Editor:
Ellen E. M. Roberts
has worked with trade books,
scholarly books and children’s books
in her long career as an acquisitions editor
at St. Martin’s Press, William Morrow and Prentice Hall.
She served as a sales manager at Columbia University Press,
distributing books for the Press Consortium
which included Smithsonian Institution Press,
the University of Tokyo Press and the New York University Press.
Her experience in trade book editing, publishing and book distribution
has informed her approach to new projects:
she believes that editorial excellence will win out in the end,
and has shepherded over a thousand book projects to publication
that prove this point.
Roberts has written two books about American children’s publishing:
The Children’s Picture Book
(available in five languages)
and
Non-fiction for Children.
A Classics graduate of Reed College,
Roberts is an earnest amateur violinist and poetry lover
who recently rusticated from New York City
to the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania.
Marketing Manager:
Michele Horon
is a wordsmith who crafts words
into an organized and readable format for any purpose.
She creates promotional pieces and designs book campaigns
for print and for the web.
Before joining us,
Michele worked for fifteen years as an associate editor at Rodale Press,
a a health and wellness publishing company down the road in Emmaus.
She has also worked at Newsweek and Litton Educational Publishing in New York City.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Temple University in Philadelphia
and completed graduate work at Pace University in New York City.
Her motto in life is from Socrates:
“Be what you wish to seem.”
Art Director:
Doug Wink
of Inkway Graphics
has been a designer for leading publishing companies for three decades.
He began his career at the Pratt Institute’s Center for the Book.
He also designs promotional pieces and catalogues
for major cultural institutions including the Pierpont Morgan Library,
the Joyce Theater and the New York City Opera.
He brings a highly developed design aesthetic to his work,
along with cutting edge knowledge of computer programs
and printing and binding protocols.
Wink is based in Santa Fe where he lives with his wife Marcia Sullivan
and their dog Dexter.
He collects fountain pens and knows more about jazz than you do.
To view Doug’s portfolio, link to
Inkway Graphics.
Traffic:
George Flexior
is our token Type B,
cheerfully keeping projects in their lanes
with a blow of his ever-ready whistle.
He pitches projects to agents and editors,
works with manuscripts to create memorable marketing approaches
and offers editorial suggestions on works in progress.
Son of a fabled marketer,
George himself has the natural ability to see what a project is
and visualize who needs it.
He works on the phone, the Internet
and at conferences where he has developed a reputation
as a sympathetic ear and a compelling raconteur.
A writer as well as a marketer, George has published novels,
short stories and a children’s book.
He has also collaborated on screenplays and teleplays.
He makes his home in Los Angeles and doesn’t miss New York a bit.
Internet Marketing:
Kim Murphy
has been marketing websites for a host of businesses in the Lehigh Valley
using metatags, link swaps, design solutions and search engine optimization
to help business owners stay current with developments.
Kim enjoys working with authors because he loves the collaborative experience.
Originally from New York like the rest of us,
Kim has lived in Jim Thorpe, a picturesque town up the road from Allentown.
He now lives and works on the West Side where his company
Designz23.com
is located.
Kim helps authors advertise on search engines and specialized directories,
and pay for sponsored listings
that will add up to higher author platforms and bigger book sales.
Assistant Editor:
Chad Jarrah
trained as a biochemist at Lehigh University,
has worked in laboratories and classrooms, in factories and pharmacies.
He worked with the Peace Corps building hospitals in Niger
and has counseled troubled teenagers in the Allentown schools.
Fluent in Arabic, Hausa and Spanish, Chad loves writing in English.
He has published travel articles and movie reviews
while he works on his memoir of growing up Syrian in middle America.
At Where Books Begin, Chad is the detail man who handles submissions.
Ilustrator, Designer:
Viqui Maggio
is an accomplished illustrator
who has worked for many years in the book industry.
Her design work has appeared in numerous publications and books.
At
Where Books Begin,
she works with promotional materials for our authors
as well as with book covers and picture book interiors.
A graduate of the Parsons School of Design,
Viqui is a dedicated New Yorker,
living with her husband, librarian and teacher John White
and their two children in a Wall Street loft.
Her work can be viewed at
Maggio Graphics.
