Featured Editors
The 2026 A&E Conference will include editors from a notable list of reputable publishing houses. Please keep in mind that even if you don’t have a formal consultation scheduled, you will, in all likelihood, have the opportunity to meet your favorite agent or editor at some point during the weekend.
Please note: All editors are now closed to consultation appointments. Also, due to an unforeseen conflict, Will Evans is no longer able to participate in the conference (updated 6/17/26).
Our featured editors include:
Will Evans, Publisher & CEO, Deep Vellum & Dalkey Archive
Will Evans is an award-winning publisher, writer, translator, bookstore founder, professor, and literary arts advocate. In 2013, he founded Deep Vellum, a nonprofit publishing house and bookstore, dedicated to bringing the world into conversation through literature by publishing the world’s vital stories by underrepresented writers, and cultivating a lifelong love of reading through creative programming and outspoken advocacy for the literary arts. He has been awarded CLMP’s Golden Colophon Award for Paradigm Independent Publishing, accepted to the Texas Institute of Letters, named a Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities & Culture, and was knighted by France as a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters. He received BA degrees in History and Russian Literature from Emory University, and an MA in Russian Culture from Duke University. His translation of Russian writer Oleg Kashin’s novel, Fardwor, Russia: A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin, was published by Restless Books in 2016. He teaches courses on Publishing and World Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas and SMU.
Will is currently seeking:
ADULT FICTION: Literary, Historical, Short Fiction, Poetry
ADULT NONFICTION: Narrative, History, Pop Culture, Essays
Kate McMullen, Associate Publisher, Hub City Press
Kate McMullen is the Associate Director of Hub City Writers Project and Associate Publisher of Hub City Press. She acquires and edits literary fiction and designs, produces, and promotes books from new and overlooked Southern writers, and oversees daily operations. Born and raised in piedmont North Carolina, she received her MFA in fiction from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she served as the publishing assistant for Lookout Books. Her fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter, Carve Magazine, The Boiler, BULL, and elsewhere. She lives in Upstate South Carolina with her spouse.
Kate is currently seeking:
ADULT FICTION: Literary, Short Fiction, Work from Southern authors
ADULT NONFICTION: Narrative, Memoir, Essays
Read an interview with Kate here.
Nidhi Pugalia, Editor, Penguin Random House
Nidhi Pugalia is an editor at Viking Penguin. She publishes fiction, primarily science fiction and fantasy novels ranging from the literary and speculative to the upmarket commercial, with a particular emphasis on books that can cross with other categories like romance, historical fiction, psychological suspense, mystery and thriller. She also selectively publishes smart upmarket literary romantic novels that range from the bittersweet to the giddy. In all areas she prioritizes books that celebrate LGBTQ+ voices and BIPOC cultures and perspectives. She is the editor of such books as instant national bestseller A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan, the Book of the Month club pick A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki, New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan, and the Sunday Times bestselling series Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson. Among the authors she has worked with are Sally Wen Mao, Sahaj Kaur Kohli, Lily Meyer, Shirlene Obuobi, Tana French, Neel Patel, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Megan Barnard, and Sam Beckbessinger.
Nidhi is currently seeking:
ADULT FICTION: High Concept Commercial, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy