Building a Career as an Author

Andy Ross opened his literary agency in 2008. Prior to that, he was the owner of the legendary Cody’s Books in Berkeley for 30 years. His agency represents books in a wide range of non-fiction genres including: narrative non-fiction, science, journalism, history, popular culture, memoir, and current events. He also represents literary, commercial, historical, and upmarket women’s fiction, and YA and middle grade fiction.

For non-fiction Andy looks for writing with a strong voice, robust story arc, and books that tell a big story about culture and society by authors with the authority to write about their subject. In fiction, he likes character and voice-driven stories about real people in the real world. Sorry. No zombies at the prom, thank you very much.

Andy has participated and taught classes in numerous writers’ conferences including San Francisco Writers Conference, Kauai Writers Conference, San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference, Nebraska Writers Conference, and more. He has organized and conducted writing intensive workshops with Linda Watanabe McFerrin in Santa Fe, Provence, Kauai and in Scotland.

Andy is the author of The Literary Agent’s Guide to Writing a Non-Fiction Book Proposal. Authors Andy represents include: Daniel Ellsberg, Fritjof Capra, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Susan Griffin, Leonard Shlain, Gwen Strauss, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Anjanette Delgado, Mark Goldblatt, Tawni Waters, Randall Platt, Mary Jo McConahay, Gerald Nachman, Michael Parenti, Paul Krassner, Milton Viorst, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Michele Anna Jordan, and Scott Ostler.

Website: www.andyrossagency.com

Laurie Fox is the head agent at The Linda Chester Literary Agency; she joined the agency in 1989 and worked closely with Linda Chester for 33 years. A graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz (Creative Writing and Theatre Arts), Laurie is a former indie and antiquarian bookseller, bookstore owner, and teacher of creative writing. She is a published author of fiction and poetry, including Sexy Hieroglyphics (Chronicle Books) and two novels, My Sister from the Black Lagoon (starred Publishers Weekly review; San Francisco Chronicle bestseller) and The Lost Girls, both published by Simon & Schuster. The movie of The Lost Girls starring Vanessa Redgrave, Jolie Richardson, and Iain Glen was released in 2022. As an agent, she is proud of working with such highly regarded authors as Wally Lamb, Cheryl Strayed, Joyce Maynard, Annalee Newitz, Daniel H. Wilson, and Lolly Winston, and has enjoyed bringing over 35 national bestselling books into the world. Laurie represents books in the areas of literary and quality fiction, including thrillers, sci-fi and speculative fiction, as well as works in the genres of memoir, biography, cultural history, popular culture, quirky humor, narrative nonfiction, history and current events, art and artists, and science and technology. The Linda Chester Literary Agency is active at placing foreign, audio, and dramatic rights.