Lara joined Emily Bestler Books in 2015. Prior to joining the imprint, she held an editorial position at Europa Editions, working on a wide range of critically acclaimed and bestselling novels in translation. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Lara is a graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course and Seattle University, where she studied English and Italian. Her list includes upmarket and commercial suspense, thrillers, mysteries, horror, rom coms, and women’s fiction. Her authors include TJ Alexander (Chef’s Kiss), Kit Frick (The Split), Jaclyn Goldis (The Chateau), Amy Pease (Northwoods), and Ally Wilkes (Where the Dead Wait), among others.
Tag: WilWrite26_Faculty
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Rosanne Parry
Rosanne Parry grew up in Oregon loving its rainy days, wild places, and many libraries. She is the author of eight novels for young readers, including the NY Times best sellers A Wolf Called Wander and A Whale of the Wild which have been translated into more than 14 languages. Her next novel will be A Horse Named Sky–another Voice of the Wilderness book. Look for it August 29th, 2023. Rosanne is a bookseller at legendary independent bookstore, Annie Blooms. She lives with her family in an old farmhouse in Portland and writes in a treehouse in her backyard.
Find out more at rosanneparry.com
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Anjanette Barr
Anjanette Barr is a literary agent at Dunham Literary, representing authors and illustrators across all genres and age categories. She lives in beautiful Juneau, Alaska.
Seeking work in these genres: Romance, SF, Fantasy, YA, Historical Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoir, Middle Grade, General Fiction, Literary Fiction
Find out more at https://www.dunhamlit.com
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Write Around Portland
Write Around Portland’s mission is to change lives through the power of writing. Write Around Portland holds free creative writing workshops in hospitals, prisons, schools, treatment centers, low income residences, homeless shelters and social service agencies. Write Around Portland workshops are based on respect, writing and community. Three times a year, Write Around Portland publish books of participants’ writing and organize readings where participants share their writing with each other and with the greater community.
Learn more at https://www.writearound.org/.
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Keri-Rae Barnum
Keri-Rae Barnum has empowered hundreds of authors to launch and grow their writing careers with confidence and real-world results. She is the owner and CEO of New Shelves Books, where she partners with publishers and authors alike to strengthen production, distribution, and visibility in bookstores and libraries.
She is also the author of Tough Love for Indie Authors: An Honest Look at What It Takes to Win in Self-Publishing (Sibyl Writing Craft, February 2026), a practical guide grounded in her hands-on experience working across every stage of the publishing process to help indie authors publish, market, and sell their books. Through her work, Keri specializes in platform building, strategic book launches, and innovative marketing approaches that have helped numerous titles reach bestseller lists and long-term sales success. -
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito is the founder of Demagogue Press. When she’s not rolling a d20 and playing with meeples, she’s reading or writing SF/F/H/genre-busting stories. Her writing has appeared in several venues including Nightmare Magazine, Flame Tree Press’s Asian Ghost Stories and Immigrant Sci-fi Stories, Mother:Tales of Love and Terror, Death’s Garden Revisited, and Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror. Frances also co-chairs the Young Willamette Writers program that provides free writing classes for high school and middle school students. You can find her on FB Frances Pai and IG @francespaippolito.
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Christopher Diaz
Christopher Diaz (he/him) is an indigenous CHamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan. As a writer, performer, and photographer, he’s been featured by NBC News, Poets & Writers.org, and more. Recently he was awarded a fellowship with Indigenous Nations Poets and an artist grant from the Washington State Arts Commission. In 2025, he was the opening keynote speaker at the Oregon Poetry Association’s annual conference. He’s a two-time grand slam champion and won the 2023 Bigfoot Regional Slam with his PNW team. He’s taught poetry with “Writers in the Schools”, offers writing and performance workshops online and in person, and co-leads monthly writing workshops at the juvenile detention center in Vancouver, WA.
Find him at www.christopherdiazcreates.com.
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Fran Wilde
Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde has (so far) published nine novels, a poetry collection, and over 70 short stories for adults, teens, and kids. Her stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, four Hugo Awards, four Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula-winning, Best of NPR 2019, debut Middle Grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years’ best anthologies.
The Managing Editor for The Sunday Morning Transport, Fran teaches or has taught for schools including Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, and Tor.com.You can find her on Instagram, Bluesky, and at franwilde.net.
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Courtenay Hameister
Courtenay is an author, teacher, and the former host and head writer of the nationally-syndicated public radio show, Live Wire. Her first book, Okay Fine Whatever: The Year I Went From Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things was long-listed for the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Find out more at courtenayhameister.com
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Emmett Wheatfall
Emmett Wheatfall is an American poet, Oregon Poet Laureate nominee, and recipient of the prestigious Oregon Poetry Association Patricia Ruth Banta Award. His poetry has been published in several books, collections, anthologies, and one of them, As Clean as a Bone, was a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist and a da Vinci Eye award finalist. Emmett has keynoted two Oregon Poetry Association’s Conferences. In 2020, Corban University produced a 9-part series documentary that highlights Emmett’s early life and poetry. Emmett Wheatfall is one of Oregon’s premier poets.
Find out more at https://emmettwheatfall-poet.blogspot.com/