One of my earliest memories is of looking through the wooden bars of my crib at my twelve-year-old sister lying on the floor reading to me probably from one of the English fairy tale or nursery rhyme books we had on our shelves. Most of the books in our childhood library were written by British authors. My mother was English and had been widowed in the Second World War; she had a young daughter. My father was an officer in the US army, also widowed and the father of a young daughter. He was stationed in England where he and my mother met. They married in London, and when the war was over, my mother and her daughter came to New York to start their new life with my father and his daughter.

My parents bought a house in the suburbs and had two more daughters. I was each of my parent’s second child, the third in the family birth order but the first of their union. I don’t know whether my sisters looked forward to my arrival, but they accepted it and as soon as I was old enough to listen, they began reading to me. Books bridged the differences and distances that connected our family. They were passports and treasures, and reading was both a journey and an escape.

I started kindergarten when I was four and by the time I was five, I was a proficient reader. In elementary school, my best friend and I would take the same book out of the library—the contest was to see who could finish it first. We would rush home, curl up with the selected book and hope no sibling or parental interference would interrupt the race. I loved spending time in libraries. I would take a book off the shelf and find a corner chair or window seat and lose myself in its pages. I remember being in third grade during library time looking up from my reading to see that my entire class was gone, I was the only one sitting at the wooden table—my book open before me. The bell had rung but I hadn’t heard it; the librarian must have been amused and, I hope, a little heartened to have a reader in her presence who could become so immersed in a story that even the jangling class bell couldn’t penetrate her absorption. I wrote poetry and short stories as soon as I could spell. In high school, I was editor of the newspaper; in college, on the staff of the literary magazine. When I was a senior, I decided to go to graduate school to get a degree in creative writing but marriage and two babies postponed my plan.

My husband and I started our married life in the Westchester suburbs where we grew up but moved to the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts to try our luck making a living and a life in a place we loved. We have been in the Berkshires for over thirty years now and raised our two daughters here. When we first arrived, I taught literature at Berkshire Community College and writing at Austen Riggs Center, a private psychiatric hospital in Stockbridge. The year my younger daughter started kindergarten, I won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in poetry and applied to the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers. Going to graduate school to study poetry felt like a gift. I learned to focus on language, to shape syntax, to alter and revise; to be a close reader. I also learned that writers need each other not just for support and feedback but to share resources and ideas. I could not have accomplished as much as I have without the company of other writers.

After I received my MFA, I began teaching English at Miss Hall's School, a private secondary school for girls. I was publishing poetry in literary magazines and winning some prizes, and writing a regular opinion column for the local paper, The Berkshire Eagle. When I was offered the opportunity to edit a new regional publication, The Women's Times, I left Miss Hall's and teaching. The pace and creative thinking of coming up with story ideas and working with writers were stimulating and exciting as was sharpening my editing skills, but I soon recognized that teaching, like poetry, is part of me. So I began to teach writing part-time and did poet-in-the-schools residencies in area high schools. Eventually, I stepped down from my position as editor and became a contributing editor of The Women's Times. I started organizing and leading private writing workshops. The workshops continue to grow and expand and have given me opportunities to work with talented and committed people and to create a community of writers where work flourishes. I continually learn from my students and I am always delighted to discover the promise and possibility in people's work. A number of my students have published books and stories, articles and poetry.

Because of our common interests which include a love of language and a passion for good writing, Nina and I joined forces to teach manuscript review workshops. We find inspiration and energy both in our collaboration and in working with others.

A freelance editor and literary agent, I am first and foremost a reader. I love the written word in all its forms - journalism, literature, poetry, information and storytelling of all kinds. The house I grew up in was filled with books, and I read indiscriminately from the shelves and stacks of books all around the house. I went into publishing and continued to read. For me, writers translate the world. One of the great things about working in publishing is the thrilling sense of discovery when you read a new manuscript or book proposal that you connect with. When a book or idea speaks to you, you naturally want to share the experience. This is what working with writers is all about for me.

Publishing is a business that is driven by taste and by connection to an author's work. Most fiction and narrative nonfiction is really going to sell because of the quality of the writing and the ideas. My background is editorial, and I find it's a great strength I bring to authors, not only in terms of helping a writer revise and develop his or her material, but also in terms of thinking about the market. Thinking like an editor; anticipating all the challenges that will face an editor bringing your book into the marketplace, tremendously increases the likelihood that the right editor will not only fall in love with a book, but be able to publish it well.

In working with non-fiction books and proposals, I bring substantial editorial and publishing experience to bear in helping authors transform their specific expertise and into a proposal for a book that will reach the widest possible audience. To Touch a Wild Dolphin by Rachel Smolker is a good example. Rachel is a biologist and she did the first long-term study of dolphins in the wild. She knew she had a great subject but she had never written a book or book proposal. We went back and forth intensively and she worked very hard on the proposal, mapping out the book and writing several chapters. Eventually, we sold the book to Doubleday, and to a number of foreign publishers as well.

I began my career at Random House as a publicist. I went on to become an editor working on major non-fiction titles by authors like Tip O'Neill, Donald Trump, Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter, and Russian novelist Vassily Aksyonov. I left to get a Masters in Journalism from Columbia, moved to Boston, and worked in documentary film. In 1990, I joined the Palmer & Dodge Agency (now Kneerim & Williams) where I helped develop a list of non-fiction and fiction drawn from Boston's rich academic, medical and literary communities. The agency was new, and I also initiated the foreign rights program. Subsequent years in New York and Berlin took me to the Frankfurt Book Fair and put me in touch with many foreign publishers. This experience widened my perspective of publishing to include the international book market. During these years I represented my own list of literary fiction and general non-fiction as an independent agent, eventually joining forces with Katherine Cowles to form the Cowles-Ryan Agency.

In 2001, I moved to Western Massachusetts where I continued to work as an agent, but also began writing and studying poetry, teaching manuscript workshops with Michelle Gillett, and working with individuals as a coach and freelance editor. In all of what I do, I share with Michelle Gillett a continuing fascination with what makes good writing work.

For more information about the Cowles-Ryan Agency, please see Related Links.