Do you have questions for an editor?
Are you wondering about an agent?
Sign up for a 1-on-1!
1-on-1s are brief, scheduled meetings with editors or agents.
Sign-ups for 1-on-1s will be available on registration day.
1-on-1s
One-on-ones are valuable gold to writers. Although short—often only 10 or 15 minutes in length—they allow for important work to be accomplished. They connect participants to publishing experts—from established writers or coaches to agents and editors. One-on-ones have a range of uses. Beginners may ask an editor or a coach for feedback on their opening paragraph or about a craft issue they’re having. Advanced writers may pitch their story idea to an agent or editor. These writers may have completed manuscripts, proposals, and/or one-sheets. Know that one-on-ones can trigger high anxiety. We urge you to not let this stop you.
Cindy Bunch is associate publisher and director of editorial at InterVarsity Press, where she has worked for over thirty years. She acquires and develops for the Formatio line of spiritual formation books and is looking for spiritually mature fiction and nonfiction. She is the author of Be Kind to Yourself as well as several Bible study guides in IVP’s LifeGuide® Bible Studies series.
Cindy holds an MA in theological studies from Northern Seminary and completed her spiritual direction training at North Park Seminary. She and her husband live in the Chicago suburbs.
Kathleen Kerr is an agent for authors of nonfiction at Alive Literary Agency, where she’s always looking for the bold voices shaping conversations in today’s culture. Kathleen served as an acquisitions editor at Zondervan and Harvest House Publishers. She also worked as a bookseller at an independent bookstore, where she learned that there are few greater joys than introducing kids to books that will shape their own stories.
Kathleen graduated from Calvin College with degrees in French and English. She lives with her husband, Noah, and their two daughters in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. She can usually be found reading, camping, and creating chaos in the kitchen.
Jon M. Sweeney has authored more than forty books, including Feed the Wolf and The Complete Francis of Assisi.
He has served in different capacities from editor to publisher at Protestant, Jewish, Interfaith, and Catholic publishers since 1993 and is currently Editor at Large at Orbis Books. He’s been interviewed on WGN-TV, Fox News, and CBS Saturday Morning, and HBO optioned the film rights to his 2012 book on the medieval Pope Celestine V, The Pope Who Quit.
A practicing Catholic, Sweeney prays regularly with his wife, a congregational rabbi. In March 2023, the third collection of Jon's Meister Eckhart poem-meditations, coauthored with Mark S. Burrows, will be published by Hampton Roads: Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness and Light.
Dale Williams is an acquisitions editor for HarperCollins Christian Publishing. He has nearly ten years of publishing experience at three different Christian publishers. He holds an MDiv from Westminster Seminary California and seeks to acquire books that answer questions, deepen understanding, and show how to apply biblical truth to everyday life.