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Presented By: University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program

Presentation and Q&A: "The Art and Business of Publishing Your Debut"

Fiction Editor Chelcee Johns, Ballantine/Random House

Chelcee Johns Chelcee Johns
Chelcee Johns
This event is open to MFA students, English PhD students, Zell Fellows, and recent MFA alumni only. Please email asbates@umich.edu for login instructions.

Chelcee has worked in the publishing industry for more than a decade, with experience as a book editor, literary agent, and digital media strategist. She has seamlessly moved between digital media and book publishing, at last finding a home in-house shepherding award-winning authors most recently at 37 Ink/Simon & Schuster and now as a Senior Editor at Ballantine/Random House. She has worked on bestselling and award-winning titles including National Book Award longlisted Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, NYT bestseller Tough Love by Ambassador Susan Rice, national bestseller Heart Talk by Cleo Wade, the critically acclaimed The Year of Dangerous Days by Nicholas Griffin, and One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie, as well as with authors such as Issa Rae and Alice Walker. Chelcee’s work has been featured in the New York Times. Her forthcoming books at Ballantine include Cleyvis Natera’s Neruda on the Park, Blitz Bazawule’s The Scent of Burnt Flowers, and Brandi Sellars-Jackson’s On Thriving.

Chelcee’s primary focus is literary fiction (mostly contemporary though a small amount of historical as well as novels with a bit of magical realism), upmarket commercial fiction, and fresh narrative nonfiction alongside big idea books on social issues (race, sex, climate), women’s issues, identity, pop culture, and popular psychology. She loves books that introduce readers to new cultures and/or set across many countries. She’ll often be enamored by a protagonist that shows both grit and glory, that mirrors what we often love and dislike most about humanity. Chelcee is cultivating a list of books teem with agency, intellect, and heart.

Some of her favorite books are Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Popisho by Leone Ross, We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian, The Mothers by Brit Bennet, Heavy by Kiese Laymon, Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino, and The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom.

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