Meet OUR Staff
Margot Atwell (she/her/hers) is a writer, editor, publisher, and community funding expert. She spent eight years on the creative outreach team at Kickstarter, PBC, where she helped over a thousand writers, publishers, and other literary projects raise tens of millions of dollars. Previously, she was publisher of Beaufort Books, an independent book publisher based in New York, where she published four national bestsellers. She also founded and ran the micro-press Gutpunch Press.
In 2019 Margot created and led The Next Page conference, Kickstarter’s free digital conference focused on the publishing, comics, and journalism fields. She frequently speaks at national and international publishing industry events such as BookExpo, the London Book Fair, New York Comic Con, WorldCon, Digital Book World, and many others. She has lectured about publishing at the New School, the Columbia Publishing Course, and Chapman University. In 2019, she was selected as a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree. Also in 2019, Digital Book World awarded her the Outstanding Achievement Award for her work creating The Next Page conference, and selected her as a finalist for Publishing Executive of the Year.
Her first book, The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success, was published in February 2013. She published her second book, Derby Life: A Crash Course in the Incredible Sport of Roller Derby through Gutpunch Press in 2015. Her writing has been published in outlets such as the Creative Independent, Clarkesworld, the Huffington Post, Moviefone.com, Publishers Weekly, and Derbylife.com, along with her On the Books newsletter.
Rachel Gilman (she/her) is the sales and marketing coordinator at the Feminist Press. She is also the hostess of the Wine and Pine Reading Series, the Creator of the femme arts journal The Rational Creature, and a writer based in Manhattan. She holds a BA in Individualized Study from NYU, an MFA in Writing from Columbia University, and an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. rgilman[at]feministpress[dot]org.
Alicia Lim (she/her) supports the work of Margot and the FP team as the operations coordinator. She entered the independent publishing world by way of working at indie bookstores and has a background working in mission-driven art and tech spaces. A lifelong champion of artists and creators, she believes in the power of creative work to connect people and empower communities to create social change. alicia[at]feministpress[dot]org.
Kameel Mir is an assistant editor at the Feminist Press. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. She has worked in the book business and literary space in various capacities for the past six years. In her spare time, she writes fiction and cultural criticism, pieces of which have been published in Lux Magazine, HAD, Scalawag, and The New Inquiry. She loves to read the best prose she can find and organize for socialist causes when she can, and she hopes to soon relearn the piano and resume her study of languages (namely Arabic and her native Bengali). kameel[at]feministpress[dot]org.
Rachel Page (she/her) is the managing editor and development coordinator at the Feminist Press. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied English and ethnic studies. rachel[at]feministpress[dot]org.
Nadine Santoro is the publicity and events coordinator at the Feminist Press. She is a multidisciplinary artist and facilitator, hosting events, leading spiritual and creative retreats at The Center at Mariandale, and teaching on creative attention. She co-hosts the podcast Thinking Straight, a lesbian anthropological dig into the world of heterosexual romance novels. Nadine is a graduate of Fordham University, where she studied creative writing and theology, and has formerly worked with Kundiman, The LIC Reading Series, and The Resort writers’ space. nadine[at]feministpress[dot]org.
Drew Stevens (he/him) is the art director at the Feminist Press. He joined the Feminist Press staff in 2008. Hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, he has lived in New York for over 20 years and has been designing books for over 25. Some of his book designs can be viewed on his website studiodrew.nyc. drew[at]feministpress[dot]org.
Jeanne Thornton started working in publishing at Seven Stories Press in 2008, and she has worked with Berghahn Books, Stacked Deck Press, Greenleaf Book Group, and as the copublisher of Instar Books. She is the author of Summer Fun (winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction), as well as The Black Emerald, The Dream of Doctor Bantam, and the forthcoming A/S/L, and the coeditor of We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology. Her writing has appeared in n+1, WIRED, Harper’s Bazaar, Evergreen Review, Epiphany, and other places. She maintains a website at jeannethornton.com. jeanne[at]feministpress[dot]org.
MEET OUR APPRENTICES
Kelsie Bennett (they/them) is a writer, photographer, and artisan based in New York and Providence. They graduated from New York University, where they studied Media, Culture, and Communication and Creative Writing. Passionate about disability fiction, handcrafts, and film photography, their favorite pastimes are making jewelry for their small business, Juliana NYC, and watching for local critters in the backyard.
Shobhadevi Singh (they/she) is a graduate of The University of Massachusetts Amherst where they studied Psychology and Gender Studies. They hold a certificate in Creative Writing and currently reside in Brooklyn.
Emily Zhou is a writer from Michigan who lives in New York. Her first book, Girlfriends, won the Publishing Triangle's Leslie Feinberg Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Fiction. She is an editor at LittlePuss Press and is currently at work on a novel.
STAFF PICKS
Alicia
Lim:
Rachel
Page:
Kameel Mir:
Drew
Stevens:
Margot
Atwell:
Rachel
Gilman:
Lucia
Brown:
Nadine Santoro:
ABOUT OUR PORTRAITS
Our staff portraits are by Bishakh Som, author of APSARA ENGINE. Som is an artist, illustrator, and writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, BuzzFeed, the Boston Review, and the Brooklyn Rail, among others. Her books include Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir, and The Prefab Bathroom: An Architectural History, and she was also a contributor to We're Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology. Som is currently based in Brooklyn, New York.