Meet Union Square & Co.

Emily Thomas Meehan

Chief Creative Officer & Publisher

Emily joined Barnes & Noble in 2021. She oversees all operations for Union Square & Co. and leads new strategies for both children’s and adult titles. Prior to joining the company, she was vice president and publisher at Disney Book Group, where she led creative and global commercial strategy for its trade publishing imprints, Hyperion and National Geographic, as well as branded trade title strategy for brands such as ESPN, Marvel, and Lucas. She acquired and oversaw a broad publishing program that included Mo Willems, Rick Riordan, Dhonielle Clayton, Alexandra Bracken, Holly Black, and Dan Buettner. She also pioneered the book publishing division’s book-to-screen development engine. Ms. Meehan began her career at Simon & Schuster as an editorial assistant, where she realized her childhood dream of reading books for a living. There she discovered and launched the careers of many bestselling authors, including Jenny Han, Jennifer E. Smith, and Melissa de la Cruz.

Amanda Englander

Editorial Director, Union Square & Co.

Amanda oversees the adult trade publishing team. Prior to joining Union Square & Co. in 2021, she was executive editor at Clarkson Potter, Penguin Random House’s dedicated lifestyle imprint. She has a keen eye for spotting breakout bestsellers and award winners, such as Tieghan Gerard of the blog Half Baked Harvest, who has more than 2 million books in print; viral online brand BuzzFeed Tasty; Netflix phenomenon The Home Edit; actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson; sensational Instagram illustrator Mari Andrew; and the New York Times collection of Bill Cunningham’s photography. Amanda began her career at Hachette Book Group’s Grand Central Publishing where she published both prescriptive and narrative nonfiction, including Matt Logelin’s Two Kisses for Maddy, which Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, released as the film Fatherhood starring Kevin Hart.

Tracey Keevan

VP, Editorial Director, Union Square Kids

Tracey oversees the editorial team at Union Square Kids. Prior to joining Union Square & Co., Tracey was an executive editor at Disney-Hyperion / Disney Publishing Worldwide, where she worked for a decade with numerous bestselling, award-winning authors and illustrators. Tracey was formerly executive editor of Nick Jr. Magazine, part of the Nickelodeon Magazine Group, where she worked for nearly a decade, as well as having held positions at Workman Publishing and the New York Daily News. She is an Emmy Award–nominated writer whose children’s fiction has been featured on Nickelodeon TV as well as in books and magazines. Tracey began her career in nonprofit environmental education and has a lifelong interest in nature, climate, and sustainability. She is acquiring select titles with strong commercial and high-interest literary appeal, from picture books through middle grade novels. Unexpected voices, unusual stories, and surprising reading experiences are top on her list.

Camaren Subhiyah

Editorial Director, Union Square Gift & Specialty, Knock Knock, and Em & Friends

Camaren oversees the editorial teams at Union Square Gift & Specialty, Knock Knock, and Em & Friends imprints. Prior to joining Union Square & Co., Camaren was a senior editor at Chronicle Books, where she acquired book and gift products and developed New York Times bestselling and James Beard award-winning programs with authors, chefs, celebrities, artists, and brands. She was also an editor at Abrams Books, where she specialized in the Food, Lifestyle, and Gift categories. Camaren began her publishing career at Penguin Random House, where she developed, wrote, and acquired bestselling books and gift products for the Potter Style and Clarkson Potter imprints.

David Bennett

Publisher, Boxer Books US & UK

David’s career spans five decades working with many of the world’s leading illustrators, from Helen Oxenbury to Britta Teckentrup. He co-created Where’s Wally with Martin Handford and is the publisher of Boxer Books, an imprint of Union Square & Co. He has sold titles to just about every major children’s publisher in the US and written and illustrated numerous children’s books under a pseudonym. David loves to discover unique new picture book talent and looks for wonderful drawing and quirky, offbeat, entertaining stories with humor and a message.

He co-produces Lily and Bear stage shows, has sung with the St Albans Chamber Opera, won the City of London swimming marathon, backpacked through Kenya, climbed Mont Blanc, been attacked by monkeys, and took up playing cello during lockdown. David is a parent of three, a grandparent of twins, and loves to spend time by the sea with family and friends.

Suzy Capozzi

Executive Editor, Union Square Kids

Suzy joined Union Square Kids in 2018. She has been a children’s book editor for more than twenty years, having previously held editorial positions at Random House and Simon & Schuster. Suzy’s portfolio includes everything from picture books to beginning readers and chapter books to middle grade, and young adult novels. She has worked with numerous talented creators, including Dusti Bowling, Cozbi Cabrera, Victoria Chang, Leah Henderson, Patricia McKissack, Christian Robinson, and Renée Watson. Suzy is actively acquiring picture books, chapter books, middle grade and young adult titles. In the middle grade space, she has a keen interest in magical realism, unexpected historical fiction, and contemporary character-driven novels. For the young adult market, Suzy is drawn to unreliable narrators, speculative/alternative history, sci-fi, and any genre-bending work.

Chris Duffy

Executive Editor, Union Square Kids

Chris joined Union Square Kids in 2021. He has written and edited comics and graphic novels for thirty years, taking time out for meals and whistling breaks. For Nickelodeon Magazine’s award-winning comics section, Chris gathered the world’s best cartoonists into one place to create original comics for kids. In addition to editing many comics anthologies for First Second, including the Eisner Award–nominated Fairy Tale Comics, Chris worked directly with SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg to launch and produce the popular comic book series starring the yellow guy. Prior to joining Union Square & Co., Chris’s career included editorial positions at Workman Publishing, Nickelodeon Magazine, and DC Comics, among others. He is looking for highly illustrated/graphic novels for all ages, with a focus on middle grade and young adult fantasy, humor, adventure, and inventive nonfiction. Chris is also acquiring and developing kids’ puzzle, humor, and novelty titles.

Ardyce Alspach

Senior Editor, Union Square Kids

Ardyce joined Union Square Kids in 2015. She has held positions in a variety of disciplines throughout her career (though book editing is her favorite). Prior to joining Union Square & Co., Ardyce was an instructor at Clemson University, a graphic designer, a copyeditor, and a publicist for Tor Books and Skyhorse. She is actively acquiring middle grade and young adult fiction and nonfiction. Her broad interests include fantasy, sci-fi, mysteries, thrillers, and magical realism, as well as approachable and engaging art and creative writing titles. Ardyce is the lead editorial contact for Union Square Kids co-edition publishing projects.

Claire Wachtel

Editor-at-Large

Claire joined Union Square & Co. in 2022. She was previously a senior vice president and executive editor at HarperCollins for twenty-two years. During her time there, she acquired and edited several major New York Times bestsellers, including the nonfiction titles Sapiens, Freakonomics, all of Cokie Roberts’s historical books, former president George W. Bush’s A Charge to Keep, and Mitch Zuckoff’s Lost in Shangri-La, which was optioned for film by 3000 Pictures. On the fiction side, she has published such authors as Dennis Lehane (Mystic River and Shutter Island), S. J. Watson (Before I Go to Sleep), Kim McCreight (Reconstructing Amelia and Where They Found Her), and Jennifer Haigh (Mrs. Kimble and The Condition).

Barbara Berger

Executive Editor

Barbara joined Union Square & Co. in 2005, and has focused on a wide range of topics. Before joining Union Square & Co., she held editorial positions at DK Publishing, Rizzoli, and Macmillan; and prior to that, worked in the fine art world at several galleries in New York. She has acquired and edited books by notable authors, photographers, and artists including Tony Bennett, Ray Davies, Joel Meyerowitz, Lynn Davis, George Rodrigue, Mort Künstler, and Martin Kemp; and she has collaborated with organizations such as AARP, the American Museum of Natural History, the Associated Press, the George Eastman Museum, the New York Times, the Schomburg Center, and Sony Pictures. Her bestselling titles include Obama: The Historic Presidency of Barack Obama by Mark Greenberg and David Tait; Out of the Depths by the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau; and Infinite Quest by John Edward.

Francis Heaney

Executive Editor

Francis has been writing puzzles professionally since 1993, and editing them since not long after that. They joined Puzzlewright Press, Union Square & Co.’s pen-and-paper puzzle imprint, in 2005. Their puzzles have appeared in Games magazine (where they also did a stint as editor-at-large), the New York Times, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, Time Out, Al Jazeera, and more, as well as in many books. Francis has have also worked as an ancillary writer at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and work currently as a contributing writer and editor for the American Values Club Crossword. They organized the charity puzzle project Puzzles for Progress in 2017 and were a contributing editor to the charity puzzle projects Queer Qrosswords and Queer Qrosswords 2 in 2018 and 2019.

Mika Kasuga

Executive Editor

Mika joined Union Square & Co. in 2022. Previously she was at Penguin Random House where, as editorial manager of the Modern Library imprint, she curated the Modern Library Torchbearers series and reissued midcentury science fiction writer John Wyndham. She was simultaneously senior publishing manager of the One World and Roc Lit 101 imprints, where she worked with Nikole Hannah-Jones, Heather McGhee, and Ibram X. Kendi. Prior to that she was an associate editor at Random House, where she worked with authors such as Jim Mattis, Salman Rushdie, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Caitlin Leffel

Senior Editor

Caitlin joined Union Square & Co. in 2022 after five years as a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and editorial project manager of illustrated books and cookbooks. Previously, she was an editor at Rizzoli International Publications, where she acquired, edited, and coauthored books in the culinary, lifestyle, and fashion categories, and earlier worked in the New York office of Assouline. As a self-described “word person among picture people,” she loves collaborating with authors from a wide range of backgrounds to translate their creative work into beautiful illustrated books. A native of the Union Square neighborhood, Caitlin graduated from Amherst College with a degree in French and European Studies and holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She also serves as an advisor in the graduate program of Creative Writing and Publishing at Long Island University.