NYC Workshop Faculty - Only the Best

Susan Breen | Amy Collins | Paula Munier | Michael Neff

Susan Breen's first mystery, MAGGIE DOVE, was published by a digital imprint of Penguin Random House on June 14, 2016. The sequel, MAGGIE DOVE'S DETECTIVE AGENCY, was published on November, 2016. Susan's short stories and essays have been published by a number of magazines, among them Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, American Literary Review and anderbo.com. One of her stories was selected for inclusion in Best American NonRequired Reading. She is also a proud finalist in the Writer's Policy Academy Golden Donut story competition. Susan's first novel, THE FICTION CLASS, won a Washington Irving Award from the Westchester Library Association, and was discovered and published as a result of the New York Pitch.

Susan teaches creative writing at Gotham Writers in Manhattan. She's also on the faculty of the New York Pitch Conference and New York Writers Workshop. She lives in a small village in the Hudson Valley with her husband, two dogs (cockapoos) and a cat. Her three grown children are flourishing elsewhere.

Amy Collins is an agent with the Talcott Notch Literary Services agency. With 30 years in the publishing industry as a book buyer, Sales Director for large non-fiction publisher and the founder and President of New Shelves Books, one of the largest book sales and marketing companies in the US. She is a USA TODAY and WALL STREET JOURNAL bestselling author and has spent her career working with Barnes & Noble, Target, and Books-A-Million, as well as bookstores and libraries. Collins is also a trusted expert, speaker, and recommended publishing consultant for some of the largest book and library retailers and wholesalers in the publishing industry. In her agent role, Collins focuses on non-fiction/ history, historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi.

She is on the national advisory board for IngramSpark, a member of Mensa, a featured columnist for THEBOOKDESIGNER, Writers Digest, IBPA, and a trusted teacher at conferences world-wide. She has taught and spoken at many of the publishing industry's top festivals and conferences including Publisher's Weekly's BookCon, Oklahoma Writer's Conference, Author U, AAPS, Dublin Writers Conference, BAIPA, PALA, St. Louis Writer's Conference, Writers Digest, Henderson Writers Conference, and many others.

When not in the office, her focus is on the working poor and poverty elimination, and she spends a great deal of time personally and professionally working with and training women from disadvantaged backgrounds. A member of several charitable and political organizations, she donates not only her time, but a portion of her company's profits to grant based charities that work to alleviate the cycle of poverty.

She is a singer in a Celtic blues band on the weekends and is saving for a faster motorcycle. Amy can also be seen at Amy's Advice.Com,

Three-book deal in 2016 with St. Martins for the Mercy Carr mystery series, and now on the way to a fourth book.
Her last nonfiction book on craft, Writing With Quiet Hands, reviewed on Amazon - "Paula Munier's Writing with Quiet Hands is the real deal. Munier knows writing and publishing from all the angles and covers them in such a way as to teach, inspire, and encourage. If you want to learn, turn the pages and behold." - Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times best-selling author of Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins.
To date in 2021, Paula has clocked over 140 official deals with major publishers as an agent for Talcott-Notch Literary Agency.
To date in 2021, Paula has signed ten authors from the New York Pitch Conference, and all have contracts with major publishers.

Literary agent, editor and author Paula Munier is one of the biggest new stars in New York publishing. Her energy is boundless, her network endless, and being a writer herself, as well as a congenial human being, her care and compassion for her writers is legendary. Paula possesses broad experience in a wide variety of genres, and in creating content in all formats across all markets for such media giants as Disney, Gannett, Greenspun Media Group, and Quayside. She began her career as a journalist, and along the way added editor, acquisitions specialist, publishing executive, and literary agent to her repertoire. She served as the Director of Innovation and Acquisitions for Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, where she headed up the acquisitions team responsible for creating and producing both fiction and nonfiction for print, eBook, eShort, and direct-to-eBook formats.

As a literary agent for Talcott Notch, her deals over the past two years span the genre spectrum. They include a nice six figures for THE REGISTRY by Shannon Stoker; SNIPER by Vaughn Hardacker, DYING FOR ATTENTION by James Shannon, THE BODY LANGUAGE OF LIARS by Dr. Lillian Glass, TREAT ME LIKE A DOG by Larry Kay, THE FISHERMAN by Vaughn Hardacker, DISINTEGRATION by Richard Thomas, DARK TURNS by Cate Hollahan, DEATH DEALER by Kate Flora, ORPHAN #8 by Kim van Alkemade, and HOT DOGS AND CROISSANTS by Natasha and Victorine Saulnier.

She is also the author or co-author of several books including HOT FLASH HAIKU, 365 WAYS TO MAKE AMERICA A BETTER PLACE, 101 THINGS YOU AND JOHN McCAIN DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT SARAH PALIN, ON BEING BLONDE, a YA suspense novel EMERALD'S DESIRE, and mainstream fiction novel FIXING FREDDIE. Paula also served four terms as President of the New England chapter of Mystery Writers of America as well as on the MWA board; and she's an active member of Sisters in Crime.

Her flagship book on fiction craft, PLOT PERFECT, is one of the most sought after technique manuals in the commercial fiction business.

Founder-editor chief of Algonkian Writer Conferences including the famous and highly successful New York Pitch Conference, as well as several other events including the Algonkian online seminars and novel writing program. Michael's first novel, a literary historical entitled ALL THE DARK WE WILL NOT SEE, was published by Serving House Books, and an urban fantasy, MAGICIAN'S IMPOSSIBLE, was created and co-edited by him and published by Macmillan Books. His latest novel, PIPER ROBBIN AND THE AMERICAN OZ MAKER (pseudonym Warwick Gleeson), was chosen by an editorial panel at Kirkus Reviews to be a Top 150 Best Book in their Fall Preview issue--digital and print format. The novel was also an Amazon Best Seller. It's prequel, WORLD MAKER - THE ASCENSION OF ROMANOVA, won four national book awards for SFF in 2019, including first place in the Beverly Hills Book Awards. Novels of his currently in production (author or co-author) include BEST SERVED DEADLY (a commercial women's thriller collaboration), BELISARIUS, WAR DRAGON OF ROME (historical fiction), and PIPER ROBBIN AND THE SHADOW BROKERS OF OZ (book III of the series). Development Executive for AEI Films and Books (updated filmography at Wikipedia) which produces mainstream, HBO/Cinemax, and independent films, while also agenting best sellers. One of his AEI co-development projects, SISTER ISLANDS, is currently in production for a potential TV series. His screenplays, BIG SCARE HOUSE, CLIMBING THE FIRE, and THREE ALARM SHIH-TZU (When danger threatens, Shih-Tzu happens!), are making the rounds in Hollywood. Novels ushered to commercial publication via his Algonkian-method workshops include GRAVEMAIDENS by Kelly Coon, THE MANHATTAN PUZZLE by Laurence O'Bryan, THE WISDOM OF HAIR by Kim Boykin, ORPHAN 8 by Kim Van Alkemade, DARK TURNS by Cate Holahan, THE GOAT WOMAN OF LARGO BAY by Gillian Royes, and THE FICTION CLASS by Susan Breen, among dozens of others. Agent deals and commercial novels involving him as a development editor over the past several years include ON MAGGIE'S WATCH by Ann Garvin, MURDER AT BARCLAY MEADOW by Wendy Eckel, THE EDGE OF NORMAL by Carla Norton, THE BLACK PANTHERS by Gina Niccolo, DIE BACK by Richard Hacker, KARMA CITY by Gardner Browning, and WAR OF THE WORLD MAKERS by Reilly Michaels, among others. Founding editor, and a contributing editor to Algonkian Author Connect (an information and resource hub for novel writers), as well as the Writer's Edge (the original "Writer's Edge") that provides critical and tie-breaking advice to nascent authors. Michael's greatest satisfaction stems from helping dedicated fiction writers become commercially published. He is an author, teacher, agent, literary entrepreneur, and development editor as well. As a DE for AEI, he is actively seeking high concept projects that can be transformed into films, television, or books. In his capacity as the director of the New York Pitch Conference he works with senior publishing house editors to locate and tap potential in budding new authors working in a variety of genres including upmarket literary and general fiction, serious and light women's fiction, narrative non-fiction, historical fiction, mystery, SF and fantasy. On the more literary side, Michael publishes and edits the journal Del Sol Review, and his own work has appeared in such literary journals as the North American Review, Quarterly West, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Literary Review, American Way Magazine, and Conjunctions. He was one of the winners of the first Imitation William Faulkner Contest sponsored by the University of Mississippi, and has served as judge for various writing contests, including the Writer's Digest Finalist Prize for best short fiction.