Drexel University presents The Business of Publishing

You thought there was nothing harder than writing a book. Then you tried to find an agent and publisher. This lively panel featuring top agents and editors will give you a glimpse behind the curtain to let you know what makes an agent want to offer representation and an editor make a bid to acquire a book. You’ll gain valuable insight into these career making decisions and learn what to do — and not to do — to make your book stand out.
This panel, part of the Senior Year Residency for Drexel University’s MFA Program, is open to the public.

• This is a free in-store event with limited amphitheater-style seating
• We encourage all guests to wear masks.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Hannah Braaten started at Gallery Books in 2020. Before that she worked at St. Martin’s Press, where she published authors including Tan France, Liz Plank, Matthew Dicks, and Kelly Carlin. After graduating from Wellesley College, Hannah attended the Columbia Publishing Course, but her career in the book industry dates back to before her freshman year of high school, working at independent bookstores in and around Boston. At Gallery, her authors include Marjan Kamali, Allison Larkin, Simone Gorrindo, Julia Kelly, Marjorie Ingall & Susan McCarthy, Erica Ferencik, Elissa Strauss, J.A. Jance, and J.R. Ward.

Callie Garnett is an editorial director at Bloomsbury Publishing, and the author of the chapbooks Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015), and On Knowingness (The Song Cave, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Prelude, Company, jubilat, The Recluse, and elsewhere. Her debut essay collection, The Tantrum, is forthcoming from Scribner.

Anjali Singh founded The Anjali Singh Agency in 2024. Most recently, she was an agent at Ayesha Pande Literary for nine years; she has also worked as an editor at Vintage Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Simon + Schuster and as Editorial Director of Other Press. She is best known for having championed Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis after stumbling across it on a visit to Paris. She has always been drawn to the thrill of discovering new writers and among the literary novelists whose careers she helped launch are Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Samantha Hunt, Saleem Haddad and Nawaaz Ahmed. She focuses on literary fiction, memoir, and narrative nonfiction as well as representing graphic novel writers and illustrators across all age ranges.

Sally Wofford-Girand (Union Literary) has worked with such luminaries as Salman Rushdie, Grace Paley, Kim Edwards, and Alice Hoffman as the foreign rights director at a boutique literary agency. Her particular areas of interest are: history, memoir, women’s issues, cultural studies, and, most of all, fiction that is both literary and gripping. Favorite authors include Cormac McCarthy, Kate Atkinson, Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Strout, Anne Patchett, John Green, Jose Saramago, and Wallace Stegner. She is a hands-on agent with a passion for great storytelling. She loves the thrill of discovery in working with debut novelists. Sally is on the board of AAR and a board member of Writers Omi, an international writers colony in New York State.

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