Benjamin Lee, VP, Associate Publisher of Paperbacks

Ben Lee headshot

Overview

A small list with a huge audience, Dutton is a boutique imprint within the largest English-language publisher in the world. Publicity—and marketing—driven, its focused list of fifty books per year is made up of half fiction and half nonfiction. Dutton’s imprints include Caliber, Plume and Tiny Reparations Books.

Dutton’s roster of recent and upcoming bestselling and notable fiction authors includes Abi Daré (The Girl with the Louding Voice), Fiona Davis (The Lions of Fifth Avenue and The Dollhouse), Eric Jerome Dickey (The Business of Lovers and Before We Were Wicked), Joseph Finder (House on Fire and Judgment), Lisa Gardner (Before She Disappeared and When You See Me ), Hank Green (A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor and An Absolutely Remarkable Thing), Tami Hoag (The Boy), Jason Mott (Hell of a Book), Riley Sager (Survive the Night and Final Girls), Adriana Trigiani (The Good Left Undone), and Jonathan Tropper (This Is Where I Leave You), among others.

Recent and upcoming bestselling and notable nonfiction authors include Mark Adams (Turn Right at Machu Picchu), Drew Barrymore (Rebel Homemaker), Sean Carroll (Something Deeply Hidden and The Big Picture ), Robyn Crawford (A Song for You), Martin Dugard (Taking Paris), Scott Ellsworth (The Ground Breaking), Steven Gillon (America’s Reluctant Prince), Maria Goodavage (Soldier Dogs and Top Dog), John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed), Andre Iguodala (The Sixth Man), Jon Karl (Betrayal and Front Row at the Trump Show), Daniel Levitin (This Is Your Brain on Music, The Organized Mind and Successful Aging), Nick Offerman (Where the Deer and the Antelope Play and Paddle Your Own Canoe), Mark Owen (No Easy Day and No Hero), Clinton Romesha (Red Platoon), Craig Unger (House of Trump, House of Putin), and Elizabeth Williamson (Sandy Hook). The Caliber military history imprint includes Larry Alexander (Bloody Ridge and Beyond),  Hugh Ambrose (The Pacific), Alex Kershaw (The First Wave), Adam Makos (A Higher Call), and Major Dick Winters (Beyond Band of Brothers).

Meet the Team

Ivan Held, President

Ivan Held is President of Putnam, Dutton, and Berkley. He currently oversees business, editorial, and publishing strategies for Putnam and Berkley.

Ivan started his career as a bookseller in Washington, DC, before moving to the publicity department at Random House, where he worked with authors ranging from Norman Mailer to General Colin Powell.  In the late 1990s he was named VP/Associate Publisher and Marketing Director for the Viking imprint of Penguin. Before returning to Penguin in 2005, he founded the Random House Trade Paperbacks imprint at Random House.

Christine Ball, Senior Vice President, Publisher

Christine Ball is Senior Vice President, Publisher for Berkley, Dutton, and their respective imprints. She joined Dutton in 2008 as the Director of Publicity and Marketing after serving as publicity director at Crown.

She was named Vice President of Dutton in 2011, Associate Publisher in 2012, Deputy Publisher of Berkley in 2016 and SVP, Publisher in 2017. In 2019 she was named an “Agent of Change” by Girls Write Now. In 2020, she and Phoebe Robinson joined forces to establish Tiny Reparations Books under the Plume imprint.

John Parsley, VP, Editor in Chief

John Parsley oversees the editorial department of Dutton and its imprints Plume, Tiny Reparations, and Caliber, in addition to acquiring a focused list of nonfiction and fiction titles. John was previously VP, Executive Editor at Little, Brown. He has edited many New York Times bestsellers, and authors John has worked with have won or been finalists for the Aspen Book Awards, Books for a Better Life Award, Carnegie Medal, Edgar Award, Kirkus Prize, LA Times Book Prize, Lukas Prize, National Book Award, NBCC Award, NYT Notables, Orion Book Award, PEN Awards, Pulitzer Prize, and TIME 100.

Recent and upcoming titles on John’s list include Scott Ellsworth’s National Book Award longlist title, The Ground Breaking; Andre Iguodala’s The Sixth Man, selected by President Obama as a favorite book; ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl’s bestsellers Betrayal and Front Row at the Trump Show; Denise Kiernan’s forthcoming Obstinate Daughters; Hell of a Book, the 2021 National Book Award winner in fiction, by Jason Mott; Joe Posnanski’s forthcoming Why We Love Baseball; Elizabeth Williamson’s Sandy Hook; and Timothy Winegard’s bestselling history, The Mosquito and his forthcoming, The Horse.

Benjamin Lee, Senior Vice President, Associate Publisher, Paperbacks & Backlist

Ben Lee joined Dutton, Putnam, and Berkley as Vice President, Associate Publisher of paperbacks in March 2015.  He oversees the paperback conversion program for all of Dutton and Putnam’s books. Prior to joining Dutton, Putnam, and Berkley, Ben was most recently VP, Associate Publisher of Atria Books at Simon & Schuster, overseeing campaigns for many New York Times bestselling authors including Brad Thor, Jennifer Weiner, Vince Flynn, Theresa Caputo, Rachael Ray and Buddy Valastro.

Prior to that at Simon, he sold the warehouse clubs and later handled Target, Readerlink, B&T, Ingram and the CBA. He started his publishing career at Random House, where he worked in sales with the warehouse clubs as well as in marketing with the Information Group.

Amanda Walker, Executive Director of Publicity

Amanda Walker joined Dutton as Publicist in 2007 and was named Director in 2014. In her Dutton career, she has created and implemented bestselling campaigns for many nonfiction and fiction authors, including Hank Green, Daniel J. Levitin, Tamer Elnoury, W. Kamau Bell, Joseph Finder, Ken Follett, Tracy Chevalier, John Hodgman, and Dan Savage. In addition to managing the publicity department and developing publicity strategies for the entire list, Amanda works directly with many Dutton authors and has orchestrated publicity campaigns for breakout bestselling books including Hank Green’s #1 bestseller An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, the Parkland High School March For Our Lives Founders’ Glimmer of Hope, Clint Romesha’s Red Platoon, Jonathan Tropper’s This is Where I Leave You, and Mark Adams’ Turn Right at Machu Picchu, landing all of the respective authors on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time in their careers. Before joining Dutton, she worked at Simon & Schuster.

Stephanie Cooper, Director of Marketing

Stephanie Cooper is Director of Marketing for Dutton, Plume, and Tiny Reparations Books. She has 15 years of experience marketing bestselling trade books, including literary and commercial fiction, conversation-starting narrative nonfiction and memoir, and pop culture and design books.

As head of marketing, she has overseen campaigns for bestselling franchise and award-winning authors, including Lisa Gardner, Jonathan Karl, NBA winner Jason Mott, Adriana Trigiani, Phoebe Robinson, Fiona Davis, Riley Sager, Trixie Mattel & Katya, Drew Barrymore, and Nick Offerman. Previously, as Marketing Director at HarperCollins Publishers, she led bestselling marketing campaigns for Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Mitch Albom, Jacqueline Winspear, Mark Manson, Peggy Orenstein, and Roxane Gay, among many others. She is dedicated to leveraging the latest analytics and marketplace insights and trends to find the widest possible readership for each book.

Stephen Morrow, VP, Executive Editor

Stephen Morrow joined Dutton in 2006 as an Executive Editor specializing in nonfiction. He edits a wide range of science, economics, psychology, narrative nonfiction, and investigative journalism.

His authors include Stanford clinical psychiatrist Anna Lembke, M.D., whose recent Dopamine Nation landed on the New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists and is being published in thirty languages; acclaimed theoretical physicist, podcaster, and author Sean Carroll, whose latest book, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, the first of a nonfiction physics trilogy, was an instant New York Times bestseller; and preeminent science journalist Carl Zimmer, whose last two books She Has Her Mother’s Laugh and Life’s Edge were both PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalists.

Forthcoming titles include The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds by psycholinguist Viorica Marian, already sold in ten languages; Writing for Busy Readers by Harvard behavioral scientists Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink; Catastrophe Ethics: How to Be Good in a World of Overwhelming Bad by Johns Hopkins bioethicist Travis Rieder; and The Ends of the Earth by author of the award-winning bestseller Your Inner Fish Neil Shubin. Before coming to Dutton, Stephen founded the imprint Pi Press and the hard science list at Free Press, Simon & Schuster, where he began his trade publishing career.

Jill Schwartzman, Editorial Director, Plume

Jill Schwartzman joined Dutton in January 2012 with a mandate to acquire platform, publicity, and voice-driven nonfiction, with a focus on celebrity, pop culture, memoir, humor, music, biography, and narrative nonfiction. Recent and upcoming Dutton titles include Nick Offerman’s fifth New York Times bestseller Where the Deer and the Antelope Play, Drew Barrymore’s second New York Times bestseller Rebel Homemaker, Phoebe Robinson’s Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes as well as Ralph Macchio’s Waxing On, Ryan Britt’s Phasers on Stun, and Kate Gavino’s A Career in Books. Other New York Times bestsellers at Dutton include Jeff Tweedy’s How to Write One Song, Andy Green’s The Office, Robyn Crawford’s A Song for You, Brooke Shields’s There Was a Little Girl, and Janice Kaplan’s The Gratitude Diaries.

Jill is also Editorial Director of Plume, where she recently published the New York Times bestseller Subpar Parks by Amber Share as well as many other books in the pop culture, illustrated, and humor space.

Maya Ziv, Executive Editor

Maya Ziv is an Executive Editor at Dutton, Penguin Random House, where she focuses on commercial and literary fiction and select narrative nonfiction. Her authors include New York Times bestselling authors Hank Green, Riley Sager, Adriana Trigiani, Karma Brown, and Erika Johansen, and some recent titles include The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes, The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays, co-creator of How I Met Your Mother, Kaleidoscope by Cecily Wong, and Bad Sex, an exploration of truth, pleasure, and an unfinished revolution by Nona Willis Aronowitz.

Before joining Dutton, Maya was a Senior Editor at Harper, where her list included Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor and Roxane Gay’s New York Times bestseller Bad Feminist.

Brent Howard, Executive Editor

Brent Howard joined Dutton in March 2017, specializing in nonfiction with a focus on history, biography, military, politics and food. In a career spanning seventeen years, he has worked with a wide range of authors, including Martin Dugard, Alex Kershaw, Daniel Stone, John C. McManus, Luke Barr, William C. Davis, James Donovan, Josh Ireland, David O. Stewart, Mark Updegrove, David L. Roll, Phillips Payson O’Brien, Willard Sterne Randall, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Paul Andrew Hutton, Douglas Waller, Gregory A. Freeman, John S.D. Eisenhower, John Oller, Kevin Maurer, Larry Alexander, Jonathan W. Jordan, and Jack Cheevers.

Recent and upcoming titles include the national bestselling Taking Paris by Martin Dugard; investigative reporter Tim Mak’s Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA; David L. Roll’s George Marshall: Defender of the Republic; Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History recipient John C. McManus’s Island Infernos; Mark K. Updegrove’s Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency; and Daniel P. Bolger’s The Panzer Killers.

Lindsey Rose, Executive Editor

Lindsey Rose joined Dutton in January 2019 as an executive editor with a particular focus on upmarket and commercial fiction as well as thrillers, crime, and suspense.

Recent and upcoming titles include Abi Daré’s powerful voice-driven Nigeria-set debut The Girl with the Louding Voice, which was a New York Times bestseller and a #ReadWithJenna Today Show book club pick; Eileen Garvin’s heartwarming debut about second chances, unexpected friendship, and beekeeping The Music of Bees;  David Klass’s fast-paced eco-thriller Out of Time; S.K Barnett’s twisty and explosive psychological suspense novel Safe;  #1 internationally bestselling author Tara Moss’s glamorous post-WWII historical novel The War Widow; Jason Mott’s (co-edited with John Parsley) simultaneously funny and heart-wrenching novel Hell of a Book examining the toll of systemic racism and police violence on America; and Soon Wiley’s breathtaking debut novel about a Korean-American young man searching for a sense of identity while straddling both cultures.

Before coming to Dutton, Lindsey began her career at Grand Central Publishing, where she had the privilege of working with many bestselling and award-winning authors including David Baldacci, Iris Johansen, the Robert Ludlum Estate, Jeff Abbott, Sarah Blaedel, Robert Bryndza, Louise Jensen, Margaret Maron, M.C. Beaton, Marcia Muller, Eric Van Lustbader, Kyle Mills, Jamie Freveletti, and Nalo Hopkinson.

Emi Ikkanda, Executive Editor at Tiny Reparations Books

Emi Ikkanda, Executive Editor

Emi Ikkanda is an Executive Editor acquiring nonfiction and select fiction projects at Tiny Reparations Books, Dutton, and Plume at Penguin Random House. She previously worked at Seal Press at Hachette, Spiegel & Grau at Random House, and Henry Holt at Macmillan. She publishes a diverse list of award-winning, bestselling, and culturally relevant books. Over the years she has edited #1 New York Times and international bestselling authors, and edited winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Carnegie Medal, Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award, and the TIME 100.

Recent highlights on her list include #1 New York Times bestselling author Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s NBA finalist The Undocumented Americans, Carla Power’s Pulitzer finalist Home, Land, Security, Minda Harts’s Right Within, Arianna Davis’s What Would Frida Do?, international bestselling novelist Michael David Lukas’s The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, Sanaë Lemoine’s New York Times Editor’s Choice The Margot Affair, NASA Astronaut Nicole Stott’s Back to Earth, and former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao’s Reset.

Pilar Garcia-Brown, Senior Editor

Pilar Garcia-Brown joined Dutton as a Senior Editor in September 2021. Previously, she worked at Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She concentrates on fiction in multiple categories, as well as the occasional narrative nonfiction. She’s interested in voice and character-driven fiction that upends expectation or plays with genre, and is especially drawn to novels that tackle urgent, contemporary social and cultural themes in an irreverent or humorous way. On the nonfiction side, she is looking for hybrid memoir and essays. Recent and forthcoming titles include: the instant New York Times bestseller Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour; New York Times Editors’ Choice The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman; Kirkus Prize winner In Sensorium by Tanaïs; and Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang, which will be produced for TV by Constance Wu. She is currently co-chair of the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Fête Committee.

Cassidy Sachs, Editor

Cassidy Sachs joined Dutton in 2017 and has a list that’s all about empowerment. She is especially keen to acquire narrative disrupting nonfiction and books that flip the script in some way across the genres of journalism and history, as well as expert-led investigations written by trailblazing scholars. She is also seeking commercial fiction that finds perfect balance between lighthearted and heartfelt, and features strong, witchy women at its center. For Plume, she hopes to acquire platform driven memoir and pop-culture with a point.  Across both lists she has acquired and edited Nationally and New York Times bestselling books, has worked with award winning journalists and historians, and has published book club picks and Goodreads Choice Awards nominees.

Cassidy’s previous and upcoming Dutton titles include Flawless by NPR host at large Elise Hu; New York Times bestselling The World’s Worst Assistant by Conan O’Brien’s longtime assistant Sona Movsesian; Break the Cycle by trauma psychologist Dr. Mariel Buque; Lyn Slater aka the Accidental Icon’s How To Be Old; Naoise Mac Sweeney’s The West, a paradigm-shifting history told through fourteen remarkable lives; The Highest Law in the Land, shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award by Jessica Pishko; and Kings of Their Own Ocean by Karen Pinchin. Book of the Month Club pick Darling Girl by Liz Michalski; How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin; Out of Love, a debut and Barnes and Noble monthly fiction pick by Hazel Hayes; The Deja Glitch, a reinvention of the time-loop story by Holly James; and Becky Chalsen’s Kismet, the story of two twins, a wedding, a 30th birthday, all set on Fire Island over 4th of July weekend.

Lashanda Anakwah, Editor

Lashanda Anakwah is an editor at Tiny Reparations acquiring fiction and select non-fiction titles. Before joining Tiny Reparations she worked at the Simon & Schuster flagship imprint. She is building a list that captures a wide array of human experiences, and is drawn to edgy voice driven literary, upmarket and commercial fiction , centered on complicated, unique characters. Smart, immersive prose written with craft, intention and depth of feeling is sure to capture her attention. As well as themes of geographic identity, culture, and coming of age. 

Lashanda is also looking for transformative memoirs, in addition to narrative non-fiction that answers the “why” and “how” in regards to the socio-political-economic systems we are all mired in, with a clear vision of the way forward. 

Lexy Cassola, Associate Editor

Lexy Cassola joined Dutton in February 2018 and is an associate editor acquiring fiction. She is seeking true-to-life literary and upmarket novels focused on personal relationships and communities; dark humor; and character and setting-driven suspense.

Lexy’s recent and upcoming Dutton titles include Our Little World by Karen Winn, a debut coming-of-age story about two sisters in the aftermath of a local girl’s disappearance; GMA Buzz Pick A Novel Obsession by Caitlin Barasch, a wry millennial debut about an aspiring novelist who stalks her boyfriend’s ex for writing material; and Cai Emmons’ Unleashed, an ambitious and transcendent novel about a family in crisis set against the backdrop of California’s wildfire season.

Grace Layer, Assistant Editor

Grace Layer joined Dutton in January 2021, after working as an agent assistant at Empire Literary and as a freelance editor. On the nonfiction side, Grace is looking for smart narrative nonfiction by journalists or experts in their field, particularly in the areas of education, intersectional feminism, and true crime. On the fiction side, she’s interested in upmarket, voice-driven novels with genre elements that explore the complexities of friendships and family. She is seeking stories by and about BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals. Grace graduated from Brown University with a double major in Literary Arts and Education.

Grace has helped edit The Forever Witness by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Edward Humes, Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna, and Sinkable by Daniel Stone, among others. She acquired the revised and updated edition of The Dyslexic Advantage, forthcoming in February 2023.

Charlotte Peters, Editorial Assistant

Charlotte Peters joined Dutton in May 2022 as an editorial assistant. She has previously worked in TV production and held internships at HarperCollins and AuthorPods. Charlotte graduated with a degree in English from UCLA and a masters in Romantic and Victorian Literature from the University of St Andrews. Her reading taste is eclectic, but she gravitates toward anything with immersive, fantastical settings and female characters whose strength speaks for itself. She also shamelessly enjoys a good love triangle. On the nonfiction side, Charlotte is interested in quirky, slice of life history, critical studies of folklore and mythology, topics relating to women’s sexual and reproductive health, and anything to do with Shakespeare.