Current Staff

Becka Oliver

Becka Oliver

Executive Director

Becka Oliver (she/her/hers) joined the WLT in September 2013 as Executive Director after more than two decades of experience working in newspaper and book publishing. She spent much of her publishing career inside two of the “big five” publishing leaders – Macmillan and Hachette Book Group — licensing domestic and foreign rights on behalf of countless notable authors, including Sandra Brown, Brad Meltzer, Nicholas Sparks, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, and more. In 2007, she made the leap from Associate Director of Subsidiary Rights at Grand Central Publishing to Literary Agent, first at Endeavor and then at William Morris Endeavor (WME) after the two powerhouse talent agencies merged. As a literary agent, Becka represented clients working in both fiction and nonfiction, including Brunonia Barry, Sheryl Crow, Kamran Pasha, Joanna Philbin, Susan Rebecca White, and the popular blog Awkward Family Photos.

Samantha Babiak headshot

Sam Babiak

Program Director

Sam Babiak holds a B.A. in English Literature with a certificate in Creative Writing with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. She loves talking to writers about their craft and has moderated panels and conversations with the WLT, the Texas Book Festival, the San Antonio Book Festival, HavenCon, and BookPeople. She’s spent time as a reading intern with a literary agent at Massie & McQuilkin and she’s volunteered for the Echo Literary Arts Magazine fiction board, Badgerdog Creative Writing Camps, and Letters About Literature. Her writing can be found in HotHouse Literary Journal and the lickety~split. She is from Laredo, Texas and currently lives in Austin, Texas.

J Evan Parks headshot

J Evan Parks

Member Services Manager / Digital Media Manager

J Evan Parks (he/him/his) is a writer and creative currently living in Austin, TX. He is a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied both English and Japanese, and was inducted into the Japanese National Honor Society in 2020. While at UT, he was the Head Writer and Executive Producer of the show Down to Film on the University’s student-run television channel, TSTV. In his spare time, you can find him re-watching old sitcoms or dreaming up critical analyses of the Rocky franchise.

Lore Arnold

Office Coordinator

Lore Arnold (they/them/theirs) is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, studying geology, chemistry, English, and creative writing. They have completed an undergraduate thesis in geology and are currently working on a second in creative writing. Their favorite genre is hopepunk, an emerging speculative fiction style that focuses on humanity’s capacity for kindness. In their free time, they run a fifth edition D&D campaign, play board games with friends, and excitedly expound about media analysis.

Emma Conatser

Social Media & Marketing Intern

Emma graduated from Abilene Christian University with degrees in English and Music and is currently working on an MA in Media Studies at the University of Texas. She has worked with writers in many capacities and enjoys writing short fiction. In her free time, you can find her solving the Wordle, reading Cormac McCarthy, or watching a Noah Baumbach movie.

Marian Marquez

Programming Intern

Marian Marquez graduated from Texas A&M International University with a B.A. in English and a certification in secondary education. She has previously worked as a research assistant, developing annotated bibliographies and attending professional conferences. Her research focuses on Young Adult and Children’s Literature, emphasizing Latina/o/x border literature. She currently works as a high school English teacher, and in her spare time, she enjoys reading, writing, and dancing ballet Folklórico.

Johnathan Schultz

Social Media & Marketing Intern

Johnathan is a second-year Advertising student at the University of Texas at Austin where he is also studying to be certified in Japanese. He would like to make his career in social media/community management. In his free time, Johnathan enjoys listening to music of all kinds, watching tv shows or movies, and playing games with friends.

At this time, there are no open positions. Feel free to check back, any updates will be added to this page.