Month: March 2022

We are very excited to welcome Melissa Pimentel, our new editorial director. Melissa brings so much knowledge and multi-faceted experience in publishing, we are excited to have her join the team.

From Melissa:

I’m really delighted to be joining Paper Literary as an editorial director.

I worked in publishing for over fifteen years, first in publishing houses in New York and London and then at Curtis Brown Literary Agency, where I spent most of my career. For ten years, I worked as a Translation Rights Agent, selling the rights to authors’ work across the globe and negotiating six-and-seven-figure deals. One of my favorite aspects of my role involved working closely with Primary Agents, offering editorial feedback that would help shape clients’ work for submission.

In addition to my work as an Agent, I’m also a published author, having written three novels under my own name and two under the pseudonym Jessica Barry.  After several years of juggling both careers, I left publishing to write full-time.

As if that wasn’t a big enough adjustment, my husband and I moved back to my native New England after fifteen years in London, and we now live in a drafty Victorian in Mid-Coast Maine with an overgrown yard filled with squirrels.

Writing full-time is a privilege, and I know how lucky I am, but a couple years into just me and my laptop, I found I missed the buzz that comes from collaborating with clever, creative people.

When I saw that Paper Literary was looking for an in-house reader and editor, I jumped at the chance.  I had the pleasure of working with both Catherine and Katie during my years at Curtis Brown and know that they are both whip-smart and genuinely nice people, so I’m thrilled that I’ll be working with them again in this new role.