Q: Agate’s 20th anniversary is this month. What do you see happening in the next 20 years for Agate?
A: Continuing to flourish in smart, sustainable ways, I hope, the way we have to this point. Unlike a lot of presses our size, Agate is for-profit, and diverse in the range of imprints we publish; we’re very motivated to find audiences for our books, and the variety of different things we do keeps it fresh. I doubt I’ll still be running it 20 years hence, but I look forward to figuring out how I can best support its next leader.
Q: One of your most popular series is the In Their Own Words series. What is the process for deciding who to feature in these books?
A: It’s surprisingly hard to find the right people, and we’re always trying to decide if we need to broaden our criteria. We started by focusing on entrepreneurial business leaders, but about five years ago expanded to include figures from popular culture who connect with the public in deeper and more meaningful ways, as “thought leaders” of a kind. And they have to be people who’ve produced a meaningful body of public comment (did you know that Beyonce has only done one or two public interviews in the last decade?), and done so in the English language, to make the cost structure work right.
Q: Agate imprints publish a variety of genres. How does the acquisition process differ for these imprints?
A: We might be a little unusual at Agate in that I’m the first reader of every submission, because I feel I have the sharpest, fastest eye when it comes to spotting the proverbial diamonds in the rough. We get about 700 submissions a year, and I try to winnow those down to 70 or so to share with other readers here, matching them with books on the topics that interest them most. Jane Seibold, our production manager, has a particular interest in cookbooks, while I share all our serious narrative candidates with Amanda Gibson, our editorial manager, and David Schlesinger, our publishing director. And we come up with the In Their Own Words subjects as an open committee—Dolly Parton, for example, was suggested by a colleague’s mom.
Q: Can you share a forthcoming Agate title that you are excited about and why?
A: Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir, by Iliana Regan (coming January 2023), whose 2019 debut, the memoir Burn the Place, became the first culinary-related book to win a place on the National Book Award longlist in 40 years. She’s written these two books (and earned an MFA in writing) all while pursuing her very demanding day job as a Michelin-starred chef. I’ve never worked with a writer who has such an intense and singular creative vision; her new work deals very powerfully with a lot of issues—gender identity, environmental and climate degradation, and the challenges wrought by the pandemic, for starters—of pressing importance today.
