verb, Eileen is now democratizing publishing as the founder and CEO of Blurb.

Rakoff, Joanna Smith

Joanna Smith Rakoff's first novel, A Fortunate Age, won the Goldberg Prize for Fiction and was an Elle and Booklist best book of 2009.

Beale, Elaine

Elaine Beale’s latest novel, Another Life Altogether, received praise from The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Lambda Literary, Curve Magazine, and Oprah Magazine. She won the 2007 Poets & Writers California Exchange Award in fiction.

Sekaran, Shanthi

Shanthi Sekaran released her first novel, The Prayer Room, in 2009. She currently teaches writing at CCA and Berkeley Extension and works with Apostrophecast.com.

Kinsella, Bridget

Bridget Kinsella is marketing and publicity manager at Cleis Press and Viva Editions. She has reported for Publishers Weekly and Shelf Awareness, and is the author of Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside.