VICTORIA BIJUR started her literary agency in 1988. She represents fiction and nonfiction and has served as president of the Association of American Literary Agents and as chair of its ethics committee. Many of the books she represents have been on the New York Times best-seller list. Several of Bijur’s books have been filmed, including James Sallis’ “Drive,” with Ryan Gosling; Lisa Genova’s “Still Alice,” with Julianne Moore; Robert Kanigel’s “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” with Dev Patel; and Laura Lippman’s “The Lady in the Lake” with Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram. www.vickybijuragency.com
BELLE BURDEN is the author of the best-selling memoir “Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage.” She is an attorney specializing in juvenile immigration cases; her work has appeared in the New York Times. Burden attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College and received her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She lives in New York City and Martha’s Vineyard. www.belleburden.com
CAZZIE DAVID is a 32-year-old girl (NOT woman) who has been told by up to two psychics that she has lived many lifetimes, and that only this current lifetime is that of a nepo baby (the other lifetimes were very respectable). She released her collection of essays “Delusions” earlier this year, which followed her New York Times best-seller “No One Asked for This.” David is a regular contributor to Air Mail, and has written for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Elle Magazine, and more. Her debut feature, “I Love You Forever,” which she cowrote and directed, premiered at SXSW and is available for streaming on HBO Max. 
The Poets & Writers 2019 Editor of the Year, DAWN DAVIS is the founding publisher of 37 INK, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. She has edited multiple best-selling books, such as the New York Times best-seller “The U.S. Constitution” by Melissa Murray and the international best-seller “Keeper of Lost Children” by Sadeqa Johnson, as well as several prizewinning books, including Pulitzer prizewinning “Master Slave Husband Wife” by Ilyon Woo. In 2020, Davis was named editor in chief of the Condé Nast magazines Bon Appétit and Epicurious. She returned to Simon & Schuster in 2023.
BOB DROGIN enjoyed 38 years as a national, foreign, and Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, and wrote reviews of nonfiction books for the paper in his spare time. After taking a buyout in 2020, he wrote 34 advance obits — that is, obituaries prepared before historic persons die so they can be posted as soon as needed — of foreign leaders, CIA directors, and even Arlo Guthrie (who is still undead) for the Washington Post. Drogin now writes them for the New York Times. He is author of “Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Conman Who Caused a War,” a 2007 book that he wishes you had read. He lives half the year in West Tisbury and is determined to master the ukulele. 
KATE FEIFFER is the director of Islanders Write, a MV Times initiative that brings literary events to the Vineyard community and supports emerging reporters. Kate is the author of the novel “Morning Pages,” eleven books for children, and the play “Deja New.” She is the illustrator of the poetry book “The Lamb Cycle,” and her illustrations and artwork have been published and exhibited widely on the Island, and less widely off-Island. www.katefeiffer.com
NICOLE GALLAND’s most recent novel is “Boy,” set in Shakespeare’s London. Her historical fiction includes “I, Iago,” “The Fool’s Tale,” and “Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade.” She is also coauthor, with Neal Stephenson, of the New York Times best-seller “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.,” and her contemporary work includes the rom-com “On the Same Page,” about two competing newspapers on Martha’s Vineyard. Galland’s plays include “The Retreat” and “Last Call,” both of which premiered the last week of January 2026, eight times zones apart. Galland is also the managing editor of features for The Martha’s Vineyard Times. nicolegalland.com
ANNABELLE GURWITCH is an actress, activist, New York Times best-selling author of six books, and two-time Thurber Prize finalist. Her essays and satire have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other publications. Her books include the New York Times best-seller “I See You Made an Effort” and “You’re Leaving When?,” a New York Times “Favorite Book for Healthy Living.” Gurwitch cohosted the fan favorite “Dinner and a Movie” on TBS and was a regular commentator on NPR. She is a Jewish mother, a lung cancer survivor and patient advocate, a terrible ukulele player, and an unrepentant cat lady. www.annabellegurwitch.com
JOSHUA HAMMER spent 15 years as a Newsweek magazine foreign correspondent on five continents. Since 2006, he has been a roving freelance journalist, contributing frequently to Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, the New York Review of Books, GQ, the New York Times, and many other publications. Hammer is the author of six books, including the New York Times best-seller “The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu,” and the winner of a National Magazine Award for Reporting. In his 20 years as a literary critic, he has reviewed over 100 books for the New York Times and dozens for the New York Review of Books. 
JUDITH HANNAN is the author of the memoir “Motherhood Exaggerated,” as well as of “The Write Prescription,” a guide for writing about illness. Through her teaching, she is an activist in child and family health, education, and welfare. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications such as Lilith Magazine, the Washington Post, and The MV Times. Hannan is a writer-in-residence for the Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine and on the boards of the Children’s Museum of Manhattan and CavanKerry Press. judithhannanwrites.com
Following a 20-year career as a journalist and executive, CAROLE HOPSON followed her dream and became a flight instructor and a Boeing 737 captain for United Airlines. True to her roots as a writer, Hopson published her debut novel, “A Pair of Wings,” based on the life story of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, the first American to earn a French civilian pilot’s license. Hopson also heads the Jet Black Foundation, dedicated to sending 100 Black women to flight school by the year 2035. carolehopson.com
NATHANIEL BROOKS HORWITZ is CEO of Hunterbrook, which is pioneering a new way to fund investigative journalism. He cofounded Hunterbrook after company-building and investing as a venture partner at a healthcare firm, where he incubated four companies, ranging from AI-designed medicines for cancer to cell therapies for autoimmune diseases. He has served on the board of directors at several companies, and volunteers as executive chair at the education nonprofit Mayday Health. Horwitz earned a degree in molecular biology from Harvard, where he coauthored biomedical research. He has published in several national outlets. His first job out of high school was reporting for his hometown newspaper, The Martha’s Vineyard Times. www.hntrbrk.com
MARY JORDAN and KEVIN SULLIVAN are a celebrated partnership in work and in life — a married couple and New York Times No. 1 best-selling authors. Together they ran the Washington Post’s news bureaus in Tokyo, Mexico City, and London for 14 years, writing deeply reported stories about people and critical issues around the globe. They won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for their investigation of the Mexican justice system, and in 2009 were Pulitzer finalists for their groundbreaking work on worldwide discrimination of women. They have written three books together: “The Prison Angel,” “Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland,” and “Trump’s Trials.” Jordan wrote a fourth: “The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump.” Jordan and Sullivan have interviewed and profiled spies, survivors, mob bosses, presidents, oligarchs, royals, rock stars, and refugees around the world for three decades. They live in Washington and Katama.
MARTHA HALL KELLY is the New York Times bestselling author of “Lilac Girls,” “Lost Roses,” “Sunflower Sisters,” and “The Golden Doves.” Born and raised in Massachusetts, she was inspired to write her most recent novel, “The Martha’s Vineyard Book and Beach Club,” by her mother’s family, the Smiths, who settled on Martha’s Vineyard in 1891. Kelly received journalism degrees from both Syracuse and Northwestern universities and worked as an advertising copywriter for many years before becoming a novelist. Her books have sold more than two million copies and have been translated in 50 countries. www.marthahallkelly.com
SARAH KERNOCHAN has written many films, among them “9½ Weeks,” “Impromptu,” “Sommersby,” “What Lies Beneath,” and “Learning to Drive,” and both wrote and directed “All I Wanna Do.” She has won two Academy Awards for her documentaries “Marjoe” and “Thoth.” Kernochan’s published novels include “Jane Was Here” and “Dry Hustle.” At present, she is librettist for a Nancy Drew musical and is completing her third novel. She lives in New York with her husband, playwright James Lapine. www.sarahkernochan.com
LINSEY LEE served for 35 years as oral history curator at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. She is the author of three volumes of “Vineyard Voices,” distilled from the more than 1,500 interviews she has conducted. She also authored “Edible Wild Plants of Martha’s Vineyard” and “Those Who Serve: Martha’s Vineyard and WW II.” Lee has produced over 250 videos from her interviews, used in the museum’s exhibits and on YouTube social media. She continues gathering oral histories, works with students to interview elders, and is authoring a new collection of oral histories: “Vineyard Voices IV.”
JANE MAYER is an awardwinning investigative journalist and staff writer for the New Yorker, known for her deeply reported work on politics, power, money, and national security. She is the author of several best-selling books, including “Dark Money,” which examines the influence of billionaire donors on American politics, and “The Dark Side,” a landmark investigation into U.S. detention and interrogation policies after 9/11. Mayer’s reporting has earned numerous honors, including the George Polk Award and the Peabody Award.
TORREY OBERFEST is a partner at Bloomvale, where she advises publishing companies on growth strategies, mergers, and acquisitions. Previously, Oberfest was the vice president of corporate strategy at Hachette Book Group, where she helped the company grow through acquisitions and new business initiatives. Earlier in her career, Oberfest was the managing editor of Bulfinch Press, where she shepherded illustrated books from manuscript through publication. She brings a unique perspective on how the publishing industry works and how authors can best navigate it.
CHARLES SENNOTT is the publisher of The Martha’s Vineyard Times, founder of GroundTruth, and publisher of the GroundTruth newsletter on Substack. An awardwinning correspondent for the Boston Globe and a best-selling author and editor with 30 years of experience in international, national, and local journalism, Sennott started GroundTruth in 2014, and in 2017 launched the nonprofit organization’s local reporting initiative, Report for America. He is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Sennott was the 2024 recipient of the World Press Freedom Award given by the James W. Foley Foundation.
SHERRY SIDOTI is an award-winning author, a yoga teacher, and a steward of memoir-writing experiences. She believes that writing is a spiritual, sacred, and brave practice of self-awakening, with great potential for healing. Her debut memoir, “A Smoke and a Song,” received the 2024 Readers’ Favorite gold medal for nonfiction, the 2023 Living Now Book Awards gold medal for inspirational memoir, the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Awards honorable mention for the Grand Prize, among others. She lives on Martha’s Vineyard with her husband, cats, chickens, and visiting adult children.
Oak Bluffs summer resident ELISA M. SPERANZA is the author of two historical novels, “Triage” and “The Italian Prisoner,” a finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. She is board chair and an instructor for the nonprofit New Orleans Writers Workshop, and cofounder of the Washashores Writers Collective on Martha’s Vineyard. Speranza coedited and contributed to the 2025 anthology “Washashores Review, Volume 1,” published by Featherstone Center for the Arts. She writes “The Bricklayer’s Daughter” newsletter on Substack and has been a speaker at the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival, and Islanders Write. www.elisamariesperanza.com
NANCY STAR is the author of six novels, including “Sisters One, Two, Three,” which landed on Publishers Weekly’s list of Top Ten Bestsellers of 2016. Her most recent novel, “Rules for Moving” takes place partly on Martha’s Vineyard. Her essays have appeared in the Washington Post, Lit Hub, and the Forward, among other places. Before writing fiction full time, Star worked as a movie executive at the Samuel Goldwyn Company, dividing her time between New York and London. She now lives in Chilmark and New York City. nancystarauthor.com
ADRIANA STIMOLA is a literary agent who represents writers of cookbooks, mind-body-spirit, art, and the occasional novel, including James Beard Nominee Tyler Balliet (“Rebel School of Wine”), Julia Blanter (“The Martha’s Vineyard Cookbook”), and awardwinning memoirist Elissa Altman (“Permission”). Stimola’s own poetry has been featured in numerous publications, and she is the current West Tisbury poet laureate. Before agenting, Stimola was the content manager at Stone Barns Center in partnership with Blue Hill, and before that she worked in all manner of publishing jobs, including roles at Little, Brown and Shambhala. She lives on Martha’s Vineyard. www.stimolaliterarystudio.com
ROSEMARY STIMOLA, a former professor of language and literature and an awardwinning children’s bookseller, founded the Stimola Literary Studio in 1997. Representing both fiction and nonfiction from preschool through young adult, and selectively extending into adult fiction, she is honored to count among her clients many awardwinning and best-selling authors and illustrators, including Suzanne Collins, Matthew Cordell, Thanhha Lai, Karen McManus, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Tanya Lee Stone, Matt Tavares, and Renee Watson. www.stimolaliterarystudio.com
GRETCHEN YOUNG is a veteran editor who launched Regalo Press, distributed by Simon & Schuster, in September 2022. The new imprint unites philanthropy with the business of book publishing. Since its inception, Regalo has published 70 books, has had 12 USA Today best-sellers, a New York Times best-seller, and three Los Angeles Times best-sellers — and has earned numerous awards. Before launching Regalo Press, Young spent the prior 10 years at Hachette as vice president, executive editor at Grand Central Publishing. Her books and authors have hit the NY Times best-seller list more than 75 times. They have also garnered a Pulitzer finalist, a Grammy, an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, and two Time 100 honors. regalopress.com