Meet Legacy Lit
Krishan Trotman
VP, Publisher
Krishan Trotman is the Vice-President, Publisher of Legacy Lit. She joined Hachette Books in 2016. In 2020 she launched Legacy Lit, an imprint dedicated to books that give voice to issues, authors, and communities that have been marginalized, underserved, and overlooked. This includes BIPOC authors, all women, and any group that they believe deserves a spotlight. The imprint is committed to promoting equality, equity, and inclusion for all people. The books are bold, mission-driven commercial works. Social justice and empowerment are Trotman’s passion. She likes to work with authors who are candid, bold, and, in their own unique way, not afraid to shake things up.
Her authors have included a range of award-winning and New York Times bestsellers, including congressman John Lewis’ Across That Bridge; journalist Stephanie Land’s Maid; MSNBC political analyst Malcolm Nance’s The Plot to Destroy Democracy; New York Times columnist Lindy West’s The Witches Are Coming and Shit Actually; UFC’s Mixed Martial Artist Paige VanZant’s Rise; Olympic medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad’s Proud; radio and TV host Zerlina Maxwell’s The End of White Politics; TV personality Ed Gordon’s Conversations in Black; journalist Talia Lavin’s Culture Warlords; Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales’ memoir Nothing Personal; BRAVO’s Million Dollar Listing star Ryan Serhant’s Sell It Like Serhant and Big Money Energy; Morning Joe’s co-host Mika Brzezinski’s Earn It! and Comeback Careers; The Today Show’s cohost Al Roker’s You Look So Much Better in Person; and empowerment coach Gina DeVee’s The Audacity to Be Queen, to name a few.
Krishan has been featured in the New York Times, Essence Magazine, New York Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Salon, Shondaland, Cheddar TV, MSN, CSPAN, and more. She is the self-described Beyoncé of Books and mom to her son Bleu.
Estefania Acquaviva
Senior Publicist
Estefania Acquaviva is a Senior Publicist for Grand Central Publishing and Legacy Lit. She began her publishing career at Simon & Schuster, and interned for both Flatiron Books and Little, Brown and Company, before officially joining the GCP division as the Publicity and Marketing Assistant for Twelve Books. To each media campaign, she brings a balance of traditional tent-poles strategies, as well as creative “new media” opportunities. Over the years, she has gotten the opportunity to work closely with New York Times bestselling authors like Senator Tammy Duckworth, Susan Page, Dan Pfeiffer, Shea Serrano, George Stephanopoulos, Neko Case, and Ed Helms. She graduated from Villanova University with a Bachelor of Arts, where she double-majored in English and Spanish Literature, and minored in both Creative Writing and Business. She attended the NYU Summer Publishing Institute, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. As a native Ecuadorian and Spanish speaker, she takes pride in championing the inclusion of BIPOC storytellers in publishing, and is excited to continue to support her authors throughout the publication process of their books.
Amina Iro
Associate Editor
Amina Iro is an Associate Editor at Legacy Lit. She started her publishing career as an Editorial Assistant at Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, where she worked on titles by esteemed authors such as Cicely Tyson and Zora Neale Hurston. A writer and performance poet originally from Prince George’s County, MD, Amina was a 2020 Fellow for the Watering Hole Winter Writer’s Retreat. She has performed at venues in the US, England, Nigeria, and South Africa. Amina is a graduate of the First Wave program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied Neurobiology and English Creative Writing. She is interested in nonfiction books with brave motifs that invite readers to the juncture of identity and social change and create new awareness through crucial, yet overlooked connections. In particular, she is passionate about social science, psychology, and narratives from women and people of color, as well as fiction, poetry, and literature that illuminate the many facets of Black and queer life.
Maya Lewis
Marketing Manager
Maya Lewis is the Marketing Manager for Legacy Lit Books. She began her publishing career at HarperCollins working with Amistad Book, HarperVia, and HarperCollins Espanol. During that time, she worked with bestselling authors including Cicely Tyson, Bakari Sellers, and the estates of Zora Neale Hurston and Dick Gregory among many others. She takes immense pride in working to establish diverse and BIPOC storytelling in the book marketplace and making sure that publishers work to find and develop underrepresented readerships. Maya studied English Literature and Sociology before receiving her Master’s in Journalism from the City University of New York, where she focused on culture writing and documentary film. She is also a poet and mixed-media artist. Maya was a Brooklyn Poets 2021 Fellow, a 2022 Tin House Workshop alum and has exhibited work with sk.Artspace.
Mahito Indi Henderson
Editorial Assistant
Mahito Indi Henderson is an editorial assistant at Legacy Lit. He began his career in Dublin, Ireland as the editorial assistant and program coordinator for Skein Press, an independent publishing house that champions authors from marginalized communities. He received his BA from Northwestern University, where he studied creative writing, film, and art theory and practice, and his MA from University College Cork, where he was a recipient of the Government of Ireland International Education Scholarships (GOI-IES).
Mahito is a two-time recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award and was a finalist for The Iowa Review Awards 2021. His writing has been published in Holy Show, The Moth, The Echo, and The Foundationalist, among others. In 2022, he was awarded the inaugural Lacuna Bursary, an artist-in-residence grant for an emerging writer from an underrepresented group. He is an avid improvisor, having studied at The Second City in Chicago, and actor. He is passionate about books that sit at the intersection of race, culture, and humor, and he is eager to help promote and champion diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the publishing industry.