Staff
Justina Batchelor
Publicity Manager
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Hometown: Knoxville, TN
Twitter: @JustinaBNYC
Instagram: @justinabnyc
How do you organize your books?
In tote bags! I’ve racked up quite a collection. I keep a book waiting in each bag — like short stories in my designated Central Park picnic bag — so I’m never without something to read.
Peter Blackstock
VP, Deputy Publisher,
Publisher of Grove Press UK
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Hometown: Somerset, UK
Twitter: @peterblackstock
Which book have you re-read the most?
I frequently re-read Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler. Such a brilliant opening: “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought.” I always obey the book.
Paul Boccardi
Financial Controller
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What’s your favorite book?
Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret History is a glorious achievement. James Michener’s memoir The World is My Home is truly inspirational. Great writing feeds the soul. Full stop.
John Mark Boling
Senior Publicity Manager
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How do you organize your books?
The big bookshelf in our living room has a few fuzzy “zones” of generally very fine books (with a second row of merely fine books behind), NYC-related books, books from the south, recent arrivals, and “to give away.”
Joe Brosnan
Senior Editor
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Hometown: New York, NY
Twitter: @joebrosnan_
Instagram: @joe.brosnan
What is your favorite book?
The Godfather by Mario Puzo. My most prized possession is a first edition copy of The Godfather that originally belonged to my (very Italian) grandpa. I have reread this book many times, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s approachable, suspenseful, and every bit as genius as the film.
Emily Burns
Associate Editor
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Twitter: @emilyatterbury
Instagram: @emilyatterbury
What is your favorite book?
Jane Austen’s Persuasion on most days, and The Portable Dorothy Parker on the rest.
Jenny Choi
Publicity Assistant
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What other languages do you speak?
Korean and French. I love how the learning never ends, especially when you get to start reading more books and listening to more people’s stories – or reading the same one in different languages and experiencing it anew.
Natalie Church
Director of Marketing
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Hometown: Dearborn, MI
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Grace Paley, Larry McMurtry, and Eve Ewing. Leonora Carrington and Lacy M. Johnson stop by for dessert.
Sal Destro
Production Director
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You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
August Wilson, Hunter S. Thompson, Anton Chekhov.
Morgan Entrekin
Publisher
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Hometown: Nashville, TN
What is your favorite book?
War and Peace—family lore has it that my father brought the novel with him to the hospital to read while my mother was laboring to deliver me on January 10th, 1955. I only learned this after I had read the book, twice.
Brian Evans Jr.
Office Manager
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How do you organize your books?
My books are stacked by subject. It allows me to keep my books neat and well organized.
Bridget Flannery-McCoy
Executive Editor
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Hometown: Santa Fe, NM
Where is your favorite place to read?
I love reading on the train. It’s so immersive—I feel like there’s nothing I need to do but give myself over fully to a book. The subway works too, although a double-edged sword, as the better the book the more likely I am to miss my stop.
Mary Flower
Contracts Manager
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What’s your favorite book from your childhood?
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was given to me by a great aunt as she thought I would like a book about a girl the same age as I was who also lived in Wisconsin. How right she was!
Becca Fox
Freelance Designer
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Hometown: Fernandina Beach, FL
Instagram: @beccafoxdesign
What would you title your memoir?
An Ode to Fisticuffs.
George Gibson
Executive Editor
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Hometown: New York City
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
George Orwell, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad. Arthur Conan Doyle would be a close fourth, along with David McCullough.
Zoe Harris
Publisher’s Assistant
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Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Twitter: @zoeeharrisss
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Elif Batuman, Patricia Lockwood, Gwendolyn Brooks. I hope they’d accept my invitation. If they did, I think I would spend the night bustling around the kitchen, tending to their every need, too intimidated to chat.
Miranda Hency
Production Manager
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Instagram: @mirandahency
How do you organize your books?
By general genre (poetry/non-fiction/fiction), but within that, what I’ve read in alphabetical order by author, then what I haven’t read in alphabetical order by author. Mass market editions and publisher-specific collections are separate, and I also have many miscellaneous piles.
Cindy Hernandez
Designer
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What is your favorite book?
I was moved and inspired by Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. As she says, “I think I deserve something beautiful.”
Judy Hottensen
VP, Associate Publisher
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Hometown: Milwaukee, WI
What is your favorite Grove book?
Legends of the Fall. I dare you to read — or reread — this collection of novellas. A relatively new addition to our treasured backlist from Jim Harrison — but a true masterpiece.
Amy Hundley
VP, Executive Editor,
Rights Director
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Twitter: @amy_hundley
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Fran Lebowitz, Aminatta Forna, Zora Neale Hurston. I would keep very quiet and listen.
Gretchen Mergenthaler
Art Director
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Instagram: @gretchenmergen
What is the first book you read to your child?
The Carrot Seed, a board book. Story by Ruth Krauss, pictures by Crockett Johnson. Still have it; can’t seem to let it go. My son is now an adult 😉
Erica Nuñez
Subsidiary Rights Manager
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What is your favorite book from childhood?
A collection of fairy tales that had originally belonged to my mother as a child, possibly even my grandmother; it was beautifully illustrated and falling apart at the seams.
Joseph Payne
Associate Editor & Subsidiary Rights Associate
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Hometown: Shallotte, North Carolina
What would you title your memoir?
Somehow, I manage (IYKYK)
Rachael Richardson
Marketing and Social Media Assistant
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Hometown: Bellevue, WA
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
I would invite Zora Neale Hurston, Diana Wynne Jones, and Elaine U. Cho. It’s a pretty eclectic group, but I think that would bring out some really interesting conversations. (And I would make them a mushroom bourguignon with mashed potatoes and have red wine, Rachel’s Ginger Beer, and a French 75 as the drink options!)
Mike Richards
Managing Editor
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Hometown: North Canton, OH
Instagram: @m_richh
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
I’d invite Roberto Bolaño, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jean-Patrick Manchette, and chat and laugh about the struggles of everyday life. George Saunders can swing by as well.
Olivia Rutigliano
Editor
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Hometowns: Queens, NYC
Twitter: @oldrutigliano
Instagram: @oldebean
TikTok: @oldebean
What is your favorite childhood book?
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Laura Schmitt
Editorial Assistant
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Hometown: Green Bay, Wisconsin
Twitter: @LauraSchmitt_
Which book have you reread the most?
It’s a close tie between Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer and Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade. Both collections shaped my love for the short story form, and I always find something new to admire with each read.
Elisabeth Schmitz
VP, Editorial Director
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Hometown: New York, NY
What is the first book you read to your children?
The Little Bear books by Elsa Holmelund Minarik. I learned to read with them on a nine-day sail to Japan aboard the SS Roosevelt so I would be accepted into the first grade when we reached Tokyo!
Deb Seager
VP, Director of Publicity
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Hometown: Worcester, MA
How do you organize your books?
Before I moved, I organized my books by fiction and nonfiction, alphabetically by author. Since I moved (most of my books are in storage), new books are now stacked everywhere we can find room. We really need to buy some bookcases.
Christien Sukhu
Staff Accountant,
Royalty Analyst
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Hometown: New York City
What is your favorite childhood book?
I was obsessed with the Magic Treehouse series! I learned so many new facts about different subjects, places, and time periods. It was a great way to take my imagination on fun-filled adventures as a kid 🙂
Irena Huang
2024-25 Grove Atlantic/Roxane Gay Books Fellow
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How do you organize your books?
By genre, then in alphabetical order by author last name. The romance section is by far the largest and the most colorful! I also love to display poetry books on floating picture frame shelves, to best show off the covers and avoid the curse of reading tiny font on narrow spines. Everyone is welcome to borrow a book, but I must confess to being a dog-earer of pages.
Bill Weinberg
Financial Controller
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Hometown: Bronx, NY (So close to the Bronx Zoo that when I was a youngster I could hear the lions roar at night)
What’s your favorite Grove book?
Anything by Mike Lawson.
Joan Bingham (1935-2020)
Executive Editor
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