What have your journeys as writers been like and what was behind the decisions that you made to get to where you are today?

ZH: Essayist behavior, but my writing and entrance into dual-careers as a literary-agent-cum-publicist have been more like a series of fortunate coincidences than an easily labeled journey.

(Like really, it’s giving lyric essay.) The original plan was to study fiction writing in New York, but that became a focus on creative nonfiction in the BFA program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, which is where I met Cassie, took her up on my first internship in the industry (at Howland Literary, where I work now as an associate agent), and chased her into a mentorship (and a publicity job) that now absolutely feeds my work in all forms.

CMM: It’s funny that Zoe calls her journey a “series of fortunate coincidences” when she writes like this, and has unquestionable levels of talent. When you add that to her ferocity as an editor, designer, all-in-one-trifecta-of-artist-skill, it’s so obvious to me that she would end up in careers that are creative. But also, I wish she had more time to write. Working in publishing, I would say for both of us, means that our creative brain sometimes only goes to our work and we have to have really strong boundaries to put some of that energy towards writing. Both of us have learned we have to write in the morning. UNCW has this thing called “Write Wilmington” every Friday morning and Zoe is really good about going and I have literally said every Friday, I’ll go and then … toddler.

My journey is probably similar to a lot of writers. I wrote my first “book” at six, called The Toe Jam Wars, an instant classic and instant New York Times bestseller, and from there I had a lot of diaries, like a fragile amount of diaries that have moved houses with me far too many times to count.

I did all the usual things. I majored in English at North Carolina State, studying under the formidable Dorianne Laux for several years–and meeting Rob Greene (my poetry partner in her class–she assigned us when he was still wearing his motorcycle helmet and I was nineteen feeling like, “oh no, I got paired with helmet guy,” and turns out helmet guy is a true champion of the arts. Rob runs Raleigh Review, teaches at Saint Augustine University, and he really pushed me at the right times (and trusted me with early RR stuff). I also studied English with the support of my parents (which I feel is important to my confidence across my career)–both my folks were like “be an artist! Dream big!” Because of their support, I’ve taken risks that I wouldn’t have otherwise taken.

And then I couldn’t find a job when I graduated (I did move to Australia for a boy after college so debatable if I was really looking), and instead, I went back to school to earn my teaching credentials and became a high school teacher (loved it), but after six years, I was truly burned out by the system and decided to apply to one MFA program, UNCW. I applied in poetry and nonfiction (using my tinyletter essays that were lyric essays, but I didn’t know that was the name for them), was lucky enough to get into the program in both genres + a publishing laboratory fellowship (changed my life, honestly) where I learned and taught book design and book publishing, and met Zoe.

During the MFA, I became a really intense, anxious hermit (it’s not true that you have to suffer to be a good writer, but I did believe that at the time, and I saw everyone around me as competition to … what, who knows?). I published a lot of writing work I’m really proud of that gave me good momentum, but I didn’t make a ton of friends. In a forms class, we read Kaitlyn Greenidge’s We Love You, Charlie Freeman, and on a whim I cold-emailed Greenidge’s agent and asked her if I could do WHATEVER for her at her agency if she would take me on as an intern. She did and I made myself impossible to let go–becoming a literary agent during my MFA.

Turns out, I don’t love editing. I also don’t love BIG publishing (conglomerate publishing). So, after four years and bringing a handful of really incredible books to market, I switched to publicity (again, a whim). I just thought … what the big five attempts to do for these big books, I can do for indie books (this is where supportive parents come in again, and a partner who has health insurance–major, major, major–I’m privileged to jump off the cliffs of possible failure).

I launched Pine State Publicity. Zoe graduated from the BFA program at UNCW and I asked her to come work at Pine State because I know the level of work and brilliance she carries around.

(Then I became a mom and haven’t written anything but a diary, our Pine State newsletter, and notes app lines to myself for three years. The momentum has slowed. I never looked at my thesis again after graduation. I'll probably, in my lifetime, write so many unpublished books, and that has become truly fine for me since becoming a mom. I’m stewing, that’s what this part is, the pre-volcanic-eruption stewage).

What drew you to pursue a career in the publishing industry?

CMM: I had a book blog in the early aughts called Books & Bowel Movements where I reviewed books and did this scoop thing called “Newsday Tuesday” where I collected all the publishing news I could find in one spot. I’m realizing now it was kind of like Publisher’s Lunch. It ended up with quite a large subscriber base and I started getting galleys from in-house publicists. I’ll never forget the personalized notes from Dana Trocker (who is at Atria now) specifically. She once sent me a black bar of soap and a speckled mug for Alice Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic.

I knew I wanted to be a part of whatever Dana had–which was a notecard with a publisher’s logo on it, but if I’m being honest, writing was my motivator. I guess, at that point in my life–late teens, early twenties–I thought I would be taken more seriously as a writer if I could just crack into publishing. I thought if I got myself closer to the industry, maybe someone would take a chance on my books. It was a selfish motivator, and it didn’t get me very far.

Between that book blog and my first publishing job outside of reading and editing for literary magazines, was almost ten years. I circled publishing for a long time, and I got a break by betting on me and by being (kind of) fearless with rejection. I tell students all the time, cold email (cold message on Linkedin) folks who have the job you want. Ask them for thirty minutes to pick their brain. Relationships (who you know) are what gets folks in the door in publishing, not having the best resume. It’s an apprenticeship job, and it’s who you know.

I always knew I wasn’t moving to New York City, and it’s important to me that the southeast of the US has publishing cred, that the South is known for more than crawdad’s sing. So, I pursued publishing like I could devour it. And when it wasn’t as satisfying as I thought (working on the inside), I started to build what I wanted to see.

ZH: I can’t echo the Books & Bowel Movements success, but it was absolutely also the glamor that I projected onto the industry that called me to it, initially. (My platform of choice was a bookstagram pairing books and vinyl, which I ran for all of three months, mid-pandemic, during my sophomore year of college–I copped exactly one free, unsolicited ARC for Gordon Lish’s Death and So Forth.)

My “call” to make changes in publishing was learned, and slowly–I wish that I could say I wanted to come into publishing to firm up the southern landscape, or to represent queer authors, or drive public reception of the types of books I love (the oft-indie’d). All of that is true, now, but the mission came out of realizing, firsthand, the barriers faced by folks writing the material/forms/regions that I do. I wanted to work in publishing because I loved books. I want to work in publishing now because I want to see more of the books that I love.

What experiences (internships, classes, etc.) prepared and qualified you for your roles as a literary agent and literary publicist?

ZH: The many, many prongs of the creative writing program, taking everything I could on subjects as widely as I could, and I listened more than I spoke (which, of course, has its own merits and downsides). More than specific courses, I can think of assignments that sparked entire behaviors that are part of my work day: an essay I wrote breaking down the branding at Knopf that set me up to track fit at imprints (and among editors); an anthology proposal drafted for a “Diversity in Publishing” course, that framed both the look of a proposal for me and urged me to look for market gaps; baby’s first media list building during my internship at Lookout Books; and honestly, filtering workshop critique into applicable and… noise? Working in publishing, every day is more no than yes, and while I’d hesitate ever to claim thick skin, I can filter feedback into what will grow a book’s potential and what will change an author’s vision.

I took everything more seriously than needed, but taking an assignment as gospel gave me the shove I needed to do market research as a dumb nineteen-year-old.

I was fortunate to find great mentors in my internships–in all cases, women powerhouses in publishing (Carrie Howland, Emily Smith, Cassie, I am also looking at you) – and the most experience came out of asking them every question I could think of, writing down what they said, and building from that knowledge. Cassie doesn’t know this, but every time I open my personal Gmail, it launches to an email thread where I’d asked for a sample contract and then asked for a Zoom to go through thirty pages of it. (Her very sweet yes to the meeting says, “You’ll see I started notes on [author]’s contract because that first line made me very annoyed—I’ll explain on our call. :)” & you best believe I asked what was annoying about that line? too.) Listen well.

CMM: Hahaha–me, annoyed at a contract sounds exactly right. For the record, I am no longer a literary agent because negotiating contracts and editing books was not my soul.

I think Zoe and I very much share that “take everything more seriously than we should” quality. We’re also both people who want to do a good job (intrinsically), so if anything–what Zoe won’t say here, is that she was “over-prepared” because she works really hard and excels at a lot of different things. And she learned to listen well before I ever did.

I wish I could say I was diligent when I was an undergrad and sought out mentorships and internships, but I quite literally learned how to think (for myself) in college, and I wasn’t ready or prepared to do work outside of expanding my mind in my course of study and trying not to wear pajamas to every class.

And then during my MFA (ten years later?), I really just tried to focus on the work and questions. I went into the MFA thinking I was going to get answers–how do I publish a book? What should I write? Who should I be? (yes, even this question). After a month or two–coming from a full-time job in teaching that I could go back to after the program (though I was hoping not to), I realized I was tired of being in charge of the information–of how to use it, how to teach it, how to offer it for someone else to find their way through it. I shifted my entire focus to discovering new questions to ask, and new perspectives to develop.  I found myself wanting to revel in what I didn’t know anything about.

You see, I’m a control freak (Capricorn), and I used to think being the smartest person in the room meant you knew the most and you could prove it, but the smartest person in any room listens well and asks questions. I didn’t even want to be the smartest person in the room anymore (that’s probably a lie), but I did want to try to discover what I didn’t know. I really used to fear not-knowing, and I think embracing that I knew less than I could ever want to know really prepared me for the mistake-making and trial and error of working in publishing.

And then, I want more work to reveal that I’m qualified. What happened was I started growing a human in my body and I panicked about needing to show what would be my first son that you can love what you do, and you can take leaps and trust yourself. I would probably still be an agent if I didn’t have two tiny mirrors that pushed me to grow (definitely most of the time uncomfortably, but good). Whether I’m qualified or not is in the quality of the work I’m doing at any given time. Am I proud of myself, do I believe in what I’m doing, can I sleep at night, am I trying my best, are authors and publishers happy–then I’m qualified.

Do you think that MFAs prepare students for roles in the publishing industry? Why or why not?

CMM: Does the MFA you’re applying to have a publishing program? If you want to work in publishing, you should study publishing.

An MFA is a place to study writing–for me, it was a place where I could worry about writing for three years and not much else. I went back later (I started my MFA at 30), so I had a partner who could cover our bills, who had health insurance, who made sitting in my bed at 2 pm working on an essay for seven hours, actually possible. My MFA was funded for the first year + a fellowship stipend for all three years. I applied for grants at the university in my second and third years, and I got financial awards during the program, which made my MFA free.

Would I do it again if I had to pay for it? Yes. I needed the time to focus that writing energy, and I got a lot of self-study out of it. But the truly powerful part of the MFA for me was that I was lucky enough to get one of two slots in the publishing laboratory at UNCW, where I learned book design and marketing and worked on Ecotone Magazine and Lookout Books. UNCW has recently added an MFA publishing certificate (which is something that would be an absolute for me if I were looking at programs now).

I wouldn’t say a workshop prepares you to be an editor. I wouldn’t say my forms classes prepared me to be an editor. I wouldn’t say my MFA prepared me to negotiate a contract. I wouldn’t say my MFA prepared me for my job as a publicist (though I would argue Zoe and I care deeply about and prioritize the design part of Pine State because we are both coming off of learning how important that is to marketing).

ZH: I can’t speak to the MFA at all–it’s only now something that I’ve started to consider. I’m grateful to the publishing program in my BFA for framing the industry in my mind and offering insight into what a position in publishing could even look like e-meeting Triangle House agent Renée Jarvis or a buyer at Epilogue Books, jobs I didn’t know existed in my manic-pixie-dream-editor fantasy.
If the role you’re seeking is as an author, represented by an agent, though–it’s not a dealbreaker, but that little descriptor certainly won’t hurt our pitch.  

What are the most valuable insights you have learned from being a publishing professional?

ZH: Write for yourself, babes.

CMM: Connection, not competition. The perceived hierarchy isn’t real. Being a squeaky wheel gets you places.

How does your personal writing fit into your career in publishing?

CMM: It doesn’t at the moment. I haven’t figured that part out yet.

To be fair to myself, I found out I was pregnant a month after I graduated from the MFA program, and now I have two babies. I quite literally launched Pine State a month after I gave birth to my first child, and Zoe calls my second child a “lunch break baby” because I disappeared for two hours from our shared G-chat and came back with the world’s newest person. I worked through both of my postpartum periods. (Authors, thank your publicists). Writing–where it fits into building a sustainable business and being a mom, I don’t know yet. Will I return to it? Of course. Is the timing right for writing right now? Not really. But writers write, so I don’t live in fear of a relaxed pen, I know it’s there for me when I need it.

ZH: I’m only just returning to my writing, and in a smaller way–when folks ask about when they’ll be able to walk into Papercut or Pomegranate (for you Wilmington folks) and pick up my book, I find myself saying more and more that I write for myself, see above. Or, I don’t write for publication. Or, honestly, I worry sometimes that I know too much about what goes on behind the screen, how difficult it can be to maintain the creative process & processing while you wade through the no’s for the one yes that matters.

I feel most attuned to language in the AM & PM hours between 8-11, and when I do write, it’s during the latter of those segments, after I’ve had a few hours and a walk and maybe a drive along the coast to shake off the part of my job(s) that I love the most, but that most quiet my own writing: incredible sentences in someone else’s voice. When personal writing fits into my career, it’s segmented from it. I have to completely block out the books I love working on–from anxieties about their success in the marketplace to the sentence-level comparison game–even to begin to think about my own. (In high school, I was obsessed with spoken word, e-girl beloved Savannah Brown, who once said online–somewhere, who knows–that she can’t read other work in the genre she’s writing during the length of time that she’s writing it. I don’t know that that’s the case for me, but it does resonate that I have to pause the urgency to platform other work on my roster before I can see why it matters that I also pursue my own.)

What would you recommend for people interested in getting into publishing?

ZH: Find your Cassie. (I’m only a pinch joking.) It’s a treat to be reconnected with students now in the program I graduated from, and every time I grab a coffee with a sophomore, my advice is both practical (find an internship–an agent at a conference I recently attended said to me, I don’t know how else anyone gets started in this career) and personal. Build your taste. Figure out what books you like and how to talk about them. Figure out what books you hate and how to talk about why. Listen to every word your professors, guest lecturers, or visiting authors say–sift through it, ask questions about it, decide what resonates, and pursue the open doors when they present themselves. When Cassie mentioned the internship program at Howland during our conference that semester, I was not even sure I knew what a literary agent did. I knew I wanted to learn, though–and that I would put in the work it took.  

CMM: I can’t really provide a better answer than Zoe just did, but for folks who are knocking down doors for an internship and finding themselves with no responses, I always recommend getting on Linkedin (or Twitter, or wherever you find and build your community), and cold-message or cold-email folks with the jobs that you might want. In that initial message, you’re going to talk briefly about yourself and your passions and then ask them for a thirty-minute phone call to “pick their brain.” Be prepared for that phone call–ask good questions and be yourself. After the call ends, follow up with them by email or message, share your resume, and say if they have any openings for an intern you would love to be considered. People who get internships know people–it’s almost always networking, or they have some connection (alumni, family friend, recommendation, teacher, etc). A good place to start is to look for people in publishing who went to your college or worked on a book you love. Find a connection point and get in touch. A cold email might sound a little terrifying, but even if they say no, you’re right in the same spot you were, to begin with, hustling.

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