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Meet the Team
Jordan Pavlin
Executive Vice President, Publisher
Jordan Pavlin is EVP, Publisher at Alfred A. Knopf. Authors with whom she is currently working include Maggie O’Farrell, Bret Easton Ellis, Michelle Zauner, Tobias Wolff, Jenny Offill, Susan Minot, Ethan Hawke, Karen Russell, Maggie Shipstead, Julie Orringer, Yaa Gyasi, Tommy Orange, Megha Majumdar, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Jennifer Barth
Senior Vice President, Executive Editor
A graduate of Yale University, Jennifer Barth has worked in publishing for over thirty years, fifteen of which were spent at the Harper imprint of HarperCollins. In January 2022 she joined Knopf as a Senior Vice President and Executive Editor; she is now overseeing the editorial direction of the Vintage Originals list as well. She edits both fiction and nonfiction; authors she’s worked with include Charles Blow, Michael Chabon, Bernard Cornwell, Uzodinma Iweala, Mary Karr, Michelle McNamara, Armistead Maupin, Caitlin Moran, Peggy Orenstein, Daniel Silva, Garth Stein, Jess Walter, and Jacqueline Winspear. Upcoming publications include novels by Alafair Burke, Jo Nesbø, and Kimberly McCreight, and nonfiction by Jon Batiste, Peter Beinart, and Aimee Mann. Jennifer lives with her husband on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where they raised their two now adult children. She serves on the board of the Bronx Letters Foundation.
Lexy Bloom
Editorial Director, Knopf Cooks
Lexy Bloom oversees Knopf Cooks, our culinary program, for which she acquires and edit cookbooks and food writing, as well as manages the cookbook backlist, home to authors such as Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Madhur Jaffrey, and Edna Lewis. Knopf Cooks publishes voice-driven, upmarket yet accessible cookbooks that lend a distinct perspective to a cuisine or culture, from Sohla el-Waylly to Deb Perelman, from Hetty McKinnon to Kwame Onwuachi, from restaurants like Via Carota to Sofreh. Additionally, she works with authors of literary fiction and nonfiction such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Haruki Murakami, and Orhan Pamuk.
Emily Cunningham
Executive Editor
Emily edits nonfiction across a variety of genres, including history, memoir, biography, and narrative journalism. Prior to joining Knopf, she spent nine years at Penguin Press, where her list included the New York Times bestsellers Good For a Girl by Lauren Fleshman and The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon; Andrew Leland’s The Country of the Blind, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Tahir Hamut Izgil’s Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award. Earlier in her career, Emily held positions at Harper and Grove Atlantic. She is a native of the Boston area and lives in Brooklyn.
Quynh Do
Senior Editor
Quynh Do is a Senior Editor at Knopf, where she publishes serious, expert-driven and narrative nonfiction, including investigative journalism, subject-driven memoir, and essays. She is interested in big ideas, social issues, science & medicine, design & technology, nature writing, memoirs about peculiar jobs, and women’s issues—and considers it her mission to publish informative and inspiring work by underrepresented voices. Previously, she worked at W. W. Norton, Basic Books, and Zando. Her authors include Ken Duckworth, Rae Wynn-Grant, Jeanna Smialek, Lydia Denworth, Hannah Fry, Alberto Cairo, Helen Fisher, Alex Bellos, among others. She has also served as lead nonfiction editor for award-winning literary magazine American Chordata. The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, Quynh was raised in the Midwest, educated at Yale University, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Maris Dyer
Associate Editor
Maris Dyer is an associate editor at Knopf who publishes both fiction and nonfiction. She is searching for literary and upmarket novels that explore issues like identity, class, and sexuality through a plot with high stakes; as well as voice-driven narrative nonfiction, with a focus on culture, investigative journalism, social justice, nature and travel writing, and music criticism. Her list includes published and forthcoming books from authors such as Jean-Martin Bauer, Rayne Fisher-Quann, Kate Harris, Kerry Howley, Hope Jahren, Tiffany McDaniel, Kimberly King Parsons, Lisa Smith, Emma Smith, Annakeara Stinson, Sarah Watling, and Ana Karina Zatarain. In her time at Knopf, she has also worked closely with best-selling and award-winning authors including Ken Burns, Jennifer Close, Lauren Fox, Katherine Heiny, Kevin Kwan, Emily St. John Mandel, Cormac McCarthy, and J Courtney Sullivan. Before Knopf, she assisted literary agent Amanda Urban at ICM and worked in the publicity department of Simon and Schuster. She is originally from Shingle Springs, a small town in Northern California.
Brian Etling
Assistant Editor
Brian Etling is an assistant editor at Alfred A. Knopf interested in inventive and risk-taking literary fiction, science fiction and fantasy, literature in translation, and nonfiction with a focus on culture, music, nature, and memoir. In his time with the Knopf Doubleday Group, he has been fortunate to work with many bestselling and award-winning authors including James Ellroy, Mark Z. Danielewski, Alexander McCall Smith, Jo Nesbø, Paolo Bacigalupi, Andrea Wulf, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Leonard Mlodinow, and Michio Kaku. His authors at Vintage include Juneau Black, Charlotte Carter, and Kirsty Manning. Prior to joining Knopf, he worked in Sales for Penguin Random House, and before that he was the manager of an independent bookstore in North Carolina. He lives in Manhattan.
John Freeman
Executive Editor
John Freeman is a writer, anthologist, and host of Alta’s California Book Club, a once-a-month online discussion of a new classic of Golden State literature. He has been an executive editor at Knopf since 2021. Prior to Knopf, he was the president of the National Book Critics Circle, the editor of Granta magazine, a founding executive editor at Literary Hub, and for nearly ten years the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing which published early work by Mieko Kawakami, Nadifa Mohamed, Linnea Axelsson, Samanta Schweblin, as well as pieces by Dave Eggers, Rickey Laurentiis, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Camonghne Felix, Tracy K. Smith, Sandra Cisneros, Elif Shafak and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, all of whose work he now edits at Knopf. Books he has edited have won the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Writers Prize (then the Folio Award), and have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Lamba Award and others.
Deb Garrison
Editorial Director, Knopf Poetry & Executive Editor
Deb Garrison, formerly an editor at The New Yorker and author of the bestselling poetry collection A Working Girl Can’t Win, joined book publishing in 2000, as the Poetry Editor of Knopf and a Senior Editor at Pantheon Books. Her areas of interest include poetry, literary fiction, and biography. Among her authors are Heather Clark, Catherine Cohen, Alex Dimitrov, Mary Gaitskill, Julia Glass, David Grossman, Maxine Hong Kingston, Robin Coste Lewis, Sharon Olds, Joseph O’Neill, David Remnick, Clare Sestanovich, and Kevin Young; she also works with the literary estates of Frank O’Hara, Oliver Sacks, and John Updike.
Peter Gethers
Editor
In his lengthy career at Penguin Random House, Peter Gethers has started two companies for the corporation – Villard Books, of which he was publisher and editor-in-chief, and Random House Studio, of which he was president - and edited and published, among many others, Lidia Bastianich, Henry Beard, Harry Belafonte, Preet Bharara, Roy Blount, Jr., Jimmy Carter, Stephanie Danler, William Diehl, John Feinstein, Harvey Fierstein, Nicholas Gage, William Goldman, Tom Hanks, Wil Haygoid, Robert Hughes, Bill James, Kitty Kelley, Caroline Kennedy, Paul Newman, David Nichols, Nancy Silverton, Steven Sondheim, and Barbara Walters.
He has written 4 books of non-fiction, including the bestselling trilogy about his amazing cat Norton, and 8 novels, including 5 internationally bestselling thrillers under the pseudonym Russell Andrews. He co-wrote and co-produced the hit off-Broadway play OLD JEWS TELLING JOKES, and has written extensively for film and TV. He currently has two projects in development that he is coproducing: the film NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, for Universal Studio, to be directed by Scott Derrickson, and a streaming series for Paramount based on Preet Bharara’s book DOING JUSTICE. As one of the founding members of the Rotisserie League, he co-created the concept of fantasy sports, thus ruining many lives and relationships.
Dan Halpern
Executive Editor
Daniel Halpern was born in Syracuse, grew up in Los Angeles and Seattle, and has lived in Tangier, Morocco and New York City. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, most recently Something Shining. For 25 years, he edited the international literary magazine Antaeus, which he founded in Tangier with Paul Bowles. He’s also the author of two books about food, Halpern’s Guide to the Essential Restaurants of Italy and The Good Food: Soups, Stews & Pastas. He has received numerous grants and awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, as well as the first “Editor’s Award,” given by Poets and Writers, and the 2015 Maxwell Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction. From 1975 to 1995 he taught in the graduate writing program of Columbia University, which he chaired for many years. And in 1978, with James Michener, he founded The National Poetry Series, which oversees the publication of five books of poetry every year. For fifty years Halpern was president and publisher of Ecco, and is now an Executive Editor at Alfred A. Knopf.
Vanessa Haughton
Associate Editor
Vanessa is an Editor at Alfred A. Knopf. Before joining KDPG in 2018, she was a member of the foreign scouting team at Sanford J. Greenburger. She publishes narrative non-fiction and literary fiction and is proud to work with writers such as Melissa Febos, Rachel Syme, Rax King, Deena Mohamed, and Christine Murphy, among others. When she is not working or reading, Vanessa spends her time creating stained glass art, enjoying long walks with her dog, and—when she can—traveling to her family’s seaside village in Lebanon.
Morgan Hamilton
Assistant Editor
Morgan Hamilton is an assistant editor who acquires fiction and nonfiction with compelling hooks and big pitches. She has wide-ranging taste and is often reading two vastly different things and finding weird ways that they’re alike. For fiction, she works on literary fiction, upmarket women’s fiction, and international fiction. She is also drawn to literary-leaning novels with a romance arc, fantasy, and mythic fiction. For nonfiction, she works on voice-driven memoirs and narrative nonfiction that focus on gender and class, family life and marriage, sex and sexuality, history, and pop culture. Her list includes books by Morgan Richter, Nicholas Fox Weber, and Beatriz Serrano, and in her time at Knopf she has worked closely on books by authors including Anna Funder, Orhan Pamuk, Tom Hanks, Alex Prud’homme, Steve Gleason, and Mia Alvar. Before working at Knopf she was a high school English teacher working in her native state of South Carolina.
Erroll McDonald
VP & Executive Editor
Erroll McDonald has edited and published, among other authors, Rubén Blades, Harold Bloom, Italo Calvino, Patrick Chamoiseau, Sandra Cisneros, Marjorie Garber, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margo Jefferson, Randall Kennedy, Klaus Kinski, Fran Lebowitz, Daniel Lieberman, Toni Morrison, Abdelrahman Munif, Albert Murray, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Richard Pryor, David Reich, Salman Rushdie, Lucy Sante, Nina Simone, Wole Soyinka, Colm Tóibín, and John Edgar Wideman.
Of Caribbean heritage, he was graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and Yale College summa cum laude. He was a fellow in the department of comparative literature at Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and holds an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. A former trustee of PEN America, he chairs the board of directors of The Center for Fiction. He is a professor at Columbia University School of the Arts and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Isabel Meyers
Assistant Editor
Isabel (Izzy) Meyers is an assistant editor at Knopf interested in immersive narrative nonfiction as well as literary and upmarket/book club fiction with unexpected premises. She’s especially drawn to novels incorporating elements of domestic suspense, horror, and magical realism that utilize aspects of cultural heritage. In the nonfiction space she is seeking voice-driven works focusing on pop culture, hidden histories, and reproductive justice. Her authors at Knopf include Anne Somerset and Penny King. In her time at Knopf, she has also worked closely with best-selling and award-winning authors including Tommy Orange, Michelle Zauner, Maggie Shipstead, Maggie O’Farrell, and Richard Russo. Before Knopf, she worked at the literary magazine The Common. She is originally from Brookline, Massachusetts.
Diana Miller
VP & Executive Editor
Diana joined Knopf in 2003 as editorial assistant to Robin Desser and Bob Gottlieb, later becoming associate editor to Sonny Mehta. Among the books she has published are Leila Mottley’s bestselling debut novel Nightcrawling, an Oprah’s Book Club pick; Joanna Quinn’s bestselling debut novel The Whalebone Theatre, a Read with Jenna pick; Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, Giller Prize winner, Booker Prize finalist, and one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year; and Yoon Choi’s Skinship, winner of the PEN/Bingham Prize for debut short story collection. Diana also works with Elliot Ackerman, Alaa Al Aswany, Jo Baker, John Banville, Javier Cercas, Richard Flanagan, Juliet Grames, Garth Risk Hallberg, Amitava Kumar, Priyanka Mattoo, Anne Michaels, Jane Smiley, Anne Tyler, Alice Winn, and Evie Wyld.
Tom Pold
Senior Editor
Tom Pold is a senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf, where he acquires and edits cookbook and food narratives for Knopf Cooks, as well as handles backlist titles for Knopf Cooks Classics, like Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Edna Lewis and Madhur Jaffrey. In addition to the authors below, other authors he has worked with include Nancy Silverton; Lidia Bastianich; and Jody Williams and Rita Sodi of Via Carota.
Todd Portnowitz
Editor
Todd Portnowitz is an editor at Knopf who publishes principally nonfiction. He’s seeking works of history, across the arts, sciences, tech, finance, urban development, the ancient world, and on up to current affairs and pop culture, including music and sports. He also publishes fiction and poetry, especially in translation, with an interest in historical and speculative fiction. His list includes published and forthcoming books from Ken Burns, Jonathan Cheng, Peter Cozzens, Chaim Grade, Ian Kumekawa, Julia Lovell, Keza MacDonald, Jonah Mixon-Webster, Mária Elena Morán, Adam Ross, Philippe Sands, Lee Seong-bok, David Sibley, Zachary Small, Bud Smith, and the Estate of Albert Camus. From the Italian he has translated works by Nicola Gardini, Silvia Ferrara, Pierluigi Cappello, and Jhumpa Lahiri, and he is the co-host of the Brooklyn-based reading series for writer-translators, Us&Them. He grew up on Florida’s Space Coast.
Isabel Ribeiro
Editorial Assistant
Isabel Frey Ribeiro is an editorial assistant who loves literary, international, and historical fiction and narrative nonfiction, including history and memoir; she enjoys reading in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Projects she has worked on at Knopf include fiction by Sandra Cisneros, Elif Shafak, Toni Morrison, Rachel Khong, Marie NDiaye, and Martin Walker; nonfiction by Nicholas Kristof, Tracy K. Smith, Kenneth Roth, Jonathan Raban, Philip Shenon, and Paul Hendrickson; and poetry by Linnea Axelsson, Tayi Tibble, and Mosab Abu Toha. Before her time at Knopf, she studied history at Williams College, tutored writing, and worked as an organizer for the Busload of Books Tour.
Rob Shapiro
Assistant Editor
Rob Shapiro received an MFA from the University of Virginia, and his writing has appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, New England Review, and The Southern Review. Projects he has worked on include fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, Jayne Anne Phillips, Russell Banks, and Hari Kunzru; nonfiction by Amy Tan, Beverly Lowry, and Lauren Hough; and poetry by Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, and Nicole Sealey.
Tiara Sharma
Editorial Assistant
Tiara Sharma is an editorial assistant interested in literary and upmarket fiction, and poetry, that is formally inventive, sharply observational, or propelled by an unforgettable voice. Across nonfiction, they are drawn to histories of social movements, cultural criticism, political theory, memoir, reportage, and books that meld genres and disciplines. In their time at Knopf, they have worked with best-selling and award-winning authors such as Ken Burns, Kevin Kwan, Gabrielle Zevin, Bill Clinton, Dolly Alderton, John Vaillant, Gary J. Bass, Michael Finkel, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Chris Bohjalian. Before joining Knopf Editorial, Tiara worked at the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau and interned at n+1. They were born in Jammu, India and live in Brooklyn, NY.
Ben Shields
Editorial Assistant
Ben Shields reports to editors Quynh Do and Todd Portnowitz and continues to assist Vicky Wilson in her consultant role at Knopf. He is interested in upmarket fiction, gay men’s fiction, biography, cultural criticism, Middle East politics, and popular histories of religion, empire, and civilizations. He is the managing editor of GRAND journal. His journalism and critical work have appeared in Bookforum, Paris Review Daily, the Mars Review of Books, and elsewhere.
Zuleima Ugalde
Editorial Assistant
Zuleima Ugalde is an editorial assistant at Pantheon and Alfred A. Knopf, supporting the desks of Deb Garrison and Diana Miller. At Knopf, Zuleima has worked alongside authors such as Robin Coste Lewis, Amitava Kumar, Clare Sestanovich, Leila Mottley, Kay Redfield Jamison, Jane Hirshfield, David Remnick, Elliot Ackerman, Richie Hofmann, Michael Dickman, Ramie Targoff, Garth Risk Hallberg, and many others. Her favorite reads include literary fiction that is thought-provoking, transportive historical fiction that captures a unique sense of time and place, and narrative and literary nonfiction projects with a spirit of intellectual inquiry, and she is looking to acquire books along the same vein. She lives in New York City and enjoys searching for good reading spots throughout the city.