ABOUT

Paper Literary was founded by Catherine Cho in 2021, with a vision of building author careers. Our approach is built on a commitment to storytelling and maximizing every opportunity for our clients.

Catherine is originally from Kentucky. After a background in law and public affairs, she began her publishing career in New York at Folio Literary Management before moving to London. She was an assistant at Curtis Brown before being promoted to Associate Agent.

At Curtis Brown, she worked closely with authors at every stage of their careers. From established leading authors like John le Carré, David Mitchell, Tracy Chevalier, David Nicholls, and Lisa Jewell to authors with platforms such as Rt Hon Gordon Brown and Nigella Lawson.

She was a literary agent at Madeleine Milburn Agency where she built her own list of debut authors through submissions, working closely with them editorially. She has sold six and seven figure deals in the US and UK.

With her background in law, she has always focused on contract negotiation and protecting client interests.

Catherine is the author of Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She is a regular contributor to national publications.

Katie Greenstreet joined Paper Literary in 2022. A corporate lawyer by training, she worked for several large law firms before making the leap into publishing. She started her career in books as an assistant at ICM Partners in New York, where she supported a list of Booker, Pulitzer, and Nobel Prize-winning authors.

She then moved to London and joined C&W, where she began building her own list while also working alongside Sue Armstrong and Sophie Lambert. At C&W, Katie discovered her passion for amplifying undiscovered voices and for getting stuck into projects editorially.

At every step of the publication process, Katie prioritises the reach and longevity of her authors’ careers, and she is especially looking for clients with whom she can build enduring, long-term relationships. She has sold six and seven figure deals in the US and UK.

Jenny Simpson joined Paper Literary as a Literary Agent in 2023. An American born in Budapest, she grew up in London and spent her formative years in the United States. 

Jenny began her publishing career at ICM Partners in New York in the subsidiary rights department. She was promoted to agent in 2021, handling all domestic subsidiary rights on behalf of the department, with a focus on audiobook and first serial rights. She has negotiated and sold rights at significant six-figure levels on behalf of prize-winning and bestselling authors and journalists. During her time at ICM (now CAA), Jenny worked across the Publishing and Podcasting departments, servicing clients in their ventures into the original audio and podcast marketplaces. 

Jenny will build the subsidiary rights department at Paper Literary as well as her own list as a literary agent. Armed with her background in rights management, Jenny is dedicated to advocating for and protecting the interests of her clients at every stage of a book’s lifetime.

Melissa Pimentel joined Paper Literary as Editorial Director in 2022, working closely with our agents on editorial and development work. She has worked in publishing for over fifteen years, first in publishing houses in New York and London. For ten years, she was at Curtis Brown as a Translation Rights Agent, selling the rights to authors’ works across the globe and negotiating six and seven figure deals.

Melissa is an internationally published author of five novels, under her own name and the pseudonym, Jessica Barry. Her debut thriller FREEFALL, published by HarperCollins, has sold in over twenty territories around the world.