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The Best Novel Writing Mentors on the West Coast

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Literary agent, editor and author Paula Munier is one of the biggest new stars in New York publishing. Her energy is boundless, her network endless, and being a writer herself, as well as a congenial human being, her care and compassion for her writers is legendary. Paula possesses broad experience in a wide variety of genres, and in creating content in all formats across all markets for such media giants as Disney, Gannett, Greenspun Media Group, and Quayside. Currently, she has her own three-book deal with St. Martins for the MERCY CARR mystery series, and now on the way to a fourth book. Her last nonfiction book on craft, WRITING WITH QUIET HANDS, reviewed on Amazon - "Paula Munier's Writing with Quiet Hands is the real deal. Munier knows writing and publishing from all the angles and covers them in such a way as to teach, inspire, and encourage. If you want to learn, turn the pages and behold." - Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times best-selling author of Robert B. Parker's THE DEVIL WINS. To date in 2023, Paula has clocked over 150 official deals with major publishers as an agent for Talcott-Notch Literary Agency, and also signed more than ten authors from Algonkian Conference events, all of whom have contracts with major publishers in New York.


Michael Neff is an award winning author, Pushcart nominated poet, widely published short fiction writer, literary agent, writer conference organizer, as well as an accomplished developmental editor. His first published book, a literary political novel about Washington during the Reagan years entitled ALL THE DARK WE WILL NOT SEE, was published by the distinguished academic press, Serving House Books. A few years later, an urban fantasy, MAGICIANS IMPOSSIBLE, was created and co-edited by him, and later published by Macmillan Books. His science-fantasy novels, PIPER ROBBIN AND THE AMERICAN OZ MAKER (pseudonym Warwick Gleeson), and the prequel, WORLD MAKER, have both received multiple awards. The former was chosen by an editorial panel at Kirkus Reviews to be a "Top 150 Best Books" choice in 2019, and in 2020 the novel achieved Amazon Best Seller status. The prequel in 2018 won four national book awards for SFF, including First Place in Science Fiction and a Finalist in Fantasy, Beverly Hills Book Awards, as well as the Merit Award for the CIPA EVVY in Fantasy, and Third Place CIPA EVVY in Science Fiction. A new thriller novel co-authored by him, BEST SERVED DEADLY, gained Top Ten finalist status in the 2023 Screencraft LA Book Writing Competition out of a field of over 2000 entries, and was chosen by Coverfly in LA to rank Fourth Place in their Top 20 Thriller "Red List" of all time.

Michael is also the founder and chief architect of Algonkian Writer Conferences including the famous and highly successful New York Write to Pitch Conference. Novels ushered to commercial publication via his Algonkian-method workshops include GRAVEMAIDENS by Kelly Coon, THE MANHATTAN PUZZLE by Laurence O'Bryan, THE WISDOM OF HAIR by Kim Boykin, ORPHAN 8 by Kim Van Alkemade, DARK TURNS by Cate Holahan, THE GOAT WOMAN OF LARGO BAY by Gillian Royes, and THE FICTION CLASS by Susan Breen, among dozens of others. Agent deals and commercial novels in a variety of genres involving Michael as a key developmental editor over the past several years include ON MAGGIE'S WATCH by Ann Garvin, MURDER AT BARCLAY MEADOW by Wendy Eckel, THE EDGE OF NORMAL by Carla Norton, THE BLACK PANTHERS by Gina Niccolo, DIE BACK by Richard Hacker, KARMA CITY by Gardner Browning, and more recently, DRAGON RIPPER, an Amazon best-selling historical mystery by Melanie Bacon.


Katharine Sands has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books including fiction, memoir, and non-fiction. When reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. She is famous in Algonkian circles as a fantastic fiction editor, and among the wildly successful books she has represented are THE APOTHECARY'S CURSE by Barbara Barnett (nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2017 in the First Novel category), and GIRL WALKS OUT OF A BAR, a memoir by Lisa Smith that was featured by People Magazine as Notable Nonfiction. For memoir, femoir, and himoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed. Katharine also likes books that have a clear benefit for readers' lives in the categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, life challenges and popular culture.

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