Women Who Write, Inc.
Since 1988
MARY CARLOMAGNO
AUTHOR, MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER, ORGANIZING SPECIALIST
Mary Carlomagno is a book publishing veteran and life-long lover of books. Before starting Order, she held marketing positions at Doubleday and Dell. She moved to the retail side in 1993, ran the national events program for Barnes & Noble and later became Director of Sponsorships. Inspired by entrepreneurship, she started Order in 2005 to help busy people find sanity and appreciation in their lives. Order specializes in clutter control, urban apartment solutions, office spaces and shopping addictions. Mary's philosophy is based on her
personal experience of finding order, a journey she wrote about in her first book, Give it Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less.
Mary has appeared on Oprah, the Today Show, Dayside, The God Squad, CBS News and Good Housekeeping TV. She’s been interviewed on NPR, the Joan Hamburg Show, Martha Stewart Living and by Leeza Gibbons. Morning television viewers know her as the "organizing mom," representing Gillette, Olive Garden, Pompeian Olive Oil, Swanson, Command Strips, Post-it Notes, and Febreze.
Her advice has been featured in Real Simple, Woman’s Day, Quick and Simple, For Me, Newsday and the Daily News. Mary writes frequently for magazines and newspapers including the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Design NJ, Pink, Woman’s World, Body and Soul, Success and Figure.
Her books include Give it Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less (HarperCollins), Secrets of Simplicity (Chronicle Books), Live More, Want Less (Storey Publishing) and Best Friend for Hire, a novel that draws upon her personal experience in book publishing and self-help (Post Hill Press).
AMY GASH
EXEC. EDITOR, ALGONQUIN BOOKS (NEW YORK)
Amy Gash is an Executive Editor in the New York office of Algonquin Books, where she acquires literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. Books she has edited have won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal, and the Sami Rohr Prize. They have been New York Times bestsellers, Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times bestsellers, #1 Indie Picks, Top Ten Amazon Books of the Year, and New York Times Notable Books, and they've been published in translation throughout the world. Her
own book, What the Dormouse Said: Lessons for Grown-Ups from Children's Books, is a collection of wise quotations from children's literature.
BILLY MITCHELL
PLAYWRIGHT, DIRECTOR, AND SPEAKER
Originally from Maine, Billy Mitchell is an award-winning director and playwright whose fill-in-the-blanks comedy Villain: DeBlanks has been seen in New York City, LA and London, featuring Tony-, Emmy- and Olivier-winning performers such Kathleen Turner, Bruce Vilanch, Bebe Neuwirth, Annaleigh Ashford, Barrett Foa, LaChanze, Beth Leavel, Jab Maxwell, Justin Guarini, Lena Hall, Nancy Opel and many others. In August Villain: DeBlanks makes its Scottish debut at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
A member of the Dramatists Guild, Billy is the author of several plays and a series of original Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) pieces. His script Blood & Oil is currently represented by the Freedman Agency. His first commissioned work, Bartholomew Fair, New Jersey - a 90-minute comedy-in-verse - enjoyed runs in NJ and NYC. A second commission, working title The Restoration, is in progress.
He has a Bachelor's in Performance and a Masters in Directing from UMaine, studied educational theatre at NYU, and is frequently the host at events where a first choice celebrity was unavailable.
RACHEL ORR
PICTURE BOOK THROUGH Y.A. AGENT, PROSPECT AGENCY
Rachel Orr is celebrating her eleventh year with Prospect Agency, where she represents both authors and illustrators in projects ranging from picture books through YA. She previously worked for eight rewarding years at HarperCollins Children’s Books, and uses those editorial skills to help prepare her clients’ work for submission. Her clients include Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen (The United States v. Jackie Robinson /HarperCollins), Samantha M. Clark (The Boy, the Boat and the Beast / S&S), Barbara DiLorenzo (Quincy / Little Bee), Cori Doerrfeld (The Rabbit
Listened / Dial), Leeza Hernandez (This is Your Day! / Scholastic) and Emma Wunsch (The Princess and the Absolutely Not a Princess / Abrams). Rachel lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with her husband and two young children. She has no spare time—but, if she did, she would spend it dancing, running and reading, of course. You can follow her on Twitter @rachelprospect.
CAITLYN DLOUHY
VICE PRESIDENT/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, CAITLYN DLOUHY BOOKS, ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
Caitlyn Dlouhy, Vice President, Editorial Director, Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, first joined Atheneum in July of 1998, having worked at HarperCollins, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, and a teeny tiny little newspaper in Massachusetts as a “special writer” before that. Some of the authors and illustrators she’s fortunate enough to work with include Laurie Halse Anderson, Kathi Appelt, Ashley Bryan, Doreen Cronin, Nicole Feret, Frances O’Roark Dowell, Sharon Draper, Candace Fleming, Richard Jackson, William Joyce, Cynthia Kadohata, Uma Krishnaswami, Betsy Lewin,
Alison McGhee, An Na, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Jason Reynolds, Peter Reynolds, Eric Rohmann, Janne Teller, Tor Seidler, and David Small, to name but a few. Some of the awards her books have received include a Newbery Award and Newbery Honors, Printz Honors, Coretta Scott King Award winners and Honors, a Pura Belpré Award, a National Book Award and honors, Edgar Awards, a Kirkus Award, Walter Dean Myers Awards, Christopher Awards, a Batchelder Honor, a Jane Addams Peace Award, Josette Frank Awards, Simon & Schuster’s first ever Pen USA Award in Children’s books and first ever Bologna Ragazzi Award, an E. B. White Award, a Canadian Governor General’s Award, a Stonewall Honor, and a Charlotte Zolotow Award. When not editing, she and her husband are very busy keeping up with their very busy daughters and their ever-growing menagerie of critters, including a pair of chinchillas.
DONNA GALANTI
AUTHOR
Donna Galanti is the author of the bestselling paranormal suspense Element Trilogy and the children’s fantasy adventure Joshua and The Lightning Road series. Donna is a contributing editor for International Thriller Writers the Big Thrill magazine and regularly presents as a guest author at schools. She’s lived from England as a child, to Hawaii as a U.S. Navy photographer. Donna has long been a leader in the Mid-Atlantic writing scene as a workshop presenter. She’s taught on writing craft and marketing at writing conferences,
retreats, regional writing organizations, and colleges and is also a writing contest judge at nycmidnight.com. Donna also loves teaching writers about building author brand and platform through her free training series at yourawesomeauthorlife.com. Visit her at donnagalanti.com.
SUSAN LITMAN
ACQUISTIONS EDITOR, HARLEQUIN BOOKS
Susan Litman came to Harlequin after spending several years working in film development in New York. She is an editor for the Harlequin Special Edition series and also acquires for other series lines including Romantic Suspense. She also worked on the launch of Harlequin’s first suspense serial, Tough Justice, as well as their new sexy serial, Secrets of the A-List.
She has the privilege of working with a variety of authors including the award-winning Brenda Harlen
and Gail Barrett, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Shirley Jump, USA TODAY bestselling authors Judy Duarte and Karen Rose Smith, and exciting new voices including Christy Jeffries and Kerri Carpenter, as well as many others. She has a B.A. in Film Studies and Theater and a minor in Developmental Psychology from Sarah Lawrence College and has a bit of a cookbook addiction. Follow her on Instagram at @NYC_Editor_Life and on Twitter at @susan_litman.
CONNIE ROBERTS
AWARD WINNING POET AND HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
Connie Roberts, a County Offaly native, emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1983. Her poetry has been published in journals in the U.S. and Europe. In 2010 she received the Patrick Kavanagh Award for her manuscript Not the Delft School, was awarded first prize in the Dromineer Literary Festival Poetry Competition and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. In 2011 she received a Literature Bursary Award from the Irish Arts Council and was nominated for the Hennessy X.O. Literary Awards. She has been a finalist in several poetry
contests, including the Strokestown International Poetry Competition, the iYeats Poetry Competition (twice), the Allingham Arts Festival Poetry Competition, the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award, the North West Words Poetry Prize (twice), the Fermoy International Poetry Competition, the Swift Satire Contest, and the Dana Awards. In 2013 she received the Poetry Collection Award at the Listowel Writers’ Week Festival, and in 2014 she won the Boyle Arts Festival Poetry Competition. Spring 2015 Arlen House, Dublin published her debut volume, Little Witness, a collection of poetry inspired by her experiences growing up in an industrial school (orphanage) in the Irish midlands. September 13, 2015 The New York Times published a profile of her. January 2016 she received the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship Award in Ireland, and Little Witness was shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award. She was selected as the Exceptional Offaly Person of the Year 2016. She teaches creative writing at Hofstra University, New York and is part of Hofstra’s Irish Studies program.