lane zachary
Lane Zachary, a founding partner of The Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency, received her B.A. magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College and her M.A. in English Literature from Boston University. One of the top agents in the country for the representation of writers of serious literary fiction and nonfiction, Zachary is known for her devotion to her authors, providing them with extensive editorial guidance, and helping them create a body of work that spans a long and successful writing career.
todd shuster
Todd Shuster is a founding partner of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency. Following college at Yale (where he graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and law school at Northeastern University (where he subsequently taught on the adjunct faculty), Shuster practiced publishing and entertainment law at the Boston law firms of Palmer & Dodge and Ropes & Gray.
esmond harmsworth
Esmond Harmsworth is a founding partner of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency. Born in London, he was educated in England before graduating magna cum laude from Brown University and cum laude from Harvard Law School. As a literary agent, Harmsworth represents fiction and nonfiction.
jennifer gates
Jennifer Gates is a partner with The Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency. She received her B.A. from Wesleyan University and worked previously as an editor at the ReganBooks division of HarperCollins. An agent since 1997, Gates represents a range of nonfiction as well as both commercial and literary fiction. Her nonfiction list includes current affairs, memoir, pop culture, psychology, narrative nonfiction, and history.
mary beth chappell
Mary Beth Chappell received a B.A. in Political Science from Brown University and a J.D. from Emory School of Law. Chappell joined Zachary Shuster Harmsworth in 2004 and is based in the agency's Boston office. Chappell enjoys working with a range of new and established authors. Her fiction interests include historical fiction, inspirational fiction, Christian fiction, upmarket women's fiction, Southern fiction, cozy mysteries and young adult fiction.
rachel sussman
Rachel Sussman graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a B.A. in English literature. She has worked as an editor at Scribner, where she edited a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including Dawn Raffel's debut novel, Carrying the Body; Thomas Webber's memoir Flying Over 96th Street; Naama Goldstein's debut short story collection, The Place Will Comfort You; Louis Edwards's novel Oscar Wilde Discovers America; and Jennifer Vogel's memoir Flim-Flam Man. After four years at Scribner, Rachel moved to London, where she worked as an editor with The Literary Consultancy and edited for various U.K. publishing houses on a freelance basis.
joanne wyckoff
Joanne Wyckoff received her B.A. with honors, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Wells College. She also did graduate work in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before becoming an agent, Wyckoff was Senior Editor at the Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, and Executive Editor at Beacon Press. Among the authors she worked with are Michael Thompson, Judith Thurman, Mary Pipher, Karen Armstrong, Alison Weir, Patricia Hersch, Bruce Barcott, Margot Adler, Sidney Blumenthal, Louise DeSalvo, Sven Birkerts, Linda Hogan, Jonathan Kirsch, Anne Lamott, and Susan Chernak McElroy.
eve bridburg
Eve Bridburg joined Zachary Shuster Harmsworth as an agent in the fall of 2005. After graduating with a Masters in Creative Writing from Boston University, where she studied with Margot Livesey, Leslie Epstein, and Ralph Lombreglia on a teaching fellowship, Eve founded Grub Street, Inc., now recognized as the leading literary arts center in New England. At Grub Street, Eve taught fiction workshops, nurtured local talent, developed avenues for networking and professional development and celebrated new works of fiction and nonfiction. Eve continues to contribute to Grub Street’s growth and development as an active member of the Board of Directors.
janet silver
Janet Silver, the Literary Director of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth agency, brings more than three decades of experience as an acclaimed editor and publishing executive to her work as a literary agent. She joined the agency after 25 years at Houghton Mifflin Company, where she was Vice President and Publisher. Throughout her long career, Silver has remained committed to advancing the work of exceptional writers of fiction and narrative nonfiction. Her clients benefit from both her in-depth knowledge of the publishing process and her reputation as one of the finest editors in the industry, who has worked with such celebrated writers as Philip Roth, Tim O'Brien, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cynthia Ozick, Jonathan Safran Foer, and John Edgar Wideman. As a publisher, she oversaw the release of such groundbreaking works The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman. At Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Silver represents writers of the highest quality literary fiction as well as narrative nonfiction in a range of subjects, including memoir, science, history, and biography.
colleen rafferty
Colleen Rafferty received her B.A. with Honors from Duke University, where she was a Lord Rothermere Scholar. Before joining Zachary Shuster Harmsworth in 2007, she studied literature at New College, Oxford University and the University of Paris VII, and worked as an editorial intern at Literary Review in London. Some of her clients include: Jenny Pritchett, author of the Pushcart Prize-nominated short story collection At or Near the Surface (Fourteen Hills Press); Iliza Shlesinger, winner of NBC's "Last Comic Standing"; Melody Moezzi, NPR commentator, Huffington Post blogger, and author of the critically acclaimed War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims; and education expert Brian Leaf, author of the Defining Twilight series and several forthcoming books from John Wiley & Sons. Rafferty is interested in humor, pop-culture, literary and commercial fiction, poetry, YA, and memoir. She also works on film and television rights for the agency.
kate caulfield
Kate Caulfield graduated with Honors from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English, where she studied under bestselling author Elizabeth McCracken. After working at the Helen Rees Agency and Zachary Shuster Harmsworth as an editorial intern, she joined Zachary Shuster Harmsworth full-time in 2008. In addition to assisting Esmond Harmsworth and Lane Zachary, Kate also works on foreign and subsidiary rights for the agency. She is currently interested in acquiring literary and commercial fiction, voice-driven narrative nonfiction, memoir, biography, cookbooks, humor, and literary and commercial YA.
