The Prose Pros

If you’d like to hear more from Penn, give her a follow on social media. She is @AuthorPennCole on all major platforms. Keep up with Penn’s latest news by joining her Discord reader group and subscribing to her monthly newsletter. The links for both, as well as a full list of upcoming appearances, can be found on Penn’s website, www.penncole.com.

Thank you, Scrivener, for sponsoring this episode of The Prose Pros.

Use coupon code PROSEPROS to receive a 20% discount on Scrivener for macOS or Windows when purchased via http://www.literatureandlatte.com/ before the end of November 2026.

Kathleen Schmidt is the founder and CEO of Kathleen Schmidt Public Relations and a respected leader in book publishing with three decades of experience spanning publicity, literary representation, acquisitions editing, and ghostwriting. She has worked on more than 50 New York Times bestsellers and led global media and branding campaigns for politicians, A-list celebrities, athletes, and other high-profile figures, securing consistent coverage across top-tier national outlets. Schmidt also publishes the fast-growing Substack newsletter Publishing Confidential, where she shares insider expertise to help demystify the book industry.

Kate McKean is a literary agent at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency in Brooklyn, New York. She is also an adjunct professor at New York University and earned her MA in fiction writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has appeared in Poets & Writers, Electric Literature, Catapult, and elsewhere. She writes the Agents & Books newsletter at https://www.agentsandbooks.com/.

Tara Goedjen writes atmospheric thrillers. Her forthcoming novel, PLEASE ENJOY YOUR STAY, set at a glamorous yet eerie hotel, is coming out with Atria this October.

Before writing books, Tara worked as a tennis coach (in Europe), as a college lecturer (in Australia), and as a fiction editor for a global publishing house.

She has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Alabama, and is also the author of two young adult mystery novels: No Beauties or Monsters and The Breathless. Her short fiction has appeared in Agni, BOMB MAGAZINE, New England Review, and Fairy Tale Review, among others.

Tara loves traveling the world and talking about books. She currently lives with her family in the misty Pacific Northwest, where she can usually be found hiking through a mysterious wood while dreaming up her next novel.

And for rights inquiries regarding Please Enjoy Your Stay, contact Allison Malecha and Nicole Cunningham at Trellis Literary Management [Amalecha@trellisliterary.com and Ncunningham@trellisliterary.com].

Marcus Kliewer is a writer and stop-motion animator. His debut novel, WE USED TO LIVE HERE, began life as a serialized short story on Reddit. Film rights were snapped up by Netflix, and it was acquired by Simon & Schuster in the US for publication even before it had been extended into a full-length novel. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Carla writes smart, escapist fiction full of glamorous settings, questionable decisions, and plenty of RPBB (rich people behaving badly). Also: a tiny bit of romance.

After years working at Goldman, Uber, Waymo then running her own startup, she finally returned to her first love—writing.

When she’s not deep in fictional worlds, she share the behind-the-scenes reality of publishing—and loves yapping with readers—on social media @carlavassbooks.

You can usually find her enjoying a great meal with friends and family, on the back of a horse, or in seat 4368C, heading off on her next adventure.

S.T. Gibson is the #1 Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of A DOWRY OF BLOOD. Her gothic romances and dark fantasy novels have been nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award and a British Fantasy Award, and longlisted for a British Science Fiction Association Award. She is a graduate of the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the theological studies program at Princeton Seminary.

Juliet Izon is a New York City and Hudson Valley-based journalist and author. Her work has appeared in national newspapers such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and magazines like Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, and Architectural Digest (a full archive of clips can be found here). Her first novel, The Encore, was published by Union Square & Co./Hachette in March 2026.

Born in University Park, MD, Juliet is a proud alumna of Sidwell Friends School and Trinity College, from which she graduated with honors in English Literature. Before becoming a freelance writer, she held editorial staff positions at Bauer Publishing, Niche Media, and Modern Luxury, where she wrote on a variety of lifestyle topics including entertainment, travel, restaurants, and design.

In her free time, you can often find her traveling the world with her husband Mike and daughter Aveline. But when she’s home, she’s probably at the theater catching a new dance performance or off-Broadway show.

Marisa Walz writes books about people behaving badly. Her debut novel, Good Intentions, was an instant USA TODAY bestseller.

​A lifelong writer and an alum of The Writers’ Loft in Chicago, Marisa’s authorly aspirations started at the age of seven with her painstakingly detailed childhood diaries and some horrible poetry. In her teen years, off the avocado-green Acer in her parents’ basement, she ran e-zines that regurgitated the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle advice she read about in Cosmo and Seventeen. She finally got her first paid writing gig in college as an opinion columnist and reporter for the campus newspaper, where she may or may not have fabricated a couple man-on-the-street quotes.

​These days, Marisa sneaks her writing in before her two young children wake up and after they go to bed. ​She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, kids, and a labradoodle that throws balls to itself and eats whole entire socks.​

Sophie Stava received her BA in English literature from UC Santa Barbara. She currently resides in Southern California with her family. COUNT MY LIES is her debut novel.

Ahmad Saber is a young adult author who grew up on an all-girls college campus next to a massive fort in Pakistan. He now lives in Canada, and loves Broadway (favorite show = Phantom), travel (favorite place = 4-way tie between NYC, Seoul, Paris, and Melbourne), and Taylor Swift (favorite album = folklore) He's also a self-professed Chocolate Chip Cookie Connoisseur and has crowned New York's Culture Espresso’s as the best in the world.

Ramin Abbas has MAJOR Questions is his debut novel and is based in part on his own lived experience, exploring the inherent challenges of being queer and Muslim, and the struggle to reconcile faith with sexuality.

Ahmad is also a medical doctor specializing in rheumatology.

Follow him around @theahmadsaber, or visit his website at http://SaberBooks.ca

Kate Emilie is an American writer whose small-town Florida upbringing inspired much of the setting in her debut novel. Kate has an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University, has completed the Curtis Brown Creative ‘Writing Your Novel’ course, and was a Faber Academy mentee. She lives outside London with her family and fluffy cat.

In addition to winning Friday Night Live at the 2025 London Festival of Writing, Kate’s debut novel, Seven Dishes to Fall in Love, was a 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair hotlist title, was shortlisted for the 2025 Idea Idol competition, was named a readers’ favourite and longlisted for the 2025 WriteMentor Awards, reached the Top 100 in the 2025 Bath Novel Awards, and reached the Top 50 in the New2TheScene Winter and Summer Novel competitions. Recently, she was the opening keynote speaker at the 2026 London Festival of Writing.

MIMI MONTGOMERY is a journalist and author who’s written for outlets like Axios, The Washington Post, Washingtonian, Garden & Gun, and Outside Magazine, and her reporting has been featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Inside Edition, and CNN, among others. Mimi attended the University of Virginia and has a master’s from Georgetown University. Originally from North Carolina, she lives in D.C. with her family and several furry dependents.

Her first novel, MURDER BITES, is out today, Aug. 4, 2026, with Bantam | Penguin Random House.

Evann Normandin is a writer with a career in educational publishing. She studied English and Theatre at Middlebury College, then got her MSc at the University of Edinburgh in modern and postmodern literature. After a stint as a theatre critic for BroadwayWorld in Washington, DC she moved to Massachusetts where she lives in a small, quirky town she takes inspiration from daily. When she’s not working or writing she’s exploring New England with her husband and son.

Evann's debut, THE GOOD PARTS, is a dual-timeline speculative love story that follows a woman who undergoes an irreversible memory-erasing procedure, and the man she once loved who reenters her life as a stranger, determined to make her fall for him all over again—but at a cost. THE GOOD PARTS is out now!

Carinn Jade is a lawyer, writer, and co-host of the Pop Fiction Women podcast. Her debut novel, The Astrology House, was a 2025 International Thriller Writers' Awards finalist in the category of Best First Novel and an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. The Dahlia Suite is her second novel.

Preorder THE MODERN GUIDE TO QUERYING LITERARY AGENTS here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Modern-Guide-to-Querying-Literary-Agents/Alyssa-Matesic/9781637749005

Alyssa Matesic is an independent developmental book editor and publishing consultant specializing in adult fiction. After holding editorial roles at Henry Holt & Company (an imprint of Macmillan), The Book Group literary agency, and Ballantine Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House), she founded her own editorial services company, which helps hundreds of authors per year strengthen their manuscripts for publication. She shares writing and publishing insights to help aspiring authors on her popular YouTube channel (@AlyssaMatesic) and newsletter (Chapter Break).

Patrick McDonald is the creator of QueryTracker and QueryManager, which are the industry-leading online querying tools. He has been bringing agents and authors together since 2007. This gives him a unique perspective since he has worked extensively with both groups and understands the needs and expectations on each side of the query trenches. Patrick started as an aspiring fiction writer when he found the query process lacking proper tools. At the time, he was working as a software engineer and decided to take his two passions, programming and writing, and combine them to create QueryTracker. When it became an instant success, no one was surprised more than Patrick. He lives in Billings, Montana surrounded by his three adult children and five spoiled grandkids.

Eve Chase writes bestselling, page-turning mysteries. Her novels include The Midnight Hour, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and Amazon no.1; The Glass House, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and Sunday Times bestseller; The Birdcage, The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde and Black Rabbit Hall. A winner of the Saint-Maur en Poche prize in Paris for Best Foreign Fiction and longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award, her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Oxford.

Lisa Peers is the Lambda Literary Award-nominated author of Love at 350° and has a passion for smart, funny love stories with well-deserved happy endings. She has acted professionally in San Francisco, produced TV and radio programs in Detroit, and is currently a creative director for an international marketing agency. A Harvard graduate with an MFA in acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Lisa lives with her partner, Dani, in metro Detroit, not far from their three grown children, along with their beloved cats and way too much yarn.

Alexandria Brown is CEO & Publisher at Rising Action Publishing.

Alex has over ten years of experience in marketing and creative writing. Alex has a Bachelor’s in Communications with a major in Public Relations, a Master of Fine Arts - Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire, and is a Creative Writing Ph.D. Candidate currently at the University of Gloucestershire. She has two traditionally published nonfiction books.

Alex’s primary role is in overseeing acquisitions and marketing, as well as working with sub-agents on subsidiary rights.

Anna McCallie was born in Boston and moved to the small town of Stilwell, Kansas, as a child. She has a B.A. in Arabic from Harvard University and an M.A. in international environmental policy from the Fletcher School, yet has never managed to have a job related to either of those subjects. She lives in London, and when she’s not writing, she can be found solving crossword puzzles, badgering her friends to go to pub quizzes, and watching a tremendous amount of football. Abby Offsides is her first novel.

Andrea Bartz is a journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick We Were Never Here, The Spare Room, The Lost Night, The Herd, and The Last Ferry Out. Her thrillers have been optioned by Netflix, Hulu, and other production companies, and more than half a million copies of her books have been sold worldwide. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Vogue, and many other outlets, and she's held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other publications. She was also a lead plaintiff in the landmark class-action lawsuit Bartz v. Anthropic, which was the first major win for creatives against an AI company as well as the largest copyright recovery in history. She lives with her girlfriend and pets in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley.