Julia Borcherts

Julia Borcherts is the founder of Julia Publicity, a literary PR and marketing agency, and a 12-year industry veteran. She has led successful campaigns for New York Times bestselling authors and debut authors alike, as well as for titles and catalogues with Big Five, independent and university publishing houses.

Julia earned her M.F.A in Creative Writing and her M.A. in The Teaching of Writing from Columbia College Chicago, during which time she worked for ten years as a daily columnist for several Chicago Tribune publications and as a frequent contributor to Time Out Chicago, Windy City Times and other media outlets. She teaches at DePaul University and regularly speaks at literary conferences and events on the topics of publicity, marketing, social media and author branding. 

Junot Diaz

Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and This Is How You Lose Her. Díaz has been awarded a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Lila Acheson Wallace Reader's Digest Award, the 2002 PEN/Malamud Award and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Díaz is a MacArthur fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.   

Stuart Dybek

The New York Times cited poet and fiction writer Stuart Dybek as “not only our most relevant writer, but maybe our best.”
Dybek was raised on the South Side of Chicago. His works of fiction have prompted critics to rank him with such American literary giants as Ernest Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson. His poems and fiction both feature a kind of shifting realism, one in which dreams and the imagination are just as present as gritty details of urban life. Dybek’s work "move[s] easily between the gritty reality of urban decay," noted John Breslin in the Washington Post, "and a magical realm of lyricism and transcendence linked to music, art and religion."
Dybek's awards include a Lannan Prize, a PEN/Malamud Award, a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and an O. Henry Award and a MacArthur Fellowship.
 

Alex Kotlowitz

For forty years, Alex Kotlowitz has been telling stories from the heart of America, deeply intimate tales of struggle and perseverance. He is the author of four books, including his most recent, An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago which received the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. His other books include the national bestseller There Are No Children Here, which the New York Public Library selected as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. It received the Helen B. Bernstein Award and was adapted as a television movie produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey. It was selected by The New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year along with his second book, The Other Side of the River which also received The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Nonfiction. 
Alex is a professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai is the author of the New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions For You as well as four other works of fiction. Her last novel, The Great Believers, one of the New York Times’ Best Books of the 21st Century, was a finalist for both the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and the 2018 National Book Award, and was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize among other honors. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca teaches graduate fiction writing at Middlebury College, Northwestern University, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.

Alexis Pride

Alexis Pride is a professor of creative writing in the School of Communication and Culture at Columbia College Chicago. Pride also works as a contracted writer for Level 4 Press, Inc., where she co-authors novels that are optimized for film/television adaptation. Among her works are All I Want for Christmas (2022, Level 4 Press), which hit #1 for new releases on Amazon during its first week, and Satchel Paige, with an anticipated release date in 2026 (Level 4 Press). Her other publications include Where the River Ends (Tanksley-Simpson Publishing), and short stories in TriQuarterly, F Magazine, and elsewhere. Pride is the Fiction Editor for Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose, the award-winning multi-genre literary magazine published by Columbia College Chicago.

Jessica Berg, Rosecliff Literary

Jessica Berg founded Rosecliff Literary, a boutique agency dedicated to discovering and nurturing exceptional talent. With a Master’s in Fiction from Spalding University and over a decade of developmental editing experience, Jessica offers a collaborative and informed approach to navigating the publishing landscape. She fosters long-term success with her authors, focusing on helping each author achieve their full potential.

Eloy Bliefuss Prados, Neon Literary

My name is Eloy and I am a literary agent at Neon Literary. After studying journalism, my first job in publishing was at Simon & Schuster editorial. I switched to the agency side of the business when I joined Janklow & Nesbit Associates in 2019. In April 2024, I moved to Neon Literary where I am building a list of fiction and non-fiction clients. 
I’m a fan of writing that is dark, strange, and funny. I love writers who are genre-agnostic and have a strong point of view. 

Eloy's interests:
Fiction:
Queer narratives, past and present, in the U.S. or abroad.
Gothic/Horror novels that are both chilling and emotionally grounded.
Voice-driven mysteries or thrillers that are literary in style and soaked in atmosphere. 
Fantasy novels—either epic or cozy in scope—which manage to blend character-driven storytelling with finely-crafted prose and inventive world-building.

Non-fiction:
Science and nature writing, cultural histories and criticism, politics, economics, and current events, history

Tina P Schwartz, The Purcell Agency

Tina P Schwartz is the founder and literary agent at The Purcell Agency, LLC, near Chicago. She has written 10 traditionally published nonfiction books for children and teens. Tina started The Purcell Agency in 2012.  
Fun fact: Tina signed Michelle (Elle) Baade after a pitch session at Let's Just Write! a year or two ago. She just sold her debut novel to Lake Union Publishing (Amazon). 

Tina has signed four authors from previous Let's Just Write! conferences, and has sold one book so far to Lake Union Publishing.

Tina's interests:
Women's Fiction, Memoir, Narrative Nonfiction, LGBTQ, Contemporary fiction for Middle Grade and Young Adult (No Fantasy).