Before opening the agency, principal Betsy Amster spent ten years as an editor at Pantheon and Vintage and two years as editorial director of the Globe Pequot Press. She has been described in the Los Angeles Times as “a dogged prospector of…literary talent” and celebrated in a profile in the American Society of Journalists and Authors newsletter for her “no-nonsense style and whimsical sense of humor.” She frequently speaks in PEN USA’s Emerging Voices Program and Portland State’s Publishing Program, teaches classes on publishing at UCLA Extension’s Writers Program and The Loft, and moderates panels at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The agency’s areas of interest for adult projects include: Literary fiction, upscale commercial women’s fiction, voice-driven mysteries and thrillers, narrative nonfiction (especially by journalists), travelogues, memoirs (including graphic memoirs), social issues and trends, psychology, self-help, popular culture, women’s issues, history & biography, lifestyle, careers, health and medicine, parenting, cooking and nutrition, gardening, and quirky gift books. We do not represent romances, screenplays, poetry, westerns, fantasy, horror, science fiction, techno thrillers, spy capers, apocalyptic scenarios, self-published books, or political or religious arguments.