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. We represent New York Times bestsellers and Sunday Times bestsellers, book club and subscription box picks in the US and UK.

Catherine Cho 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 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.

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.

Kiya Evans joined Paper Literary as an Associate Agent in 2025.

She started her career at Mushens Entertainment in 2020, first as an intern, before becoming an assistant in 2021, working closely with a list of Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellers, including Richard Osman, Abigail Dean, Jessie Burton, Claire Douglas, and Saara El-Arifi. She became an Associate Agent in 2023.

Kiya has judged numerous writing prizes, including the Brick Lane Books Short Story Prize 2023, as well as the First Novel Prize and the inaugural Goldfinch Novel Award in 2024. She is a judge for this year’s Cheshire Novel Prize.

At Paper, Kiya’s focus is split between providing support for Catherine Cho and Katie Greenstreet, as well as building a list of her own. In an agent-author relationship, her focus is always on being a personal, informed, strategic voice at every stage of the publishing process, with the goal of shaping long-term and dynamic careers for authors.


Why Paper?

The name Paper is a nod to the origins of the written story and the possibility of the blank page. As a material, paper is transformable – so while it has ancient roots, it is also modern. Paper may seem delicate, but its fragments can last for hundreds of years, and the words it carries can change history.