Authors Lunch

Lucinda Halpern is a literary agent and the founder of Lucinda Literary, based in New York. She currently represents New York Times and internationally best-selling authors in the categories of personal growth, popular science, narrative nonfiction, memoir, and upmarket fiction. Her classes and coaching programs have been taught to hundreds of writers worldwide, and became the inspiration for her new book Get Signed: Find an Agent, Land a Book Deal, and Become a Published Author (Hay House; February 6, 2024). In GET SIGNED, you discuss why it’s important to commit to a genre and find comp titles. Can you talk […]

James McBride’s THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE (August 8, 2023, Editor: Jake Morrissey, Agent: Flip Brophy) topped best books of 2023 lists, and, based on PL’s comprehensive tabulation, was the consensus pick as the very Best of the Best Book of the Year. Here, Riverhead executive editor Jake Morrissey talks to us about working with McBride, the editing process, and why this book resonates so much with readers and critics. How did you and McBride come to work together? What’s your relationship like? James McBride’s debut, The Color of Water, was on Riverhead’s first list in 1996, so when […]

Vicky Bijur started her eponymous literary agency in 1988 after working at Oxford University Press and for the Charlotte Sheedy Agency. She represents fiction and non-fiction and has served as president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, now the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA). She has been on the AALA Royalties Committee since 1993 and is chair of the AALA Ethics Committee. What are some questions to ask a prospective agent? 1) Will you keep me reasonably informed throughout the process of selling my book? For example, can we discuss the list of publishers to whom you would submit […]