Meet Little, Brown

Meet Little, Brown

Sally Kim

President and Publisher; Little, Brown and Company

Sally Kim is President and Publisher of Little, Brown and Company, which is comprised of the imprints Back Bay Books; Little, Brown; Little, Brown Spark; Mulholland Books; and Voracious. She was most recently SVP, Publisher of G. P. Putnam’s Sons (Penguin Random House), where she also acquired and edited acclaimed and bestselling fiction by Kiley Reid, Robert Jones, Jr., Chloe Benjamin, Steven Rowley, Megan Abbott, Sarah Winman, Alma Katsu, Cristina Alger, and Susan Barker. She’s held senior editorial positions at Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, the Crown Publishing Group, and St. Martin’s Press, after getting her start at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency almost 30 years ago. In 2022, Poets & Writers honored her with The Editor’s Award.


Ned Rust

Vice President and Publisher, James Patterson

As Vice President, Publisher for James Patterson, I lead the team that supports the bestselling author in the world. I have been with Little, Brown since 2004. I was new to publishing at the time—I had taken some side-trips into music journalism, teaching, maritime law, biochemistry, and political consulting—and am still grateful for being in and around books, and readers, every single day.


Michael Szczerban

VP, Publisher of Voracious and Little, Brown Spark

I run Little, Brown’s imprint Voracious, where I publish books driven by appetite, passion, and curiosity across a range of interests and formats, from food and culture to storytelling, science, current events, and beyond. Most of those books have a visual component, and all of them are designed to make readers pick them up and immediately engage with them. I love working with authors to connect readers to their passions—whether that means politics, Instant Pots, or pop music. Happily, those collaborations have resulted in many acclaimed bestsellers, including Pete Souza’s Obama: An Intimate Portrait and Shade, Samin Nosrat and Wendy MacNaughton’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and Sarah Knight’s No F*cks Given Guides, which have sold nearly 3 million copies worldwide. Other recent and upcoming authors include Accidentally Wes Anderson, Ansel Adams, Ayesha Curry, Epicurious, Vivian Howard, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, Brad Leone, Riot Games, Julia Rothman, and Marcus Samuelsson.

I got my start as a reader of poetry manuscripts at Carnegie Mellon University Press while studying computer science, and joined Little, Brown in 2014 after working for Simon & Schuster and the Regan Arts imprint of Phaidon. I was a 2017 Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree and the 2012 recipient of the Lawrence Peel Ashmead Editorial Award, and I have written about the book business for Poets & Writers. I pronounce my last name “Zur-ban” and you can follow me on Instagram @foreverbeard


Joshua Kendall

Executive Editor, VP, Editorial Director

I am an executive editor, as well as the editorial director of Mulholland Books, where I’ve edited novels like The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling), JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst’s S., Lauren Beukes’s internationally bestselling The Shining Girls, as well national bestsellers like the debut Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and crime fiction legends like Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Charlie Huston, and Jim Thompson. At Little, Brown, I published the acclaimed literary novel Neverhome, as well as New York Times bestselling authors Michael Koryta and Dan Simmons. Prior to Little, Brown, I worked at Viking/Penguin and Picador, where I worked with authors and titles as diverse as Tana French, Stewart O’Nan, Ron Carlson, and Jasper Fforde. I have also edited a variety of nonfiction projects, such as The Boys In the Boat, Moby-Duck, and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning.


Talia Krohn

VP, Editorial Director

I joined Little Brown Spark in 2022 after sixteen years at Penguin Random House. I acquire primarily idea- and research-driven books in business and economics and in the behavioral and social sciences. I am particularly drawn to expert voices with unique insights that help us better understand ourselves, each other, and the ways in which we live and work. Books that I am proud to have published include: Zero to One, Brave, Not Perfect, Essentialism, The Lonely Century, Humor, Seriously, Acting with Power, It’s About Damn Time, Makers and Takers, Insight, The Happiness Advantage, The Power of Broke, and The Start-up of You. While I did not technically attend Stanford University, I have worked with many authors who did..


Alex Littlefield

Executive Editor

I joined Little, Brown in 2022 to expand our list of serious nonfiction, primarily in the categories of history, biography, politics, and current affairs. I also have a soft spot for investigative journalism, narrative non-fiction, science, and true crime. Above all else, I love books with an edge and with a mission; I look for well-crafted stories braided with bold arguments and big ideas, and for authors with fresh perspectives and deep expertise in their subject areas. I am proud to have published New York Times bestselling authors such as Fiona Hill, Marie Yovanovitch, Peter Strzok, Neal Katyal, Avi Loeb, and Randall Munroe as well as luminaries such as Graham Allison, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Jennifer Doudna. I also have had the pleasure of working with Adam Hochschild, James Risen, Wesley Lowery, Eric Lichtblau, Jacqueline Jones, and Jonathan Greenblatt. Before Little Brown, I spent sixteen years in the editorial departments of Mariner Books (formerly Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Basic Books, and Grove/Atlantic.


Asya Muchnick

VP, Executive Editor

As part of the Little, Brown team for more than twenty years, I acquire literary fiction, upmarket crime, and narrative nonfiction, including history, biography, and cultural history. I am particularly drawn to propulsive, page-turning stories, well told. Among the authors I have been lucky enough to work with are Naomi Alderman, Jo Ann Beard, Michael Connelly, Lacy Crawford, Rebecca Donner, Mary Gabriel, Malcolm Gladwell, Nancy Goldstone, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Elin Hilderbrand, Richard Lange, Paul Lynch, Daniel Mason, Stephenie Meyer, Daniel O’Malley, Alice Sebold, and David Sedaris.


Tracy Sherrod

VP, Executive Editor

I joined Little, Brown in May 2022 with more than three decades of experience in publishing. Most recently, I served as the VP and Editorial Director of Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Throughout my career I have worked with many authors, including social critic bell hooks; Man-Booker Prize winner, Paul Beatty; NAACP Image Award winners, Dick Gregory and NASA’s Katherine Johnson; as well as the Zora Neale Hurston Trust and Shirley Chisholm’s estate. I have enthusiastically published bestselling authors Tupac Shakur, Zane, Cicely Tyson, Steve Harvey, Jacqueline Woodson, Michael Twitty, A.J. Verdelle, Jenifer Lewis, and attorney Ben Crump. I am interested in curating a list of literary fiction and serious narrative nonfiction by diverse voices that promote peace, love, and unity to elevate the human experience.


Ben George

Executive Editor

I joined Little, Brown in 2013 after stints as an editor at Viking/Penguin; the literary journal Ecotone, where I worked with Annie Proulx, Jonathan Lethem, and Denis Johnson, among many others; and Lookout Books, which I co-founded and where I published Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision, a National Book Award finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award winner. I acquire literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, as well as biography and memoir, history, social sciences, and true crime. 

At Little, Brown I have acquired and edited national bestsellers by authors including Rick Bass, Rutger Bregman, Nathan Harris, Adam Haslett, Leslie Jamison, Edith Pearlman, and Luis Alberto Urrea. Books I’ve published have been winners of or nominees for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Story Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the PEN/E. O. Wilson Award, among others. I love discovering new writers, and debuts have included the Oprah’s Book Club selection The Sweetness of Water, by Nathan Harris; the Carnegie Medal winner The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, by Tom Lin; the #1 Indie Next selection The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, by Nathaniel Ian Miller; and Jaroslav Kalfař’s Spaceman of Bohemia, from which the forthcoming Netflix film starring Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan is adapted.


Helen O’Hare

Executive Editor

I joined Little, Brown and Company in February 2020, where I publish upmarket and book club fiction on the Little, Brown list and a range of atmospheric crime and suspense novels for Mulholland Books. I love clear hooks, distinctive voices, beautiful writing, and storytelling that makes me forget my to-do list. I’m honored to have worked with bestselling and beloved writers including Kellye Garrett, Kerri Maniscalco, Adrian McKinty, Elizabeth Hand, Allen Eskens, Denise Mina, Heather Chavez, and Lauren Beukes, and vibrant debut novels by Paula Lichtarowicz, Susanna Hoffs, Alice Franklin, and Melissa Fu. Before joining Little, Brown I held positions at G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Viking/Penguin, Other Press, and at the Boulder Book Store and the Tattered Cover Book Stores.


Jean Garnett

Senior Editor

I am an Editor at Little, Brown acquiring literary nonfiction and literary fiction. I joined Little, Brown in 2014 after working as an assistant at a literary agency and a high school English teacher. I am passionate about exceptional writing, smart and strikingly original voices, and books that offer new insights and perspectives. My list includes Jenny Slate’s Little Weirds (a New York Times bestseller), Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife, Malcolm Harris’ Kids These Days, Samantha Allen’s Real Queer America (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), and Meaghan O’Connell’s And Now We Have Everything.


Vivian Lee

Senior Editor

I joined Little, Brown in 2021 and acquire literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. I am excited to read books that ask big questions (or complicate those questions); authors who write in the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability. I am passionate about narratives that challenge our way of thinking both in the world and on the page. I have published Anna DeForest’s A History of Present Illness (winner of  an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award), Curtis Chin’s Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant (ALA Stonewall Winner), Jimin Han’s The Apology (a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick), and Youngmi Mayer’s I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying. Previously, I worked in print magazine and newspapers and as an editor at Little A for six years, where I published bestselling and award-winning authors including PEN/Faulkner finalist Matthew Salesses, Kirkus finalist Naima Coster, and PEN/Faulkner finalist Viet Dinh, as well as with Jim Atlas on the ICONS series. For my editorial work, I was named a PW Rising Star Honoree in 2018 and a Kundiman Honoree in 2023.


Pronoy Sarkar

Senior Editor

I acquire bold, ambitious, and conversation shifting projects across a range of areas, including history, biography, popular science, politics and current affairs, economics/law, high concept/big think, investigative journalism, unique culture stories, and new, forward thinking ways into issues around feminism, race, sexuality, and the intersections thereof. I am also interested in cultural taste-makers and critics with fresh perspectives and points of view. Above all, projects should be imbued with strong writing of the highest quality. Since joining Little, Brown, I’ve published the New York Times bestselling, Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell, finalist for the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism and the LA TimesBook Prize, San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal by Justin Gregg, and have acquired forthcoming books by bestselling historian Rick Perlstein, Washington Post op-ed columnist Dana Milbank, Pulitzer finalist and Wall Street Journal reporter Dana Mattioli, Congressman James Clyburn, and bestselling management professor at MIT, Andrew McAfee, among many others. Previously I was an editor at St. Martin’s Press, where I published or acquired 2030 by Mauro F. Guillen, a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Financial Times Best of the Year pick, New York Times bestselling The Fund by NYT reporter Rob Copeland, Aftershocks by Biden officials Colin Kahl and Thomas Wright, Profit and Punishment by 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Messenger, among others. Some other authors I’ve worked with include Olivia Laing, Andre Aciman, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, economist Linda Yueh, diplomat Phillip Gordon, Eric Posner, Edmund Richardson, playwright Andre Gregory, and the Wu-Tang Clan. Prior to St. Martin’s, I worked at Picador US and Simon & Schuster.


Denise Roy, Editorial Director

Shannon Jamieson Vazquez, Senior Editor

Denise Roy (previously of Dutton and Simon & Schuster), and Shannon Jamieson Vazquez (previously of Berkley and Bantam Dell) are the James Patterson adult editorial team, specializing in thrillers and true crime. They work on the #1 New York Times bestselling Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, and Women’s Murder Club series, as well as Patterson’s stand alone thrillers and his new and developing nonfiction line, notably All-American Murder, Filthy Rich, The House of Kennedy, The Last Days of John Lennon and Walk in My Combat Boots.